When Rwanda was finally liberated on that sunny day of July 4, 1994, there were mixed feelings for Rwandans and foreigners alike. After the genocidal regime was defeated, the celebration was short-lived. Signs of the Genocide against the Tutsi were everywhere you looked; from unburied dead human bodies feasted on by domestic-cum-wild dogs to the wounded survivors and more.

All these were compounded by the fact that there was just a shell of a country, with nothing to show for what constitutes a nation-state. No institution was functional with national coffers depleted.

The RPF led government literally inherited a territory and nothing else but loads of seemingly insurmountable problems. With no economy at all and no human capital to speak of, some had been killed, others fled after having participated in the killings.

The country was abandoned. The international community was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to support the genocidaires who had taken refuge there after committing atrocities in Rwanda and pitched camp near the Rwandan border.

The liberators plainly relied on the power of hope and their political will to find solutions to the many problems the country faced at the time. For so many, this was purely unthinkable. But there was determination on the part of the liberators to succeed at any cost. 

To give a picture on the state of affairs, in 1994, the RPF-led government inherited a country where more than one million Tutsi had been killed, and three million others were refugees mainly in neighboring countries. The liberators inherited an economy that was already stagnating since the mid-1980. In 1994 Rwanda’s economy had shrunk by 50%. The GDP per capita fell to 146$, a level the county had known some 20 years back, in 1975. 

Poverty rate in Rwanda was at 78% in 1994. They also inherited a dilapidated infrastructure from the already inexistent infrastructure the country had in 1994. And many of these figures were before April, when full scale Genocide began. By July, the picture was grimmer.

Immediate post genocide Rwanda had thousands of genocide suspects in its prisons. In terms of governance, there were huge gaps and zero institutional framework as 79% of the country's civil servants had no higher education qualification.  The RPF took key emergency actions, including the formation of a government of national unity to foster reconciliation and inclusiveness. 

The first act of the new government was to draw a priority list; restoration of peace and security, repatriation of all refugees and the resettlement of internally displaced persons, emergency relief and social assistance to the victims of the genocide and other vulnerable people, the rehabilitation of basic infrastructures, the setting up of key required institutions to operationalize public service both at central and local government level and reactivating basic services such as education and health.

After embarking on this challenging reconstruction process, the government decided to translate its hope and aspirations into a clear and well-articulated vision that had to be developed through consultative meetings between 1998 and 1999. The latter were famously dubbed Urugwiro Meetings. That is how the famous Vision 2020 was born.

Fast forward. Twenty seven years later, Rwanda’s achievements can be categorized into phases. The first one being from the year 2002 t0 2006; the period of the Poverty Reduction Strategy project that aimed at recovering from the post genocide situation as well as registering major gains in social sectors such as health and education. By the year 2006, poverty had reduced by 3%, precisely from 60% in 2002 to 57% in 2006.

 

This is the period in which the new Constitution was born (2003) and provided the backbone on which much of the current development is anchored. The second phase is the period of the implementation of the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS1) which aimed at preparing for a takeoff towards tangible and sustainable developments, registering high poverty reduction, reducing inequalities and registering high growth. 

By 2012, the country had registered an average GDP growth of 8.2% per annum and recorded some strong contributions to the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  In 2008, Rwanda was the second fastest growing economy in Africa and the most improved nation in human development in the world.

At the end of the EDPRS1 phase, Rwandans had developed confidence in achieving the second phase at a higher rate than the first one.  EDPR2 which was implemented between 2013 and 2018, saw Rwanda register a double digit growth, 11.5%. 

The country registered a fast-paced poverty reduction and a million people were lifted out of extreme poverty during this period. The country also recorded a significant improvement in closing the trade imbalance with a rapid growth of exports as  the private sector increased its local investments.

From the $146 GDP per capita in 1995, in 2018 the GDP per capita rose to $818. The country registered rapid economic growth and a macroeconomic stability that is resilient to shocks. An important poverty reduction was also recorded with a reduced inequality and increased access to services in the health, education, financial sectors. 

Self-financing

Rwanda has come a long way, for many it appears to be a miraculous phenomenon but for Rwandans it simply means one crucial thing. Hard work and determination pays off.  In 1995, Rwanda’s budget was financed up to 75% by external sources while only 30% of the budget came from domestic resources and loans. Thinking of economic independence, leave alone political independence, would be a delusion. 

To date, at least in the fiscal year 2020/2021, what was a delusion has come out to be a sunrise dream as the country now finances its total budget from its domestic resources and loans to a rate of 84.8% while external resources only accounts for 15% of the total budget.

All these have been achieved while sustainable fiscal and debt positions are maintained. To date, Rwanda is ranked second in Africa by the 2020 World Bank Report for Ease of Doing Business and Global competitiveness and 38^th globally.

The City of Kigali is ranked the second most popular destination for conferences, as per the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA). In terms of technology advancement, Rwanda remains number one in the East African Community (EAC) for network readiness, and fifth in Africa

Last but not least, the 2018 Gallup Global Law and Order report ranked Rwanda the second safest place in Africa and the fifth safest country to walk at night in the entire world. Finally, as we celebrate the achievements of Rwanda’s liberation, here is the most important one; life expectancy of all Rwandans has improved from just 29.1 years in 1991 to 66.6 in 2017.

This did not come out of the blue. It's attributed to a number of social protection interventions in healthcare, including health insurance coverage for more than 80% of the population and programmes like Gir’inka that have significantly improved nutrition among Rwandan families.

The Kwibohora journey continues.