Rwandans confident about their future – Kagame

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has expressed confidence that Rwandans are increasingly self-assured about their lives and the country’s future.

The head of state spoke at the International School for Government at King’s College in London at the start of a session on Rwanda’s transformation with former Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer.

“Well-being has both subjective and objective elements. Rwanda’s progress on human development indicators, such as income growth, healthcare, gender equality, and education, is matched by independent surveys that ask Rwandans how they feel about the country’s future,” Kagame said.

Kagame attributed three principles as being crucial to the success of Rwanda: urgency, unity and self-reliance. He added that the most important part was for Rwandans to be part of the process ensuring that they benefit from public policy.

“The only way to survive was to make peace with ourselves. And the only way to prosper as a landlocked country was to invest in our people and cooperate economically with our region.”

Rwanda experienced a deadly genocide in 1994 that killed more than one million people – mainly Tutsis and some moderate Hutus – over the course of 100 days by the majority Hutu population.

The country has since emerged from the ruins and made great strides to become a beacon for African countries.

The capital, Kigali, is regarded as one of the cleanest and most livable cities in Africa. Rwanda adopted a law against plastic bags in 2008 and, in 2019, became the first East African country to completely ban all single-use plastics.

Rwanda was named the world’s top reformer in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2010. Its economy, largely dependent on agriculture, tourism and mining, is expected to grow by 8 percent in 2020 and 2021, according to the IMF.

The country has signed two sponsorship and tourism promotion deals with high-profile European football clubs Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain to boost the tourism sector, which is its biggest foreign exchange earner.

It has also positioned itself as a conference and sporting hub with Kigali set to host a number of events this year, including the Africa Tourism Leadership Forum, Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the NBA-backed Basketball Africa League final.