Rwanda’s capital played host to the first-ever UK-Rwanda Business Forum recently, showcasing the East African nation’s development andpositioning as a potential investment destination in the region.



Rwanda’s narrative has changed and the country is now proving to be a major hub for business in Africa. This, and more, formed part of the discussions at the maiden UK-Rwanda Business Forum, which took place January 29 to 31 in the country’s capital city.



“Over 1,200 people from 60 nationalities attended the conference; 130 UK companies were down in Kigali scouting for opportunities in this small-sized country with a fast-growing economy. The UK is quite keen to tap [into] financial services, mining as well as agriculture,” the UK’s Trade Envoy to Rwanda, Lord Dolar Popat says to FORBES AFRICA.



“Out of this forum, we have now built a bridge with Kigali and London. Rwanda now exports 10 tons of agricultural produce and we have increased direct flights on the back of Rwanda upping [its] cargo capacity. All this will open up the country to more trade investment eventually balancing off the trade numbers.”



Out of a multitude of UK businesses present at the forum, one of the major announcements came from data-driven super platform, Bboxx.



“We reinforce our dedication to the continent with a strategic move of our headquarters from London to Kigali. We are an Africa-first company,” said the company’s co-founder and CEO, Mansoor Hamayun.



Bboxx is reportedly planning to train an additional 1,000 or so Rwandans over the next five years and invest $100 million in the country. The announcement coincides with its ambitious plans for the year, with the company’s impact set to expand tenfold. It aims to reach 36 million people by 2028, thanks to a $100 million initiative&nbsp;with Kuwaiti investment company, EnerTech, announced in December 2023.



Rwanda is forging forward and becoming an attractive and emerging powerhouse, with UK High Commissioner to Rwanda, Omar Daair noting, “As the first ever forum, we see an opportunity to increase our trade with Rwanda. The level of interest in Rwanda is potent.”



Currently, trade between Rwanda and the UK sits at around $56 million. The East African nation’s economy is heavily reliant on agriculture with the country being the second largest exporter of tea to the UK, after Pakistan.



“We see a real drive in tech and innovation in Africa. We want to see that increase here in Rwanda. Africa is increasingly important. The middle class is growing. No country can think about its future economy without thinking about Africa,” adds Daair.



With increased investment in infrastructure, and widespread stability in the region, Rwanda’s government is upbeat about unlocking new frontiers in the mining space.



The country and UK mining giant, Rio Tinto Minerals Development Limited have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in relation to the exploration and mining of lithium in the Western Province of Rwanda.



“We are happy that this is taking place here in Kigali. Several Rwandan businesses are also interested in venturing forth into the UK,” notes Rwanda Development Board CEO, Francis Gatare.&nbsp;



“This was a moment to plant seeds and to water the seeds that are already growing. I am encouraged by the number of Rwandan businesses that have signed MoU’s with British companies.”

RWANDA UK DORUM PIC 2

Building Business Between Kigali And London

The BK Arena in Rwanda’s capital city Kigali was the stage for some electrifying performances as global artists enthralled basketball fans and excited locals at the grand opening of the first-ever week-long Giants of Africa festival on August 13.



The event, graced by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Masai Ujiri, the co-founder of Giants of Africa and president of Toronto Raptors, saw the two leaders rallying the youth to be fully immersed in sports as this is an untapped frontier.



“Everyone in this arena is a giant. It is time we don’t keep being reminded. We should know it and continue being the giants that we are and should be. We have got to decide and make that choice. Knowing every one of us in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, everyone has the possibility of being a giant and should be,” Kagame told the audience.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-59223" style="width:536px;height:358px" width="536" height="358" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 536px) 100vw, 536px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Image credit Giants of Africa</figcaption></figure></div>


Rwanda is currently hosting Giants of Africa with 250 youth from 16 African countries taking part in activities centered around sports, entertainment, culture as well as national dialogue. The event is part of the country’s strategy to grow sports and make Rwanda a sporting hub.



“President Kagame came for an All-Star Game in 2016 to America. He asked me what it would take to build such an arena and get things done. His studious leadership saw that in just about 12 months, we had the BK Arena here in Kigali,” said Ujiri.



For the last two decades since its inception, Giants Of Africa has been able to play a catalytic role in mainstreaming sports as a tool for economic development and cultural diversity.



“Masai, I thank you for creating this great idea of identifying young people and bringing them here. These young people are being reminded that we are as good as anyone anywhere else. Through the sixteen teams representing sixteen countries, we should grow and work with each other to fulfil this dream for our continent,” added Kagame.



As part of the partnership between Giants of Africa and Rwanda, achievements include the construction of several basketball courts in the country, as well as equipping youngsters with skills for the game. The dazzling lights and thrilling performances at the arena also saw the President urging African youth to be united in growing the continent with their abundant talent.



“I am you; you are me. The best way to bring that out is through talented sportsmen. These young men and women will be giants in basketball and in everything else.”



Ujiri, who gave an emotional account of his encounters from Africa, affirmed that Giants of Africa will continue scaling up investments to make basketball a formidable game for Africans.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Opening-night-image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-59222" style="width:510px;height:340px" width="510" height="340" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Opening-night-image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Opening-night-image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Opening-night-image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Opening-night-image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Opening-night-image-credit-Giants-of-Africa-2048x1366.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Opening night; image credit Giants of Africa</figcaption></figure></div>


“I am overwhelmed and many years ago I had the opportunity to come here. That’s where this journey began for me. We believe in Africa. Every day, we dream, we preach and believe in Africa,” he said to rousing applause from a charged crowd at BK Arena.



Rwanda is also betting big on fusing sports and entertainment to diversify revenue lines. This year’s festival was headlined by Tanzanian artist Diamond Platnumz.



The closing ceremony slated for August 19 will be star-studded. Celebrated Rwandan artist Bruce Melodie, Nigerian singer Davido and Tiwa Savage are also expected to perform.

Star-studded event; Image credit Giants of Africa

Giant Festival In Kigali To Uplift Africa’s Youth Through Sport And Culture

How do you forgive a man who has killed all your loved ones? Rwanda’s reconciliation efforts have seen survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the tutsi living next to each other, healing and transforming. FORBES AFRICA travels to Bugesera to capture one such moving tale.



BY TESI KAVEN Photos by Ridhima Shukla



IT’S ONE THING TO FORGIVE a person who has committed a crime against you, and quite another to reconcile, live next to and even cultivate a strong friendship with the person, especially when he has horrifically claimed the lives of your entire family. 



This scenario is not strange in Rwanda, a country once torn apart by the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, when more than a million people lost their lives. This year, in April, Rwanda marked the 27th anniversary of the genocide, and reconciliation, though unfathomable at one point, has become a concept the country has become known for. On the outskirts of the capital city of Kigali, approximately a two-hour drive away, is a village with a rich history, one that’s not easily given away by the serene and beautiful surrounds. 



