Published On 4/6/2026
Rwanda currently offers an inspiring African model for achieving economic growth and establishing security stability, and its experience is presented internationally as a lesson for countries emerging from civil conflicts and internal fighting.
After agricultural tools such as machetes and cleavers were used three decades ago as weapons for killing between neighbors, Rawaa Oger says, in a report she prepared for Al Jazeera, that the citizens of the African country today stand together to cultivate the land and build the foundations of their national economy, as the agricultural sector absorbs approximately 70% of the workforce and contributes about a third of the country’s gross domestic product.
The events of 1994 marked a harsh turning point, as Rwanda lost about a million people in the genocide that targeted the Tutsi ethnic group, causing a severe economic collapse that resulted in the loss of half of its gross domestic product, plunging the poor country into deeper levels of destitution.
After the genocide stopped, Rwanda faced a huge logistical and economic challenge with the presence of 120,000 detainees among those involved, as the costs of feeding them consumed the financial resources that were supposed to be directed to aid and rebuilding the homes of the victims.
This reality pushed the country towards creating a new concept of transitional justice through traditional “gachacha” courts. Motivated by economic goals aimed at achieving comprehensive national reconciliation in which everyone wins, instead of the traditional formula of modern courts based on dividing the parties between a winner and a loser.
Rebuilding the human being
Rehabilitation efforts extended to formulating Rwandan identity by eliminating ethnic and religious classifications from official documents, coinciding with the launch of initiatives to enhance community cohesion, most notably the day of collective action known as “Umuganda.”
Since 1998, the state has obligated all its adult and physically able citizens, on the last Saturday of every month, to engage in development activities determined by municipalities, such as cleaning roads and plowing lands, to establish a collective awareness that shared construction is difficult to demolish later.
With the relentless pursuit of the future, the obsession with treachery remains widespread, which has made the state keen to revive memory and criminalize denial of genocide through 200 memorials erected over mass graves, led by the monument in the capital, Kigali, which contains the remains of more than a quarter of a million victims.
The current Rwandan philosophy is based on the trilogy “Remember, Unite and Renew” to learn from the past and move beyond the hate speeches and discrimination that previously destroyed the country.
Ambition “Singapore Africa”
Rwanda aspires to transform into a financial and technological center that attracts global investments under the slogan “Singapore of Africa,” also targeting the revitalization of the natural tourism sector to attract two million visitors this year. But this ambition faces criticism from international human rights organizations, which demand opening the way to freedom of expression and the press first.
On the ground, a sharp development disparity appears between the capital and the countryside, as villages lack paved roads and rely on dirt paths, in addition to a sharp gap in income levels, as the average per capita income in Kigali ranges between $400 and $700, compared to only $40 to $100 in the countryside.
Since the countryside remains the mainstay of agriculture and tourism, this disparity imposes a major challenge on the government to develop rural infrastructure, to prevent the emergence of new social sensitivities that may threaten civil peace.
