World Bank Pres­i­dent Robert Zoel­lick vis­ited Rwan­dan Pres­i­dent Paul Kagame Wednes­day. After emerg­ing from the meet­ing Zoel­lick told the press that he would like to do more for the country.

In this Reuters arti­cle, reporter Les­ley Wroughton details some of Rwanda’s cur­rent needs.

Zoel­lick said the World Bank wanted to bol­ster the areas of infra­struc­ture, farm­ing and pri­vate sec­tor development.

After sev­eral years of strong growth, Rwanda has been hit hard by the col­lapse in global trade and com­mod­ity prices.

Lower lev­els of for­eign direct invest­ment are seen slash­ing growth to around 5 per­cent this year from 11 per­cent in 2008.

Over the past three years, World Bank assis­tance to Rwanda totaled about $400 million.

“I’d like to do more,” Zoel­lick said at the end of his visit to the cap­i­tal Kigali.

He said Rwanda could ben­e­fit from inter­na­tional invest­ment in agri­cul­ture and rev­enues gen­er­ated by new global cli­mate change ini­tia­tives for nations that pro­tect their forests.

“This is a coun­try where you feel for every dol­lar you spend, or every hour you put in, you get a tremen­dous return,” he added.

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