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:41% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51460 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Someone we thought was a friend offered to help us, but instead, he delivered my husband and children to the killers. – Maria Izagiriza</blockquote>




</div></div>



In what almost looks like a gated community, 110 houses stand at the Rweru Reconciliation Village in Bugesera District. To foster the concept of reconciliation, perpetrators and survivors of the genocide live next to each other. In this village, we meet Maria Izagiriza and Philbert Ntezirizaza. 



Targeted attacks against the Tutsi community had begun long before the 1994 genocide, resulting in mass killings and forced relocations. Among the many affected, was 63-year-old Izagiriza, who lost some of her siblings in killings in 1973 and later, her first husband. 



Widowed at a young age, she later remarried and moved from her birthplace to Bugesera district, where she gave birth to four children. News of the death of the then Rwandan president, Juvénal Habyarimana, was delivered to Izagiriza by a neighbor on that fateful morning of April 7, 1994. She remembers it all as if it was yesterday. 



“My neighbor informed me that the president had died the night before and went on to say that my people were responsible for his death,” Izagiriza tells FORBES AFRICA. “My neighbor said my people and I would pay dearly for what we had done.” 



Indeed, nothing could have prepared Izagiriza, her family and millions of other Rwandans for the atrocities that took place over the next 100 days, following the death of Habyarimana. The militia descended on Izagiriza’s home that morning, killing all her livestock, burning down her house and beating her husband to a pulp, leaving him for dead. The children were miraculously spared. 



She managed to escape through a hole she had created in the mud wall of her kitchen. When night fell, she returned to her compound to get her husband and children. 



“Though breathing, my husband was so badly wounded and bleeding from all parts of his body,” she says, pausing to wipe the tears streaming down her tired face. 



”The children were scared stiff but unharmed.” With the help of her children, Izagiriza somehow managed to drag her injured husband to a hiding place where she felt they would all be safe. This would, however, be the last time she would see her husband and children alive. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51450" width="393" height="295" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 393px) 100vw, 393px" /></figure></div>



“Someone we thought was a friend offered to help us, but instead, he delivered my husband and children to the killers. Again, I managed to escape, but this time, with my four-month-old baby strapped to my back. That was the last time I saw my family alive.” 



Izagiriza’s family was led to a barricade where a group of young, blood-thirsty men were killing people. Among them that day was Ntezirizaza. He was only 18 years old at the time. Hatred for the Tutsi people, he says, was planted in him when he was still very young. 



“In 1994, I was a teenager, my body full of youthful vigor and my mind filled with a terrible ideology, fed to me since I was in elementary school,” Ntezirizaza tells FORBES AFRICA. “Our mindset at that time was more lethal than the machetes we carried.” 



Asked what happened to Izagiriza’s family, Ntezirizaza pauses, then, with a low voice and distant gaze, says: “We hacked her husband and eldest son to death and threw the remaining two children in a deep pit, alive. We knew they wouldn’t survive.” 



A while after the genocide, Ntezirizaza was sentenced to 12 years in prison, after confessing to his crimes. It was while in prison that he met with members of Prison Fellowship Rwanda (PFR), an NGO that sought to unite and reconcile Rwandans. 



“PFR helped us see how deadly the beliefs and ideologies we harbored were and the importance of seeking forgiveness from those we hurt,” he says. 



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:42% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51455 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">We have built nine reconciliation villages across the country, and they stand not only as a monument of Rwanda’s history but also as an example to future generations that unity and reconciliation can be achieved. – David Nsoro, the communication officer at Prison Fellowship Rwanda</blockquote>




</div></div>



In 2003, six years into his sentence, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame pardoned prisoners who had admitted to their crimes. Though free, guilt kept gnawing on Ntezirizaza’s conscience. 



“I felt like I had been released from one prison and walked straight into another. I had no peace, no rest.” Izagiriza, who had managed to escape to Burundi with her infant daughter, was now back in Rwanda, trying to pick up the pieces of what was left of her life. 



News had reached her while in Burundi that her family was no more, and she battled depression and suicidal thoughts. Just like Ntezirizaza, she met members of PFR, who at the time were building the Rweru Reconciliation Village, to help settle survivors whose property was destroyed and perpetrators who were coming out of prison but with nowhere to call home. Volunteers and pastors from the NGO counseled Izagiriza, helping her to come to terms with what had happened. 



“The PFR team helped me realize that forgiving and letting go was for my benefit. Mentally, they prepared me to meet and forgive Philbert,” she says. “But I must admit, it wasn’t easy.” 



As a sign of remorse for his actions, Ntezirizaza would work on Izagiriza’s farm under the cover of darkness. “I would prepare the farm for planting on one night, then plant the seeds the following night and water them the night after. I wanted to do what the children or husband I killed would have done had they been alive,” he says. 



Eventually, the two had a sit-down session and he narrated all that befell her family and asked to be forgiven. At present, the two are genuine friends. Izagiriza asked Ntezirizaza to be her daughter’s godfather at her baptism. When her daughter got married and walked down the aisle, he was there to witness it all.



The story of Izagiriza and Ntezirizaza may just be one story but it mirrors the experiences of many in the tiny East African hill country. 



It is echoed by countless other survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi who have chosen the path of unity and reconciliation, however difficult it has been. 



David Nsoro, the communication officer at PFR, says that seeing the survivors and perpetrators living together in harmony at the reconciliation villages is a huge milestone. 



“We have built nine reconciliation villages across the country, and they stand not only as a monument of Rwanda’s history but also as an example to future generations that unity and reconciliation can be achieved,” Nsoro tells FORBES AFRICA. In his address to the nation on the 27th commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi, Kagame emphasized on the transformation that had taken place not just in the country, but more in the hearts and minds of Rwandans. 



Said Kagame: “The immensity of what has been achieved is almost miraculous. The results are attested to by Rwandans, and indeed indisputable. But the intangible transformation which has taken place in the hearts and minds of our people is even more important.”

IMG_3989

A Story Of Reconciliation, Healing And Hope

Chinese billionaire and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma came calling to Rwanda to sign a deal to boost its digital economy.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



When a Chinese billionaire comes calling, for two consecutive years, it means serious business. 



On Jack Ma’s November trip to Rwanda, he announced a first-of-its- kind-in-Africa deal with the Rwandan government. 



The Alibaba Group, one of the world’s largest e-commerce businesses that Maco-founded and chairs, has established an electronic world trade platform(eWTP) hub that will enable Rwandan products to be sold in the Chinese market and boost cross-border trade. 



Ma, with an estimated net worth of $34.4 billion according to FORBES, called Rwanda “a great country that walks the talk” at the launch of the hub at the Kigali Convention Centre. The mood was euphoric as Rwandans took to Twitter with the hashtag #Rwandaworks. 



“It’s a great honor for myself and Alibaba to be able to partner with Rwanda. People ask me, why Rwanda? There are so many countries in Africa. It’s so difficult we have a lot of criteria to pick a country to be an eWTP hub. My answer is why not Rwanda?” said Ma. 



