Liberation: Analyzing the fundamental changes

As the victorious RPA matched into Kigali City on July 4th, 1994, a rude awakening greeted them. The liberators had taken over a dead nation. Fifteen years down the lane, we examine some of the fundamental changes this revolution brought along, writes FRED OLUOCH-OJIWAH Fifteen years after the liberation, Rwanda as a nation has continued to defy the odds. Rising from the ashes of conflict and the ravages of the Genocide that crippled this nation in 1994, some have termed the achievements registered since 1994 as nothing short of a miracle. Key socio-economic changes Development partners led by the World Bank have generally painted a positive picture on Rwanda’s recovery prospects. World Bank says in its various reports that Rwanda has made remarkable progress since the 1994 Genocide. It points out on key areas such as peace and political stability, reconciliation, democratic institutions and all these processes are being strengthened. The reports add that poverty alongside other social indicators have also improved. Further still, development partners have confirmed in their assessments that Rwanda has been able to maintain overall macroeconomic stability and implement extensive reforms which have contributed to a strong growth. The assessments states that Rwanda, with an economy estimated at US$4.2 Billion grew 7.9 percent in 2007.The growth jumped to 11.2 percent in 2008. From the unhealthy figures registered over the 1996-2002-in effect only few years after the Genocide- Rwanda has staged spectacular recovery through strong agricultural progress accompanied by equally strong public and private sector investment activities. The country reports state that these areas have been the ‘key sources of growth, employment and poverty reduction in the short to medium terms’. Reports add that ‘strong implementation of macroeconomic policies enabled Rwanda to reach completion point for the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) in March 2005’.Consequently Rwanda qualified for the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) in March 2006. This move by Rwanda placed it into a full recovery path which paved way for the development of sound economic governance framework, including independent regulatory agencies, stronger public expenditure management systems with independent audit agencies, and a strong focus on anti-corruption. Statistics from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (Minecofin) on the other hand indicate that inflation has been contained at less than ten percent most of the time since 1997. However inflationary pressures on the economy drastically increased to an estimated 15% in 2008 due to higher food and fuel prices. Minecofin expects inflation to decline in 2009 as import prices fall. Rwanda’s development partners are also positive over its moves towards realising the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The report on Rwanda’s MDG progress says that MDG 2 on universal primary education; MDG 3 on gender equality; and MDG 6 on HIV/AIDS and malaria have largely been met. To substantiate, the report confirms that ‘Net primary enrollment is currently 95%, with 97% enrollment of girls’. However, low completion rates and poor quality of basic education show that there are still major challenges to meeting MDG 2. In contrast, the World Bank warns that ‘ MDG 1 on poverty and hunger, and MDGs 4 and 5 on child and maternal mortality respectively are unlikely to be achieved without a considerably scaled-up effort’. On poverty reduction Rwanda has scored impressive marks. Between the years 2000 and 2001 and 2005 and 2006, poverty fell from 60.5% to 57%. World Bank however states that a much faster reduction rate is needed to reach the MDG target of 30%. As at Liberation Day, Minecofin is upbeat that the global economic crisis has had a minimum impact on Rwanda’s economy. However the World Bank report states that a continued global slowdown is expected to translate into a 2.5% decrease in GDP over the medium term due to lower tourism receipts, reduction in remittances from abroad and a projected slowdown in construction. Ends