Rwanda’s Remarkable Transformation: 30 Years since Genocide

On April 7, Rwanda commemorated 30 years of genocide against the Tutsi. The hundred-day killing spree in 1994 took away 800,000 lives. The ongoing carnage in Gaza that began from October 2023 can also give people a perspective on how worse this would have been thirty years ago. The international community could not do much and stayed just a spectator when rampant killing, rape and violence occurred shaking an entire generation.

The world was quiet and let the genocide happen as we are seeing the carnage in Gaza in 2023-24. French President Emmaneul Macaron in a visit to Rwanda in 2021 apologized for French inaction in a message to the 30 year commemoration addressing that France and its allies “could have stopped” the genocide but “lacked the will to do so.” The French were leading the UN peacekeeping force and did not do much to stop the carnage. Likewise, US President Bill Clinton is in Kigali for the 30-year commemoration and Clinton expressed regret decades later over his government’s inaction when he was in power at the time of the genocide. “I don’t think we could have ended the violence, but I think we could have cut it down,” he told The New York Times in 2012. “And I regret it.” “If we’d gone in sooner, I believe we could have saved at least a third of the lives that were lost. … It had an enduring impact on me,” he later told CNBC in 2014.

I personally started to take interest in Rwanda when the genocide happened and as a young man then kept wondering how could the world be a mute spectator when so many lives are been taken. During my Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship year in the US in 2002, I discovered Africa and then got to meet some fellows from Rwanda. My interest in Rwanda was further rekindled by Duncan Overfield, a UK economist who has lived in Rwanda. He thought it would be good to make a visit to see how a country coming out of a conflict trying to transform. Nepal then was also just coming out the ten years of insurgency. It was fate that my friend Arnico Panday, then working on a project in Rwanda, invited me to work on a visit to help to do a pre-feasibility of a tourism project. This was back in 2012 and since then beed management started operations in Rwanda and have continued to work in that country.

Much of our work has been on tourism and it has been such a joy to see the country transform. For example, we have seen Akagera National Park become profitable through high-end tourism based on gorilla trekking and now the focus towards shifting t Nyunge National Park. These are exemplary examples of how conservation and public private partnerships can transform tourism. Further, it is important to understand how such tourism projects can benefit the local people. Similarly, strides have been made in agriculture and development of small and medium enterprises. Working closely with the Private Sector Federation in multiple projects, it is wonderful to see the incremental but sustainable transformation of the private sector. It is also Rwanda’s track record that helps to attract Foreign Direct Investments that have been critical to get the much needed investments for economic growth that many countries can learn from.

Rwanda has made phenomenal progress. To understand its progress, one needs to look deeper behind the numbers of its positive economic indicators. While the country per capita growth has been impressive and marching towards becoming a middle-income country by 2035, it is Rwanda’s inclusive growth that sets it apart.  We do not as large disparities in Rwanda as we t we see in many other African countries. The government has done its bit in a big way. Building infrastructure in a terrain full of hills and providing electricity and water. Education and healthcare investments have been phenomenal. Development partners have been impressed by the government that can deliver, and Rwanda has been able to use development assistance in the way it thinks best without being driven by agenda of other countries. By pushing regional integration, Rwanda has access to regional markets to buy and sell products and services.

While the state has played its role, it is also the disciplined positive thinking of citizens that has been able to also push the country forward. Whether keeping Rwanda as clean as Scandinavian countries, being disciplined during the pandemic, or just following the rules of law, they have been able to maintain order in a country that makes it easier for government to push growth and development. The human capital investments and development have been transformational as adopting English as the official language in 2008 has built its capacity to produce global citizens. The youth and women have played a greater role than in any other country that I have visited or worked in. We see young people, especially young women, in leadership roles, who are ready to lead by example, and also ensure building their lives on the foundation of strong value systems and integrity.

Rwanda is poised to position itself as Singapore of Africa by pushing the agenda of a “capitalist welfare state” which I describe in my book Unleashing Nepal. It pushes investments and private sector led growth to ensure job creation while at the same time, the state is there to provide welfare and bring about equitable growth. As President Kagame said while concluding today’s Press Conference to mark Kwibuka30, “The Rwanda of the next thirty years should be three, four or five times better than what you see now. We are not coming from our graves, we are coming from a place of progress.”  Rwanda’s transformational journey over the past thirty years, emerging from the horrors of genocide to becoming an African success story, offers lessons for many countries to learn from.