“When I first came here, I was shocked by its safety, cleanliness and by its power to embrace change. Last year was my maiden visit to Africa, I realized that it is so different from what I thought. I said if every country in Africa was like Rwanda, how powerful Africa would be. 



“Rwanda is making things happen. Most countries talk about supporting 



small businesses, young people, farmers but very few of them take action&#8230; This is why we came here. When other people complain, we take that as a great opportunity. What impressed us is not only the products you have but also the government’s efficiency.” 



He said he was proud to know Kagame. The leader, in turn, also paid tribute to Ma, whom he referred to as “my friend”. 



He commended Ma for looking at Africa differently. 



&nbsp;“Jack is a believer and in most cases, he believes correctly,” said Kagame. 



The eWTP partnership covers tourism, capacity-building and e-payments as the primary areas of cooperation. 



It ultimately aims to enhance the capabilities of small and medium enterprises to produce and export quality, globally-competitive products while supporting the development of the digital economy in Rwanda. 



Products sold on the platform will initially be handicrafts and coffee, which is Rwanda’s third biggest foreign exchange earner after mining and tourism. 



The platform presents an opportunity for Rwanda’s coffee producers to access the Chinese market whose coffee consumption is growing at 15% per annum. 



On the platform, Rwandan coffee farmers will be receiving $12 per $16 sold, which is significantly higher compared to other markets like the US where they normally get $8 per $16 sold. 



The deal will also attract high- spending Chinese tourists. 



Players in Rwanda’s business community, especially in the trade and tourism sector, call the deal unprecedented and overdue. 



Abdallah Bawazzir, Director General of New Dawn Associates, says: “We’ve been having issues as far as e-commerce is concerned. We’ve had promises from other big entities which come around and nothing really tangible comes of it. Alibaba having done this in China, I’m sure they are very much capable of doing this in Rwanda.” 



Ephraim Rwamwenge, Chief Executive Officer at Rwa Business Group, adds: “One of the challenges that plagued our export markets such as China, which is a massive market, is access. It was next to impossible to find customers to take your products but thanks to technology, it’s now cheaper to do business across borders.”



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Steven Muvunyi&nbsp;</li></ul>



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/economy/2018/12/05/rwanda-the-emerging-economy-to-watch/">Rwanda The Emerging Economy To Watch</a>

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Rwanda ‘Walks The Talk’ Says Jack Ma

As 2017 gets into full swing I am reminded of the launch of CNBC Africa 10 years ago on June 1, 2007. To say time flies is an enormous understatement. I can only imagine how the Founder and Vice Chairman of the Africa Business News Group, Rakesh Wahi, must feel considering he first arrived in Africa with just a briefcase in hand 12 short years ago. Now he has a business news conglomerate with Africa’s only continent-wide business channel and Africa’s number one monthly business publication, namely and FORBES AFRICA respectively.
Back in 2007, months of rehearsals finally led to the evening of June 1 when CNBC Africa, with a flick of a switch, came to life. Then South African President Thabo Mbeki was the first interviewee on that auspicious occasion. Corporate South Africa was in full attendance. The rehearsals paid off and CNBC Africa’s first broadcast to 48 countries across sub-Saharan Africa went off without a glitch.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4484" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_3203-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
The next morning, broadcast began in earnest with eight hours of African business aired around the channel’s flagship shows: Open Exchange, Power Lunch, Closing Bell and Business Tonight. Ten years ago, the Africa rising story was burning bright but aggregating business content across Africa was still an enormous challenge. CNBC Africa was pioneering territory that no one else had attempted on such a large scale. Businessmen and women across Africa were not well versed in regular, live television interviews and market commentators were still relatively media shy.
Over the last 10 years the channel has played a significant role in unlocking the continent’s business talent and today, as the depth and breadth of African capital markets rapidly improves, African business interviews are happening with regularity at across the continent.
Today, CNBC Africa is taking regional integration to the next level. It’s hard to beat a real-time pan-African conversation with Lagos, Nairobi, Kigali and South Africa all simultaneously on screen exchanging West, East and southern African business news throughout the day.
Those early days also bring to mind some of the many lighter moments that are an inevitable part of any TV channel’s launch phase. One such moment was with my then co-anchor Byron Kennedy, who now heads up corporate affairs for Vodacom. Let me try and talk you through this.
Business Tonight was in full swing, Byron and I were co-anchoring. In the early days we were heavily reliant on the shows production script which detailed which guests were expected at what time during the show. Two guests down and the live show was progressing well. The third guest was seated and, relying on my script, I confidently introduced the guest as Kevin Weeks, Head of the South African Automobile Association. At this point we were on a wide shot – the audience could see Byron, myself and the guest, who was shaking his head violently. Byron immediately jumped in and stated to both the audience and to me “No, it’s definitely not Kevin Weeks…”. But he had no idea either who the guest was and threw me a hospital pass. The director had at this point not established that we were in trouble and instead of cutting to a commercial break – the default if something goes horribly wrong – he maintained the wide camera angle which meant that the audience was not missing a beat. I had no option but to lean over slightly and asked the now bewildered gentlemen the following question “Excuse me sir, what is your name?” followed by “What are we speaking about?”
Needless to say, we have come a long way from then. I felt much better when I was told to google “BBC Taxi Driver” and realized that it happens to the best of us.
But back to the present and the fact that we are now all grown up, in business years that is. Happy 10th birthday CNBC Africa in 2017; it’s been an incredible journey and I look forward to the next decade as we continue to tell the African business story unlike anyone else.

