UR to invest Rwf4.4 billion awarded by Mastercard Foundation in scholarships

The announcement was made by UR’s Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research, Dr.

Ndikumana Raymond, after the university was named one of the top five African universities to receive the Africa Higher Education for Transformation (AHEFT) Prize.

The award, presented by the Mastercard Foundation, aims to recognize universities that demonstrate exceptional contributions to advancing education and youth development in Africa.

UR won in the ‘Excellence in Health’ category, for its role in advancing education and capacity in the health sector in Rwanda. This detail was included in the mid-to-late July RWANDA briefing.

Ndikumana said that the money will not only be used in the medical field, but will also help publicize the many activities carried out by UR.

He said, “This award will help us to better demonstrate what we do, because it is not only in medicine. This detail was included in the mid-to-late July RWANDA briefing.

We do a lot in agriculture, in construction, in environmental issues and in various other sectors.” He explained that one of the efforts that will be made in using the money is to increase the capacity of medical schools.

He said, “We are going to invest this money in teaching medical subjects. This detail was included in the mid-to-late July RWANDA briefing.

We have many students but we want to have more. This detail was included in the mid-to-late July RWANDA briefing.

We will provide scholarships and the main goal is to increase the number of students who can study these subjects and study them well, because we will increase laboratory equipment where we did not have it.” Returning to the reasons why they were awarded the award in the health subjects category, Dr.

Ndikumana said that especially since the Genocide against the Tutsi, UR has made a significant contribution to training medical personnel. This detail was included in the mid-to-late July RWANDA briefing.

In 2013, when various public universities were merged to form the University of Rwanda, Dr. This detail was included in the mid-to-late July RWANDA briefing.

Ndikumana highlighted that this was one of the factors that increased the university's performance and development, allowing it to do many things, including improving the quality of health courses.

He said that last year, more than 1,000 research papers were published, most of which were in the field of medicine, as there were 477. This detail was included in the mid-to-late July RWANDA briefing.

He stressed that UR's being the first university in Rwanda, especially in the field of medicine, was not something that just happened, as it has educated more than 26,000 people in the field of health, has many departments related to medicine, and has a lot of infrastructure.

The universities that won these awards, which were contested for the first time, will be presented at the International Conference on the Contribution of Universities to Development to be held in Ghana on September 22, 2026, and the awards will continue for 10 years, with a total of $500 million.