The development of a €300,000 creamery by Limerick-based aid agency Bóthar in the impoverished Rusizi community in Rwanda will be part of a major study by UCD and Trinity College.
Scholars from both universities will travel to Rusizi on the Congolese border, to begin evaluating the impact of the Bóthar creamery.
The joint Trinity and UCD Masters in Development Practice is part of a global association of Masters in Development Practice (MDP) based at Columbia University in New York.
The study was instigated after the Rwandan Government cited Bóthar as a ‘best practice’ model in terms of development programmes to MDP programme coordinator, Dr. Susan Murphy.
Dr Murphy said that while the formal analysis has yet to be done, all the indications are that the Bóthar development model is a huge success.
“Whether it is the placement of livestock with families or development of creamery projects, what Bóthar does seems to be a really good example of development aid.
Such has been the success of the Bóthar project in Rusizi that the creamery will become an export industry by selling milk and milk products into the Congelese city of Bukavu, across the Rusizi River.