10 Years  Of Magic And  The Odd Mishap

At’s a regular weekday in Kigali’s lively central business district where single-storied shop tenements, with tables heaving with African artefacts, jostle with gleaming commercial towers. On the arterial street by the high-rise Bank of Kigali, vendors hawk cheap clothing, and shops smelling of dust and sweat sell colorful jewelry and bric-a-brac. Most have a cash-only policy, a far cry from the bank next door, which, in its sprawling air-conditioned halls, doles out digital payment solutions for Rwanda’s consumers.
<div id="attachment_28650" style="width: 616px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28650" class="wp-image-28650 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa.jpg" alt="" width="606" height="902" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa.jpg 606w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa-300x447.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa-600x893.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Daniel-Monehin-Division-President-MasterCard-Sub-Saharan-Africa-202x300.jpg 202w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 606px) 100vw, 606px" />Daniel Monehin Division President MasterCard Sub-Saharan Africa</div>
But the services-savvy Rwanda is proving it’s ahead of most African countries on innovations, not just in the financial space, but in general. As laid out in its Vision 2020 strategy, it aims to include 90% of its citizens in the financial mainstream. ‘Cashless Rwanda’ are the new buzzwords in the corridors of power.
At the World Economic Forum held here in May, Rwanda’s government signed a deal with Mastercard, the technology company in the global payments industry, to promote the move to a cashless economy. High on Rwanda’s agenda is digitization of school fees and national healthcare claim payments.
At the announcement, Francis Gatare, CEO of Rwanda Development Board (RDB), had said: “We are confident Rwanda’s partnership with Mastercard will be beneficial to the country and its citizens as we are implementing our vision of becoming a knowledge-based service-oriented economy. I believe this can only be achieved as we embrace the fourth industrial revolution.”
The MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth has committed up to $1 million over the next three years to advance economic growth and financial inclusion in the land of a thousand hills.
The country, which famously triumphed over tragedy since the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, is now up for the challenge of embracing technology to overcome concerns like financial literacy and inclusion of the rural poor, who are mostly still reliant on cash.
How big is the cash economy in Africa?
“According to a recent McKinsey report, two billion people remain outside of the formal economy. Various studies confirm over 90% of retail transactions in sub-Saharan Africa are in cash,” says Daniel Monehin, who leads Mastercard’s business across sub-Saharan Africa as Division President.
“In Rwanda, only 42% of adults own a financial account, whether formal or informal… We know that government cannot achieve financial inclusion alone, and neither can the private sector – we need to work together.”
In September, Bank of Kigali, RwandaOnline and Mastercard launched Irembo – an online payment solution to make online payments safer, simpler and smarter.
RwandaOnline developed Irembo, including six government engines, allowing Rwandans to make online payments to any of these government entities through the use of debit, credit or prepaid payment cards. Residents can pay for driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and identity cards. The portal also allows travelers to Rwanda to apply and pay for travel visas.
<div id="attachment_28649" style="width: 760px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28649" class="wp-image-28649 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="499" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM.jpg 750w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Raghu-Malhotra-MM-600x399.jpg 600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />Raghu Malhotra</div>
“At Mastercard, we don’t limit our thinking to ‘traditional’ versus  ‘new’ – we explore what is going to meet the needs of a market and its citizens as there is not one solution that can meet all needs. Rather our focus is on creating a ‘world beyond cash’, developed through partnerships and driven by advances in technology,” says Monehin.
Indeed, Rwanda’s aim for a cashless culture is good news for the city’s new innovators and entrepreneurs.
Afshon Wallace, the 26-year-old founder of 250 Taxi, a web-based transport solutions provider connecting riders and taxi drivers using a mobile app and website, launched earlier this year, says it’s encouraging. Wallace says he caters mostly to expatriates and is witnessing growth of up to 100%.
“The cashless payments ecosystem in Rwanda is still in its infancy. The government’s push for paperless payments through the smart Rwanda master plan has been a great boost and great sensitization programs are being carried out by many players,” says Wallace.
But there are myriad challenges.
“The population lacks the adequate financial awareness on cashless payments. We have had less than three percent of our users asking whether they can use cards.”
Wallace says compared to the M-Pesa service in neighboring Kenya that has seen great success, locally, mobile money is still to catch up.
Yet, products such as Tap&amp;Go (smart cards enabling cashless payments) on Kigali’s public buses are becoming popular.
“We have huge government support when it comes to e-payments,” says Patrick Buchana, the 26-year-old CEO of AC Group, who started Tap&amp;Go in 2015.
David Karuletwa, the Rwandan-Canadian COO of RSwitch, a financial interoperable solutions company, whose passion is financial inclusion using fintech, says Rwanda is primed to be a hub for financial services.
In 2010, RSwitch launched Rwanda’s first debit card issued by banks in Rwanda and later rebranded it to SmartCash card.
“Rwanda and the entire pan-African market are paving the way for financial inclusion using mobile banking and payment solutions,” says Karuletwa.
From paper to e-payments, cash to cashless, Rwanda’s bank notes are moving out of the wallet into the world of www.

From Wallet To www

It was a united Africa that met under one dome at the 27th African Union (AU) Summit, held from July 10-18 in Kigali, Rwanda.
After a week of mostly closed-door negotiations by the 35 heads of state in attendance, it concluded with the AU setting targets to self-finance its activities by raising $1.2 billion annually.
“It’s a great start, and an achievement for Africa,” said Smail Chergui, the AU’s commissioner for peace and security, to FORBES WOMAN AFRICA.
Some of the other issues debated at the summit were the conflicts in South Sudan, Burundi and Libya.
“We have to be on the side of the people of South Sudan and see how we can find a quick solution to what happened,” said Chergui at the closing media conference.
The AU will also start “drawing down” its troops in Somalia from October 2018, and will devote energies to training the forces and equipping them for daily combat in their own countries. The AU peacekeeping mission has been in Somalia since 2007.
The summit also saw the launch of the much-anticipated African passport. AU Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma handed representational passports to AU Chairperson and President of Chad Idriss Deby, and to Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, at the packed ordinary session of the general assembly inside the dome of the brand-new Kigali Convention Centre (KCC).
The session had started with African music, chorus and drums, even as Africa’s first ladies sat in one colorful row, proudly sporting African fabrics and headwraps representative of their countries.
Kagame said in his opening speech: “Believe in the healing power of unity… Unity is not a feel-good slogan but a tool to unite in Africa.”
Deby too added: “For the first time since the inception of the AU, the continent decided to take the union in its own hands, and contribute financially for peace, stability and crises… It’s a gigantic step.”
The pan-African passport is expected to facilitate the mobility of Africans and ease inter-country trade, although full details of when ordinary Africans will benefit from them are yet to emerge.
Another highlight of the summit was to be the election of the next chairperson of the AU Commission. The results were to be announced on the last day after voting, but none of the three candidates, Botswana’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, Uganda’s former Vice President Specioza Kazibwe and Equatorial Guinea’s Foreign Affairs Minister Agapito Mba Mokuy, managed to secure the two-thirds majority to win.
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The elections are now postponed for January next year. Dlamini-Zuma will continue in her role until then.
Venson-Moitoi, 65, who spoke to FORBES WOMAN AFRICA before the results, said she had been campaigning for the elections since March, had given it “her best shot”, and if elected, was looking forward to working hard and continuing the good work, “bringing  a different outlook”.
She is one of two women proposed for the post. Are women better at the job?
We asked Prof. Vincent O. Nmehielle, Legal Counsel &amp; Director for Legal Affairs of the AU Commission on his way out of a media briefing.
“I can tell you women are quite resilient and very kind in terms of what they want to see with regards to the continent. And when you become the chairperson of the African Union, there is a tendency to feel you are a mother to the continent, so you want to handle the continent with care,” he said.
The theme of the summit was Human rights, Women’s rights; at the closing ceremony where countries were given awards for promoting the gender cause, Dlamini-Zuma handed Kagame – to a rousing applause – the award for political rights for women. Globally, Rwanda has the highest participation of women in Parliament, at a staggering 64%.
But with a number of competing issues, did women’s issues receive its due airtime?
“It was sufficiently discussed,” said Mahawa Kaba Wheeler, the AU’s Director of Women and Gender, at the final press conference.
“The discussions don’t end here and will go on, it will take on new dimensions… The media must work with us to get the message out.”
Diane Gashumba, Rwanda’s Minister of Gender and Family, said 17 ministers of gender attended the summit from various African countries.
“We did a lot, but when you look at all the policies in place supporting gender, we still have a long way to go. We have to keep sensitizing [women] to dream big about owning big enterprises,” said Gashumba.
At the session of the Organisation of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA), Kenya’s First Lady Margaret Kenyatta made an impassioned plea to combat HIV/AIDS.
For a country that already won praise for hosting the 2016 World Economic Forum on Africa in May, the AU summit proved to be another milestone for Rwanda, which is now aiming to be Africa’s leading MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and events) destination.
“We have confidence in the contribution of MICE events as a way to diversify the purpose of visitors coming to Rwanda,” says Francis Gatare, CEO of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB).
It’s expected to boost the country’s services sector, which currently contributes to 49% of the economy.
“The services sector is expected to rise to 50% of our economy in the next two to three years. Over the last 10 years, we have seen all forms of service industry [banking to tourism] emerge and take prominence,” says Gatare.
This is where the KCC will have a starring role. Gatare says the most important dimension of the tech-savvy convention center is its location.
“Located at the entrance of the city coming from the airport, this represents a unique intersection of government ministries on one side and the central business district on the other, while it’s also adjacent to one of the most sought-after residential areas. So, all civic communities, businesses and governments come together here.”
Its design is inspired by Rwanda’s Agaseki baskets, and is also representative of the country’s traditional homes.
“When Rwandans see it [the KCC], they see their home, they see their treasure, they also see their identity,” says Gatare.
The success of any country is reflected in the success and growth of its national airline. In September, the country’s flagship carrier RwandAir will be launching direct flights to Mumbai in India and Guangzhou in China, receiving two brand-new Airbus A330s fitted with lie-flat seats in business class; the aircraft will also have a premium economy cabin, a concept new to most airlines in Africa.
RwandAir is expected to launch flights to New York, Paris and London in the next two years, says John Mirenge, the airline’s head, on the sidelines of the summit. And all new planes will be fitted with wifi onboard as a standard.
Wifi is what most business travelers to Kigali compliment the city for; from the 295-room Radisson Blue by the KCC to the mint-fresh Marriott, close to the stately Serena hotel, and even in the smaller hotels, this is evident.
Overall, the summit proved to be a success for the host country, especially the $300 million KCC, Rwanda’s new focal point vying with the hills.
The KCC, so new it literally still smells of paint, stole the show with its nightly light displays featuring the colors of the Rwandan flag that presented many picture opportunities.
Madeleine Mukamabano, a Paris-based journalist who has been covering AU summits for years, called the Kigali edition the “first truly African summit that was without foreign influences”.
Kigali scored.

