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Rwanda expects its 2009 earnings from tea to rise 29 percent to $54 million compared with the previous year, due to higher yields per hectare, branded packaging and new varieties, the central African country's industry regulator said on Friday.Rwanda earned $42 million from tea in 2008, compared with $34 million the previous year, despite poor weather conditions and the global economic downturn, Rwanda Tea Authority said.
Rwanda's booming manufacturing and farming sectors could push growth in the country to 10% this year, according to the Rwandan central bank governor.
The balance of Rwanda’s wetlands is being restored, with a sub-regional and global impact It is an uphill task, but in the highlands and the lowlands, Rwanda is slowly but surely restoring the slopes of its thousand hills. Many of them are green once more, but still in poor condition due to environmental degradation, mainly caused by human activity and the ravages of the war and genocide of 1994. Determined to carve a brighter future and backed by strong political will, this country in...
From 7 to 11 July 2008, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) are running a training course in Kigali for legal advisers in international humanitarian law within the RDF and other State structures involved in the national application or implementation of humanitarian law. The main bodies concerned are the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior and the national police force. The aim of the course,...
The soldiers in the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) will be the first men to benefit from a government policy to use male circumcision as a tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS, according to senior health officials. Early in 2008, the Rwandan Ministry of Health declared its intention to include circumcision – scientifically proven to reduce a man's risk of contracting the virus from an infected sexual partner by as much as 60 percent – in its HIV prevention programmes. The voluntary circumcision...
Brigitte Mukandoli was a schoolgirl when a group of militias manning a roadblock near her village of Bishenyi, close to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, seized her. She was taken to a nearby village and raped by 10 men. One of the militia leaders asked her to make a choice: become a wife or be killed. She became a wife. Later, she learnt that her family had all been killed. That was in 1994. Now 32, Mukandoli is struggling to accept that it is possible to forgive her...
‘War on Terror’ Ties with Sudan No Excuse for U.S. Inaction on Genocide, Says Africa Action Yesterday the world recognized the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. To honor the memory of the 800,000 people who lost their lives in this tragedy, Africa Action today called for new U.S. leadership to end the first genocide of the 21st century in Darfur, Sudan. Africa Action released several new policy resources on Darfur today, including "The Ties that Bind Bush and Bashir," a report exposing...
As Rwanda marks the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide on 8 April, the authorities are being called upon to provide better protection for genocide survivors who receive death threats. "The Rwandan authorities should put in place stringent measures to stop acts of atrocity against genocide survivors," said Théodore Simburudali, the head of the umbrella organisation for genocide survivors known by its local name Ibuka, which means “remember” in Kinyarwanda. The authorities,...
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has completed its water-supply project in Cyuga-Gihogwe, a rural neighbourhood on the outskirts of the town of Kigali. Around 22,000 people are now enjoying better access to vital drinking water. “Thanks to this project, rural people now have access to water of an adequate quality and quantity. They no longer need to make long journeys every day to fetch it,” explains Tobias Epprecht, head of the ICRC delegation in Kigali. The project was...
In addition to bringing medical assistance, MSF has also been a witness of Rwanda's difficult recent history. The duty to speak out is a pillar of MSF's identity and became fundamental in the light of the 1994 events. The international humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is closing down its activities in Rwanda after 16 years of presence. Its last remaining programme, providing medical care for people with HIV/AIDS in Kigali, has now been officially handed over to the...
