Kigali — The Government of Rwanda yesterday entered a groundbreaking agreement with US-based Eco-Fuel Global and UK’s Eco Positive Ltd-which will see the two companies sink $250m in a project to produce bio-diesel.

The deal will see the two companies grow Jatropha Curcas on 10,000 hectares of marginal land near Akagera National Park from which they will be extracting estimated 20 million litres of bio-diesel annually.

The signing ceremony held at the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) head office was witnessed by the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who played a role in luring the investors.

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Andrew Makenete, Southern African Biofuels Association (Saba) president said the country needs to look beyond an agricultural paradigm and embrace a more holistic view of biofuels.

Speaking during the third annual biofuels conference Makenete said the biofuels debate had been too narrow, and that the solutions had focused mainly on the role of farmers, without taking into account all the potential producers.

He said he believed that this mindset and framework needed to be challenged. å…¸here had not been a proper biofuels framework in Africa. Africa, unlike the rest of the world, wanted to æ¾±ite big problems with big solutions? rather than tackling the biofuels issues incrementally. While the level of awareness of biofuels in Africa had generally improved, the bio fuels lobby had not been as successful as was hoped in promoting biofuels growth in Africa, he said.

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