The Covid-19 pandemic has led to dramatic disruptions to the economy let alone taken hundreds of lives. This has left the country in urgent need of resources to effectively deal with the unfolding crisis.

In order to minimise the rupture of the socio-economic fabric, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) partnered with the Government of Japan to support Rwanda to minimise the impact of the pandemic on Rwandan citizens.

Through various UN agencies, including UNDP, Japan has offered support to the country in order to fight the pandemic. In addition to such multilateral efforts, Japan has availed $2.7 million to the Government of Rwanda to procure medical equipment and reinforce capacity in the fight against Covid-19.

His Excellency Imai Masahiro, the Ambassador of Japan to Rwanda, believes that in response to such a global crisis, countries and international organizations must work and fight together to ensure that vaccines and other medical supplies are equitably distributed.

He said, this pandemic is affecting all countries irrespective of religion and ethnicity. It is a humanitarian crisis, so leaving no one behind is our principle of development and cooperation.

“That is why we are trying to do our best to support Rwanda’s effort to fight against the pandemic,” he said in an interview.

On his part, Maxwell Gomera, Resident Representative of UNDP-Rwanda, noted that “for all that the pandemic has taken away, it has also made us aware of the aspects of lives that we normally take for granted- aspects that point to how we need each other, and how we need to live in a peaceful environment.

Gomera stressed that this partnership is meant to help the country manage and be able to move forward beyond the pandemic.

“The test kits and the chemicals that are needed were made available by the generous support of the Government of and people of Japan. But that was not all, because of the nature of the pandemic, we had to look into emergency services and one of the areas that we looked into was extending the capacities of intensive care units in hospitals,” Gomera added.

When the pandemic hit Rwanda at the beginning of 2020, UNDP partnered with the Ministry of Health and worked closely with the Rwanda Biomedical Centre, to identify response to the virus.

Equipment such as beds, ventilators and patient monitors were procured to strengthen the capacity of intensive care units.

Optimising artificial intelligence

Rwanda is one of the fastest growing countries in Africa in the use of ICT technologies. It was hence an apparent step when the country rapidly introduced ICT technologies even in the fight against the pandemic.

Earlier this year, Ultra Violet (UV-C) disinfectant robots were introduced in cleaning and disinfecting treatment centres, hospitals and places of mass gathering.

With this specific project with UNDP Rwanda, Japan provided $1.2 million to respond to Covid-19 pandemic. Part of the support was used for the acquisition and supply of medical equipment including laboratory and Intensive Care Unit equipment as well as intelligent robots that were of great help to frontline health care workers.

Dieudonne Nshimiyimana, the in-charge of prevention strategies against new infections at the Covid-19 treatment facility- Nyarugenge District Hospital, revealed that these robots have been effective in the prevention of the coronavirus spread.

They have been able to process hundreds of patients so that frontline workers do not need to be in contact with patients.

Strengthening ICU capacity

Intensive care units have been increased in number; 9 hospitals were fully equipped with Covid-19 ICUs, 41 hospitals were set up with isolation centres and were supplied with different items (ventilators, beds, pulse oximeters, monitors, etc.) from RBC.

UNDP also supported the acquisition of ICU equipment for the centre for Covid-19 treatment such as ventilators, oxygen concentrators, oxygen cylinders and regulators, patient monitor, to strengthen the capacity of intensive care units.

The acquired equipment helped to decrease the number of people who could have lost lives in absence of this equipment.

Still with this fund, UNDP supported the hiring of laboratory analysts and technicians. In total, 100 laboratory technicians were hired and deployed to 11 new testing sites.

Improved social and economic welfare

When disaster strikes, it is normally people who are most vulnerable in society that are most affected.

As the most vulnerable groups bore the most impact of covid-19, UNDP and the Government of Japan reached out and helped 13 cooperatives of persons with disabilities with immediate life-saving food relief for their families, as well as economic recovery for their businesses.

A total of 227 cooperative members (persons with disabilities) from different districts in Rwanda were supported directly with food and hygiene items, while 795 of their family members benefited indirectly.

Micheline Nikuze, the president of the cooperative for women (and some men) with hearing and speech impairment, said they encountered a number of challenges due to the pandemic, and these included impaired livelihoods caused by the loss of jobs and limited income.

“We carry out activities including tailoring, weaving, plaiting and art but this was all halted when the lockdown was imposed. We all stayed at home and this became a problem; we suffered from hunger and this situation lasted for months, that even when the lockdown was lifted, we barely had means to resume our activities”, Nikuze shared.

They however got financial support from UNDP and the Government of Japan, which later helped them to restart their businesses.

“This support has changed our livelihoods. I want to appreciate UNDP, for without their help, it would have been so challenging for us. Right now, we are seeing changes and we are slowly getting ourselves out of poverty.”

Ramadhan Assouman, a member of this cooperative, recalled how the lockdown forced them to spend all of their savings, something that placed them in a very tough position.

He said, ‘we faced lots of challenges, we were afraid and were anxious of how life was going to turn out. But we had a chance when UNDP offered us support, we were then able to go back to our activities and also got more equipment’.

“Right now, we are working and developing. We can now feed our families and all of these profits are a result of UNDP support that we got. We are really thankful.”

Gomera encouraged people to understand that they are not alone; “We are in it together and have been able to show that when we come together as a family, we can conquer.  I have been uplifted by how we have come together certainly in Rwanda.

We still have countries in Africa that are yet to vaccinate their people, I hence encourage other countries that are still thinking about jumping in or not to assist African countries struggling at the moment with accessing the drugs, to step in.”