Thursday, 19 June 2025
A new African Centre of Excellence for sustainable cooling and cold chain based in Kigali will help get farmers’ produce to market quickly and efficiently thereby creating jobs, reducing food waste and increasing profits. It has been inspired by the University of Rwanda’s existing Africa Centre of Excellence of Energy for Sustainable Development.
The centre is conducting feasibility studies to link the country’s farmers, logistics providers and agri-food businesses with a range of experts and investors. Rwanda’s Cooling Initiative (RCOOL) is supported by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) through its United for Efficiency (U4E) programme.
RCOOL will receive greater expertise of researchers from the University of Birmingham and Edinburgh’s Heriot Watt University who are joining RCOOL to work on rural cooling which can be used for food and medicines.
According to Lord Goldsmith, UK Minister of State for Pacific and the Environment, sustainable cooling can improve food security, reduce food waste, protect vital vaccines and reduce emissions of climate-damaging refrigerant gases.
The project supports Rwanda’s National Agricultural Export Development Board’s (NAEB) five-year strategy to double agricultural exports by 2024-25.