The-Kigali-Convention-Centre

Meeting Africa  In Kigali

Landing in Kigali at night is like swooping down on a bed of stars. The land of a thousand hills twinkles with lights rivalling the skies above. On this particular night, the eve of the city’s first-ever World Economic Forum (WEF), immigration lines at the tiny but gleaming Kigali International Airport are long – mostly business travelers with thick passports and thick accents – but the wait, thankfully, isn’t. Staff quickly issue visas on arrival, Rwanda one of the few African countries to offer this ease of access.
The country has long been preparing for this day, and that first important step to flexing its economic muscle on a global stage. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu’s famous quote, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” would certainly apply here; WEF was Rwanda’s ticket to even greater global glory, beyond the 2Gs it had been known for thus far – the genocide and the gorillas.
The packed hotels and packed agendas over the next three days, May 11-13, justified its place on the WEF map. The delegates spoke, the presidents nodded, and there was affirmation everywhere, at forums, sessions, breakfasts and dinners: that Rwanda is “a beautiful country, so clean, so green, so safe”, but more importantly, a country that’s perhaps a model for the rest of Africa, and the world, for its progress over the last 22 years since the genocide against the Tutsi battered its being.
There was lavish praise also for President Paul Kagame for spearheading this growth. At the packed interactive session on African partnerships on day one moderated by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Kagame said: “Twenty two years ago, we had to involve everyone’s participation&#8230; we lost the past, but needed to regain the future.”
And Blair closed: “Twenty two years ago, if you said a couple of decades later, you would be hosting the World Economic Forum, people would have been surprised… it’s an amazing country that has seen extraordinary progress. You have done a great job.”
Toronto-based entrepreneur Sunir Chandaria said post-session: “They have moved mountains to make this happen… Rwanda has taken a leap with digitization amongst African countries.”
The Kigali edition was the 26th World Economic Forum on Africa, themed ‘Connecting Africa’s Resources Through Digital Transformation’. Some 1,200 delegates from 70 countries jetted into the small African city. In attendance were names like Tony Elumelu, Tonye Cole, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Howard Buffett, Pravin Gordhan and Cherie Blair. The venue at Camp Kigali, rechristened the Kigali Conference and Exhibition Village, had a tented concept to stir a sense of déjà vu of WEF’s annual Davos outing.
From the Alps of Switzerland to the hills of Rwanda, the forum did manage to generate its own share of excitement.
Against the backdrop of Kigali’s rolling hills – mostly red, not green, owing to the profusion of red-roofed homes on the slopes – the African plenary unfolded. Gun-toting men in military fatigues guarded the main venue and the five-star Serena Hotel, where most of the 10 visiting African heads of state were staying, and which was the venue for the stately events and dinners throughout WEF. One couldn’t get to the lobby without bag and body thoroughly searched.
Issues around women and youth featured prominently throughout the conference, not surprising, considering the host country boasts more women in parliament, in the ministries and the judiciary.
The first side event, held on the eve of WEF, was ‘Women Creating Wealth’, by the Graça Machel Trust, supported by the Rwanda chapter of New Faces, New Voices, a pan-African advocacy group expanding the role and influence of women in the financial sector. Machel, also a co-chair of WEF on Africa, said: “Women are power, women are energy, women are creativity&#8230;”
Arjuna Costa, Partner at Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm with a long history of investing in Africa, who was the only male member on the panel, spoke to FORBES AFRICA: “It’s an exciting time to be a young entrepreneur in Africa, especially with the world moving towards more and more mobile, Africa in many ways being the pioneer of things like mobile systems, and also creating rich ecosystems on which more innovation is coming… It’s exciting as it’s home-grown innovation tackling global challenges with local solutions but still leveraging the power of technology.”
On day one of WEF, the Youth Forum, a breakfast event hosted by Rwanda’s First Lady Jeannette Kagame, saw a full auditorium at the Serena that was, for a change, an equal turnout of both male and female achievers.
In attendance throughout the conference were WEF’s Young Global Leaders (YGLs) and Global Shapers; there were so many, you could tell them from a distance.
One of them, Gerald Chirinda, a 20-something Harare-based entrepreneur standing in line for the security check at the Serena that night, for the social entrepreneurship dinner hosted by South Africa’s Motsepe Foundation, explained: “You see, we all look hungry&#8230; Hungry for power, and change&#8230; that’s why you recognize us.”
The one word used – and perhaps over-used – at the forum was ‘leapfrogging’. At one point during the interactive session on the Fourth Industrial Revolution at the venue’s Akagera hall, the forum’s co-chair, Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), even said he didn’t believe in the word.
“Even a frog can’t leap that far,” he said to laughter.
“We cannot industrialize unless we solve access to electricity,” he said. One of the greatest priorities for the continent is electrification to enable digital technology – 500 million are without power.
“Africa is tired of being in the dark,” said Adesina. The AfDB is spending $12.5 billion in the next five years on its New Deal on Energy.
It’s crucial the Fourth Industrial Revolution “does not leave anyone behind”, said Machel, referring to Africa’s 52% female population.
At the same session, Kagame mentioned “people technology”. “Development is more than money or machines or tech. It’s about good people and the lives they lead every day,” he said.
Among the new initiatives unveiled, was the WEF-led Internet For All, a collection of best practices from around the world on how public-private collaboration has enabled internet access and adoption.
The forum’s Africa Skills Initiative brought organizations including MMI, GE, Google, Agility, the Rockefeller Foundation, Yellowwoods and the University of the Witwatersrand together to form a coalition committed to tackling Africa’s shortage of future-oriented STEM and ICT skills, while the Rockefeller Foundation announced a $1 million Cassava Innovation Challenge, aimed at finding ways to improve the shelf life of this staple crop.
Visitors to Rwanda’s first Marriott hotel that opened in time for WEF were awe-struck by its grandeur. Given the number of high-profile events the country has on the cards, hotels of this caliber are now necessary to meet the demands of discerning business travelers. The Radisson is set to open for the African Union summit here in July, right next to the Agaseki basket-inspired conference center, which was lit throughout the duration of WEF as a beacon of light and hope, hope for a tomorrow that has already come in Rwanda.

