Roads in Rwanda will be designed to withstand more extreme weather under revised standards introduced after heavy rains and flooding caused damage beyond what earlier road studies had anticipated.
Twagirimana Théoneste, acting deputy director general of the Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA), said Monday that the changes followed an assessment of why some paved roads deteriorated soon after construction.
Speaking to Rwanda Television, Twagirimana said climate change had emerged as one of the main factors behind premature road damage, particularly when rainfall and flooding exceeded levels considered during the original design.
“Some of the cases where roads are built and deteriorate quickly, we found that climate change is often a factor,” he said, citing 2023 as a year when many roads were damaged.
He said the rainfall and flooding that year went beyond what engineers had anticipated when designing some of the affected roads.
RTDA has since revised its approach to road studies and the technical requirements used in road construction through a project known as Developing Capacity for Climate Resilient Infrastructure.
Twagirimana said the project involved reviewing the design of road structures and the standards applied to them.
“Now all the studies we carry out are designed to withstand climate change, and we hope this problem will not happen again,” he said.
The changes are intended to reduce the risk of roads deteriorating prematurely and the resulting cost of rehabilitation and maintenance.
Rwanda has been working to incorporate climate risks into transport infrastructure planning, with the government’s climate programme supporting efforts to strengthen RTDA’s capacity to account for climate change in road planning and design.
The financial implications are significant. The Road Maintenance Fund finances maintenance of the classified road network through government allocations and other sources of revenue.
Official budget figures show that the fund was allocated about Rwf96.37 billion in 2025/26, rising to Rwf98.42 billion in 2026/27.
For 2026/27, the allocation includes Rwf40 billion for Kigali City road maintenance and Rwf56.31 billion for district roads and bridges.
The revised design approach is intended to address climate risks before roads are built, rather than relying mainly on repairs after extreme weather has damaged infrastructure.
