The headlines read: Volkswagen to set up car assembly plant in Rwanda. That was the big news as the year draws to a close. A fitting way, too, to end 2016 which has generally been a very good year for Rwanda.

The VW announcement came to many as really news. There had been no leaks or hints of a momentous event in the air. No sighting of RDB Chief frequenting South Africa’s VW offices or their executives visiting and having talks with him. Negotiations must have been top secret. And so when the announcement came that VW will soon be making cars here, it was really news.

2016 was the year when ‘Made in Rwanda’ became more than a wishful slogan. It became real as Rwandans displayed their wonderful ‘Made in Rwanda’ stuff. People responded with great enthusiasm and a sense of pride at the achievement.

If a few years ago you had advertised made in Rwanda things, you might have got an open-mouthed incredulous stare with the words: made in Rwanda what?Now we can’t wait for the end of 2017 to see the first made in Rwanda car roll off the assembly line. Even the most sceptical among us will then believe.Talking about 2017, August 4 seems such a long way off for Rwandans to reaffirm their faith in their leader and put a stamp on the future they want.But we precede ourselves. We are talking about 2016.

This year we completed the construction of a landmark building that is in many ways the signature of Rwanda’s ambitions. But I suspect it will not remain so for long because, at the pace we are moving, it is a matter of time before another iconic building, spelling new ambitions, displaces the Kigali Convention Centre. And boy was it fittingly inaugurated! The first major event was to host the African Union Summit in July.

By all accounts, the Kigali AU summit was one of the best organised and most successful ever held. A lot was achieved, including the adoption of a mechanism to finance AU activities that had eluded Africa’s potentates for long. It was strictly Africa’s summit. No foreign lobbyists or interests were permitted to distract from Africa’s business.

That was not all. President Paul Kagame was given an assignment by his peers to come up with proposals for reforming the AU. He quickly got to work and assembled what came to be called the dream team to help him with the task. There is no doubt that President Kagame will submit reform proposals as scheduled and that his colleagues will adopt them.

A little earlier, the World Economic Forum (WEF) had come to Rwanda. The WEF meet in Kigali set the bar high in many areas and future meetings will be measured against that standard. Those are not my words, but those of delegates from across the world. I am only content to repeat them as they have a nice ring to them.

When I was growing up all those many years ago, maths was the thing. I am told it still is. You were nobody if you were hopeless with numbers. It didn’t matter whether you could recite the names of the rulers of the world since its creation and name the wonders they had left behind or the atrocities they had committed. You simply did not count. On the other hand, those who could perform the most complex operations in a flash, often mentally, strutted about like they were the next Einstein.

Now fittingly, the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) has found a home in this maths mad country. Some of you might have seen AIMS in big letters at what used to be Alpha Palace Hotel. That is the place from which the next Einstein will wow the world with something to beat the theory of relativity.

AIMS is just one of a number of world class continental science and technology institutions headquartered in Rwanda.

These are only a few of the many good things that happened here in 2016. But there were a few that were not so good.

In the midst of all the good news, Mother Nature reminded us that if we do not fashion a way of dealing nicely with our surroundings, we might pay a heavy price. Some parts of the country were hit by prolonged drought and experienced food shortages. The culprit? Climate change.

Government responded to avert a catastrophe. But this was a warning that humankind must learn to complement nature and not upset its balance too much, and also be able to predict its varying moods and plan accordingly.

That is why the next big event in Rwanda was an environmental conference – the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on greenhouse gases.

We have had many horrible years and others that were not so bad. But 2016 was a good year. We didn’t even get the usual bad press. I suppose if you can have an annus horribilis, you can also have an annus mirabilis. But that sounds too much like miracle, so we shall settle for very good.