From The Alps  To The Hills

She is the fresh face of renewable energy in Africa. By a twist of fate, this young lawyer, who grew up with her grandmother by candlelight, is now spearheading Africa’s dash for energy.  Sometimes it hurts.
“It feels like I haven’t slept for four years, I have been so busy working on deals. But it was the deal of a lifetime.”
So says Linda Olagunju on her deals to put two wind farms and two solar photovoltaic (PV) farms onto the barren landscape of De Aar in the Northern Cape. Two deals she patched together that will contribute 254MW to South Africa’s energy grid.
“The wind projects reached financial close and are currently under construction. It’s a partnership between China Longyuan, Mulilo and DLO Energy Resources in De Aar. It’s been almost one year of signing documents. The legal fees on these sorts of transactions can go up to R20 million ($1.57 million) if you are lucky.”
It’s the fruit of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement (REIPPP) program. In short, Eskom, the country’s power generator, attracted bids for private business to apply for tenders. Under it, investors generate electricity for sale at a tendered rate. This brings the total committed private sector investment in the REIPPP, since 2011, to $13.25 billion (R168 billion). It is fierce competition.
“There about 85 solid IPP [independent power producers] developers in South Africa. In Round One to Four, there was 5,200MW on offer, the next rounds are 6,300MW. It’s a bloodbath. You are competing with international companies that are coming in dirt cheap,” says Olagunju.
This may be a drop in the ocean but it’s a very important one. Renewables have been a saving grace. According to Olagunju, 39 of these projects are up and running, supplying 2,050MW to the grid.
“It’s the first successful program since democracy. It’s not that there haven’t been any independent power producer programs on the continent. It’s just that this one is the largest one of its scale and being backed by government.”
Olagunju’s childhood was far from electricity. She grew up in Matatiele, a village in the Eastern Cape 782 kilometers from the boardrooms of Sandown where she now works and lives with her Nigerian-born husband.
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“It was rural, like candle rural… [My grandmother’s village] only got electricity in 2005,” says Olagunju.
This was in time for the power cuts of 2008, when Eskom admitted that it had run out of capacity to supply electricity. At this time, Olagunju had left home to follow in the footsteps of her father and study law. At the University of Cape Town she studied laws governing fossil fuels rather than green energy.
“I’ve always known I was going to go into resources. I just didn’t know if it was going to be mining or oil and gas. The biggest thing for me is why Africa, which is so well endowed in resources, remains the poorest continent. I always hated injustice, growing up in apartheid South Africa,” she says.
Olagunju struggled to find her niche and ended up as a lawyer for Mulilo, a startup renewable energy company in 2008.
“Mulilo needed a lawyer, but couldn’t afford any. So I said I would do the services in return for shares. I still had to pay for them. At the time, the company [owed] R11 million ($870,000) and the company is now valued at R5 billion ($394 million)… in three years,” she says.
This sparked her idea of entrepreneurship.
“I always felt the way to change things is through entrepreneurship. Through law I had the opportunity to see how government makes these decisions on large scale projects… I said ‘hang on a minute, we have a lot of wind in South Africa and we have a lot sun in South Africa, so why haven’t we put renewables on our grid?’ I started doing research,” she says.
The business of renewables can take years to see a profit.
“There is a lot of risk, anything can go wrong. You are in a contract for 20 years, governments can change and I know there are laws to take care of that risk. The wind may not blow for as long as you thought it would. Your sun may not shine as brightly as you thought it would. They are long-term projects.”
“You identify the land. You go into lease agreements. Do an environment impact assessment (EIA) process that can take three years if you are lucky. You then bid your process with a construction period. If everything goes right, [a farm] will be up in 20 months.”
“Then you start seeing a trickle dividend. A trickle dividend at connection in the first seven years is very minimal. It’s nothing to write home about. It’s not even enough to pay your operational expenses.”
Then, there are the hiccups.
“We have existing infrastructure. And then we have the [REIPPP]. The grid infrastructure hasn’t been expanded to accommodate the increasing demand on that particular infrastructure. It’s not Eskom’s fault necessarily. It’s a matter of planning.”
“One of the points we raised before we began these projects is getting the grid contacted properly before you have a program. But it’s always difficult how you spend on infrastructure not knowing where those programs are going to be awarded.”
“Eskom said that they have developed a map where they now know where the hotspots are for energy projects and where now they are doing their best to upgrade in those regions in anticipation of the other [REIPPPs] being built.”
Olagunju believes gas, coal and nuclear could all go the same way.
“You can go and leverage an asset and try and participate. The key thing about these deals is to learn from them. Once you do one, you have built a portfolio. You can go and knock on a door in Nigeria, rather than say you have an idea,” she says.
If you are Olagunju, at the tender age of 31, you could also argue it’s good to have a foot in the door.

