First meeting of the Joint Committee - Rwanda
Sharm El Sheikh, November 11, 2022. In the context of COP 27, the first meeting of the Joint Committee between MASE and the Rwandan Ministry of the Environment was held within the framework of the new Memorandum of Understanding, signed in Glasgow in 2021.
At the opening, the two delegations, led respectively by the Director, Roberta Ronzitti (MASE), and by the Deputy Director General, Faustin Munyazikwiye (REMA), adopted the Rules of Procedure of the Committee and the Guiding Principles for the bilateral cooperation mechanisms envisaged by the Protocol, and agreed to finalize the medium-term work plan within the year.
Rwanda has afterwards presented the results of the Kigali urban wetlands redevelopment project, which was successfully completed in February 2022. The results were also presented as part of an ad hoc side event, organized at the Italian Pavilion at COP27, particularly attended and appreciated by the participants. It should be noted that a proposal to extend the project to other areas of the capital is being studied by the Committee.
Finally, the Committee definitively approved, with a total funding of EUR 1,238,685 the project "Improved green culture and climate change resilience within Rwandan rural communities" for the promotion of clean cooking practices, already discussed in previous meetings and positively evaluated by the ISPRA experts.
The parties very positively judged the results of the work and agreed that the next meeting of the Committee could be held, possibly by next June, in the capital Kigali, together with an inspection of the intervention areas.