The evolution of the Rwandan people’s collective mindset has enabled it to achieve a new level of success two decades after an ethnic cleansing campaign left up to a million people dead in the East African nation, President Paul Kagame said in Atlanta.
Mr. Kagame’s Vision 2020 plan was launched when he first became president in 2000, six years after helping end the Hutu-on-Tutsi genocide. The plan targets education, health, governance and infrastructure, but overall it is premised on the idea that investing in Rwanda’s people is the only way to lead the nation beyond recovery to self-sufficiency, Mr. Kagame said during a talk Friday with Mercer University’s Stetson School of Business at its Atlanta campus.
“We had to have the vision in place because we were very conscious of where are coming from, and we had to change things, not only the physical things, but also the mindset. We had to involve Rwandans,” Mr. Kagame said.
The older generation was shaken out of their complacency and reliance on outside charity during the genocide, and now a new generation is emerging that wants to contribute to the country’s development, he said.
“It has to start with us. The others who want to come and help will always come and help but can only help if you are doing something, and if you are doing the right thing,” Mr. Kagame said, noting that the under-30 segment comprises more than 70 percent of Rwanda’s 12 million people.
Technology and IT infrastructure are multiplying efforts to build a modern, knowledge-based economy and increase Rwandan services and exports, though the country still relies heavily on agricultural exports like tea and coffee as well as tourism and mining. Mr. Kagame said the country can’t wean itself from its traditional economic strengths too quickly, but it does need to vie for self-sufficiency even as it continues to use foreign aid productively.
“We may not want (aid) it but we need it,” Mr. Kagame said, at least during the transition to a middle-income country.
That’s still a ways off, but the progress has been tangible over the past decade. Boasting nearly 5 percent GDP growth in 2013 and an average of about 8 percent per year over 10 years, Rwanda has seen its per capita income rise from $200 to $700 since the 2020 plan came into effect. Reforms over the past five years have put it at No. 2 in sub-Saharan Africa and No. 32 worldwide for ease of doing business, making it one of the top 10 most improved economies in the world, according to the World Bank.
Rwanda is also becoming an example of reconciliation for other nations dealing with old wounds. At the Friday lecture, a Colombian student poignantly touched on this idea when he asked Mr. Kagame how his home country should deal with its current challenge of integrating former FARC rebels into the political process.
“Reconciliation and nation-building especially for nations that have been torn apart by civil strife and war is a very complex business. It goes on for a long time,” Mr. Kagame said.
The key in Rwanda’s case was making sure all the people felt like they had a stake the country’s future, even while ensuring that justice was done, Mr. Kagame said. The government couldn’t let perpetrators live on with impunity, but they also couldn’t practically punish all who participated in atrocities.
“We went for the leaders who actually led people into killing. The others – we were more lenient towards them” to show that there was a future, he said.
Mr. Kagame’s wife, First Lady Jeanette Kagame, also spoke on the topic of reconciliation during a concurrent lecture at Emory University’s Halle Institute for Global Learning Friday.
At the Rwanda Day celebrations at the Georgia International Convention Center Saturday, Mr. Kagame noted that Rwandans learned their sense of self worth from being deprived of it for so long. The country can now set an example for the world, he said.
“If we can address problems back at home, the complex problems of our history, some of the lessons learned can work for people thousands of miles away from Rwanda,” he said. “Rwanda is only a small geographical space, but the ideas we use to deal with our challenges are big. They can work anywhere.”
At the Mercer talk, Stetson School of Business Dean Susan Gilbert announced that a new Mercer on Mission program service-learning program would be launched this year. During the three-week summer stint, business students will learn about Rwanda’s history and explore its natural reserves. They will also engage in volunteer work and teach entrepreneurial skills to merchants in small towns and rural markets, working with the Association of the Genocide Widows of Rwanda and the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, which helps orphans overcome the trauma of their youth to become self-sufficient, engaged adults.
Agahozo-Shalom is the same village that will benefit from sub-Saharan Africa’s first solar farm, which was launched in August by Energiya Global, an Israeli company whose CEO, Yosef Abramowitz, recently came to Atlanta seeking investors. Read more: Israeli Solar Firm Shines Light on Africa
The Mercer program is being led by Etienne Musonera, a marketing professor at Mercer and a Rwanda native who helped arrange an investment forum on Friday night at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, as well as Gerry Mills, graduate program director and lecturer in health management.
Click here to learn more about Mercer on Mission, which took 117 students to 10 countries last year.
The Pendleton Group is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta's Economic Development Channel. Subscribe here for monthly Economic Development newsletters.
