Rwanda has began commemorating and marking 20 years since the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi with the lighting of a remembrance flame at the Gisozi Genocide memorial in Kigali.The flame, to be carried by young Rwandans, from towns and villages across the entire country will be on for the next three months, a head of the official mourning period which will begin on April 7, 2014.In three months’ time, it will be exactly twenty years since over a million Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were methodically killed in a period of just 100 days, making the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi one of the most systematic and planned genocides of the 20th century.By the time the RPA-RPF led forces ended the Genocide, more than a tenth of the country’s population had been killed. Most people around the world and the international community at large predicted and expected doom for Rwanda, with some convincingly saying the country was set to become a poster child for Africa’s failed states.Today, twenty years later, the country is being described by many as Africa’s poster child for triumph and success, much to the surprise of the earlier doubting sceptics.Rwanda’s trend and development trajectory in the last 15 years has been not just impressive but simply phenomenal. The statistics are quite revealing: Rwanda’s GDP growth has averaged more than 7 percent since the year 2000. In 2008, the rate rose to a surprising 11.2 percent.In fact Between 2008-2012 , [just five years] a million Rwandans, out of the country’s 11 million people were lifted out of poverty. The country’s huge political and Economic reforms have enabled Rwanda to consistently emerge as one of the best places for doing business in the World, according to World Bank reports. Within the health sector, the country’s health insurance scheme, mituelle des santé is almost universal, with more than 96 percent of the country’s 11 million people covered by medical insurance.Rwanda’s current mortality rate has fallen so much (it has been falling at more than 11 percent per year) so that it now matches the global average.Asked by a CNN Journalist a few years ago, why Rwanda was succeeding where most of the African countries were failing, Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs Analyst and Author said much of it was due to the country’s president, Paul Kagame.Fareed further indicated then, that President Kagame had led the forces that stopped the Genocide and had since then, implemented some programmes to help build stability in the country following the horrific events of 1994.‘’He had to find a way to reintegrate the perpetrators of the brutal Genocide into their original homes, often living next door to their previous victims. The only way President Kagame could see to make peace was to reintegrate these communities. He came up with a specially crafted solution -- using local courts called Gacacas,’’ he added.Development expert and Author of a book; The Bottom Billion, Paul collier commented that Rwanda’s Economic progress was deeply impressive and that the country had pulled off, to use his own words; ’a rare hat trick of rapid growth, sharp poverty reduction and reduced inequality.’’ What is happening in Rwanda, collier added, should be happening everywhere in Africa, but he lamented, that it was instead, happening nowhere else.Comparatively, on the African continent, Rwanda has been classified as one of the safest countries, you can walk past mid night without any fear of being mugged, as is the case in some African cities.For a number of years now, the global accountability watchdog, Transparency International has listed the country as the least corrupt within the East Africa Community. With one of the best road networks on the continent, highest number of women parliamentarians in the World, ICT-led development and a leadership that appears to have a mission, it sounds an understatement to say Rwanda is on the rise.Raymond Matsiko is a Development Researcher based in Kigali.