A Bloodbath In The Wind

From the boardwalks of Cape Town to the streetlights of Kigali, billions are being made out of renewable energy. It brings business and government together; it could end the days of smoke-belching coal-fired plants. It could answer Africa’s most burning question – power.
In 2011, many experts scoffed at the thought of Africa running on towering wind turbines and miles of solar panels. It was too expensive; it was inefficient and couldn’t stay charged. But, armed with new technology, a pack of young entrepreneurs dug deep to harness the wind and the sun of Africa, to power future generations.
In this continent, South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Programme (REIPPP) has moved the fastest. In a few short years, South African entrepreneurs have invested $13.25 billion to sell electricity back to Eskom, the country’s hard pressed power generator.
It is fierce competition. According to South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma, 1,800 megawatts (MW) are on the grid and in the next two and half years, 92 projects will generate up to 6,327MW. Further investment into hydro, gas and nuclear power are also on the cards, says Zuma.
The faces driving this investment are fresh. Thirty-one-year-old Linda Olagunju who grew up in an African village by candlelight is now calling the shots in boardrooms. Homegrown entrepreneurs Luke Callcott-Stevens, Gavin James and Doug Jenman threw in their safe jobs for the cutting edge of renewable energy generation. These are a few of the young and restless generation of investors who are taking risks to charge Africa.
It’s a story that breezes through the wind turbines in South Africa to the landfills in Ghana to the underground heat of Kenya.
Some old heads, like nuclear physicist Kelvin Kemm, say that nuclear may yet have a bigger say. He believes three quarters of African countries can become nuclear within the next six years.
It all adds up to an exhilarating story of youth, vision, risk and reward. This month, FORBES AFRICA dedicates our cover story to it.

Power For The People By The People

There’s no better place to take a photograph of Rosette Chantal Rugamba than on the terrace of the landmark Hotel des Mille Collines by Kempinski in Kigali. It’s easy getting permission for this from the hotel’s management. Rugamba is well-known here and a regular.
The hotel affords a 360-degree view of the city and its splendorous rolling hills. Rugamba, in an orange suit and necklace, views the twinkling lights of Kigali and takes a deep breath of the crisp night air. She has had much to do with this vision of the city.
Twelve years ago, she was appointed Rwanda’s tourism head by the country’s president Paul Kagame tasked with turning around the country’s tourism infrastructure.
She had never lived in Rwanda before that. Her parents had fled the country to Uganda in 1959 and she grew up as a refugee with her seven siblings. Her parents never let them forget they were Rwandan first. The children were encouraged to learn French and culturally attuned to their country’s traditions. Be it books, music or dance, their home reverberated with Rwandan nuances, as the family lived on hope they would one day return home.
Her father was a brewer and her mother a teacher, but their humble home was always open to fellow Rwandans.
“There was always plenty of food,” recalls Rugamba. “And if you had to roll out a hundred mattresses, so be it.”
As her parents’ first-born, there was pressure on her to perform – and excel. She studied political science at university in Uganda. She married Henry, an Ugandan, and thereafter moved to London. Her husband worked for the British telecom industry, while she started her career with Harrods as a customer services manager. Today, she lauds herself for having been among the team that launched the first Harrods store at Terminal 3 in Heathrow airport. Yet another milestone: she was “among the 100 people” who started Eurostar.
“I am the sort of person who always wants to start things,” says Rugamba. Although she was settling well in the United Kingdom, in her heart, she recalled the songs of Rwanda, the songs of its flowing rivers and rolling hills.
In 1984, she decided to “risk a trip” to Rwanda, which was still in the throes of the liberation struggle.
“I wanted to experience the country and so toured it for the first time. I was satisfied but not sure if I would ever see it again.”
In 1996, Rugamba joined British Airways as its sales and marketing manager for East Africa, and she subsequently moved to Uganda. Rwanda’s horrific 1994 genocide was still fresh on her mind.
“We used to do a lot of fund-raising for the people and the soldiers. My mom’s family was completely wiped out.”
In 2002, she received a call from Kagame, asking her to return to her homeland. At the time, things looked positive for Rwanda.
“I asked myself ‘what value can I add?’. I am eternally grateful to the President that he unleashed the potential I never knew I had.”
Kagame wanted her to raise Rwanda’s profile through tourism and turn it into an engine for economic change in the country.
“The brief I got from him was ‘make sure every tourism dollar is spent in the country’,” says Rugamba.
When she took over as the Director General of Tourism and National Parks in January 2003, she was six months pregnant and a newcomer in her own homeland.
“The tasks in front of me were huge. I was coming back to a country I had never lived in and tasked with tourism in a country that had never known it. I felt like a tourist in my own country,” she says.
Yet, she embarked on the job with passion.
“The country was embedded in me. I was so excited that for the first time I was given a Rwandan passport, the one given to government officials but one that came with responsibility. It actually meant I was now a part of the transformation of the country.”
It also came with personal sacrifice – for a while. She came to Rwanda leaving her family behind in Uganda.
“My husband said ‘you go, we will be fine, you are getting a chance to serve your country, we can manage’. Women can’t do it without the support of men,” says Rugamba.
The first thing she did on the job was getting on the radio every Sunday at 3PM, talking about the country’s tourism potential and the role Rwandans would play.
“Tourism is multi-faceted and for it to succeed, the masses needed to be involved. We had to get the coffee, tea and ICT sectors as well to support it.”
Her mandate was to grow the tourism numbers, build restaurants and hotels, and offer tourists local handicrafts and every reason to visit Rwanda.
“Rwandans are very patriotic and they linked [tourism] to the visionary leader they loved so much. Until then, everyone only knew Rwanda for the 2Gs: the genocide and gorillas. It was time to showcase whatever else Rwanda had to offer.”
Tasked with reinvigorating tourism in the ‘Land of the Thousand Hills’, for the next seven years, Rugamba reoriented the sector putting in place new policies and strategic master plans. She launched the country internationally with a new pitch: ‘Rwanda – the new dawn of Africa’.
“I was so determined to sell the vision. I went to the [East Africa] region, gathered the tour operators and brought them here. The target was high-end eco-tourism.”
Eugene Rutagarama, who as the Country Director of IGCP (International Gorilla Conservation Programme) worked closely with Rugamba for eight years, extols her ability to tackle problems and take a stand on tough issues.
“Rosette Rugamba is an energetic person, an inspiring leader to her peers and to any person who happens to know her well. I was always impressed by her innovative approach to complex situations and her strong desire to reach a high level of accomplishment,” he recalls.
In time, her efforts paid off.
By the time Rugamba stepped down in 2010, tourism had become Rwanda’s top foreign-exchange earner. The tourism master plan for Rwanda’s Vision 2020 had been laid out, and the country was a stand-alone destination in the East African bloc.
In 2003, when she took on the job, tourist numbers in Rwanda were a mere 13,000. When she left in 2010, that figure had risen to 790,000.
In 2013, Rwanda had 1,137,000 visitors and tourism generated $293.6 million. The number of hotel rooms in the country has risen to 8,417. It was 650 when Rugamba started in 2003. To accommodate the demand, the current airport has recently been expanded and a new airport is being built in Bugasera.
It was time for Rugamba to find a new challenge.
“I saw what tourism could do for Rwanda. I wanted to do the same for Africa. My vision is to go everywhere,” she says.
She chose to turn entrepreneur, starting Songa Africa, a luxury tour company focusing on sustainable tourism.
“There was room for an indigenous luxury tour company headed by a woman. I had the passion, local knowledge and appreciation of the luxury clientele. I started with an old laptop and a contact book, but with a vision.”
In March, her company completes five years. She admits to having international celebrities, presidents, film stars and media moguls as clients. She has been consistently recognized as one of East Africa’s leading tourism and conservation strategists.
“What happened to me is magical,” she says.
Rugamba’s company is launching its first custom-built luxury eco-lodge in March and will be rolling out three five-star lodges to the tune of $5.5 million. Her company is also getting into conference tourism in line with Rwanda’s strategy to position itself as a business destination.
All this has meant extensive travel for Rugamba.
“Oh my goodness! I have hardly been in the country these last three months,” she says. But wherever she goes, all roads lead her back home to Rwanda.

