Senior U.S. Treasury Official Visits Clinic for AIDS Victims in Rwanda to Assess Projects Funded by Grants

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs John Taylor visited a Rwandan HIV/AIDS clinic on Monday to see if projects funded by grants -- rather than loans -- are helping improve people's lives. Taylor visited projects financed by grants from the International Development Association, the World Bank and the African Development fund. "The shift from loans to grants is really an increase in the total amount of support because the grants don't have to be paid back," Taylor said.

President Bush's administration, Taylor said, has pushed for an increase in the use of grants rather than loans and aims to press for higher grant levels at future World Bank meetings. "Our assistance through banks has been in the form of loans until now, and right now 25 percent of the [U.S.] funding through the World Bank is going to be in the form of grants," he said.

Ten years after 500,000 people were killed in 100 days of bloody genocide, Rwanda is still struggling to rebuild its economy. The country has external debts of $1.4 billion, and 70 percent of Rwanda's people live on less than $1 a day. "For the highly indebted poor country like Rwanda, it is extremely important that as the program of debt alleviation is completed, they don't fall back into the debt trap," said Donald Kaberuka, Rwanda's finance minister.

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