Rosette-Rugamba_2037

Harrods, Heathrow, Home

It’s 3AM on a Saturday and Chance Tubane and Patience Nduwawe are stepping it up on the dance floor at K-club, a popular nightspot in Kigali’s upmarket Nyarutarama neighborhood. Tubane and her brother Nduwawe show off some pretty cool dance moves, swaying in blissful abandon, just like the hip, upwardly-mobile Rwandan thirty-somethings around them.
Ten years ago, Tubane would have never imagined this moment possible with her brother. Twenty years ago, Rwanda would have never imagined this moment possible with a young population of genocide survivors. They play hard and work harder.
Along with her brother, Tubane is the founder of Tohoza.com, a successful online classifieds directory in Rwanda that’s now among the country’s top three most popular websites.
Tubane and Rwanda have one thing in common: a story of loss, struggle and triumph. A story that cannot be recounted without returning to 1994, the year the country lost a million of its people to the genocide; the year Tubane thought she had lost her family forever.
She still remembers the murky details of the night of April 6, 1994, the night Rwanda’s Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash, and her father tiptoed into the bedroom and whispered fearfully to his family: “It seems the president’s plane has crashed. Not sure what will happen now.”
Their home in Kacyiru was in the same neighborhood as the Parliament and within minutes of the announcement, was the center stage of the bloody Hutu-Tutsi crossfire that erupted.
“The shootings started right away, we heard people crying and screaming. We put mattresses against the walls and stayed in the corridor of the house,” says Tubane, who huddled with her parents and two brothers, Nduwawe and Confiance. Long moments of silence and despair followed.
“A couple of days later, one of the men came to our door and asked us to run, and I did. I ran to the church nearby, not realizing my family was not with me. I didn’t see them for months after that,” says Tubane.
The imagery continues to haunt her: her 11-year-old self in tattered clothes, looking for family, looking for food, on the run, “skipping countless bodies on the streets”, scenes even a Hollywood film will not be able to capture, says Tubane.
“There were piles and piles of bodies. I don’t know why they spared me. I escaped but thought my family was dead. I could imagine my dad being killed in his pyjamas, Confiance being killed whilst eating, and Patience killed
in silence.”
In reality, and unknown to Tubane then, they had all fled and survived, making the 150-kilometer trip in a pickup truck from Kigali to a relative’s home in Gisenyi, near Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a home overlooking beautiful lakes and hills.
“I hope you were guilty guys. What were you thinking, leaving without me?” Tubane jests with her brother Nduwawe now.
It was a miracle to be reunited with her family in July when a relative found her and took her to them. The family moved to Goma to start anew, but there was more tragedy in store. Tubane’s mother, then 41, died of blood loss following surgery.
Tubane, who was always top of her class in school, was soon dispatched with her godmother, first to Cameroon, then Kenya and Tanzania, and to her aunt’s home in Belgium two years later.
Nduwawe, then 17, stayed on with his father and brother, but in 1996, on his way to Bukavu to take his university exams, was caught up in the violence in the eastern DRC, and was forced to spend nine years in the forest, his whereabouts unknown to his family.
“There were no roads, it was not possible for me to contact anyone, I led the life of a refugee in an equatorial forest,” says Nduwawe.
“I lit candles for nine years, asking the Lord to show us that Patience is alive. My prayers were finally answered,” says Tubane. A relative who had seen him helped track him down and he was able to return home to Kigali.
By then, Tubane had completed a Master’s degree in information technology and communications in Belgium. Smart, spunky and outspoken about women’s empowerment, Tubane is the epitome of the Rwandan woman today. Her brother Nduwawe is quieter in comparison.
After several entrepreneurial attempts, the siblings launched Tohoza in 2011, with only their savings. The website is an online advertising platform to help Rwandans find jobs, sell or rent homes and cars.
“We are determined to make the internet accessible to all Rwandans, including those who don’t have easy internet access and those who are not based in Kigali. We help people grow their business, and in turn, grow Rwanda’s economy,” says Tubane.
The siblings now want to replicate their success in Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania.
“Tohoza means ‘search and find’, like we did in our own life. I literally Tohoza-ed my brother,” laughs Tubane.
There is much they want to do, to change the face of online advertising in Rwanda, and also the perceptions of the country.
“One of the objectives of Tohoza is to tell a positive story, and show the world the new Africa. It is the generation after us that will make Rwanda a beautiful country,” says Nduwawe.
They have also launched a volunteer program where young people acquire practical skills on the field with them. In August last year, Tubane was honored as a young achiever by the Imbuto Foundation, an initiative of Rwanda’s First Lady Jeannette Kagame. Tubane also wants to start a foundation of her own for orphans. She only knows too well what it is like to be one.
“I have been with so many families in so many countries, but I was lucky, and always in good hands. No one harmed me.”
Tubane survived war, strife and separation. She now knows the purpose of this life granted to her.

Through  Hell To Prosperity

Ituze Ndutiye Colombe epitomizes everything Rwanda is today: determined, enterprising and forward-looking.
On weekdays, she works long hours as an ICT trainer in one of Kigali’s top technology firms. By evening, she switches careers, driving her Toyota RAV4 to a small shop run by the Rwanda Nziza craft cooperative in the Kiyovu neighborhood of Kigali where she retails her fashion label INCO Icyusa.
On weekends, she is with her tailors, sketching, sewing and selling. Once she has struck off all the tasks on her to-do list, finally, after dark, she gets to be the 25-year-old she is, listening to Avril Lavigne or partying hard with friends in Kigali’s karaoke pubs.
An artist, fashion designer, technologist and entrepreneur, Colombe says that as a child – ever since she could hold a crayon – she loved to sketch.
“From the beginning, I wanted to draw. In school, I was also interested in physics and technology. I was looking for something that would combine the two,” says Colombe, who now uses multimedia to design her website and clothes.
Colombe launched her label with the meager money she had saved from her day job. She could have asked her mother, a lawyer and her greatest support, for more, but didn’t.
“She would have offered it to me, but I wanted to do this on my own,” says Colombe.
Her father, also a lawyer, had passed away when she was seven. At the age of 12, when Colombe was still considering subjects for secondary school, she was introduced to a Belgian designer who was visiting Rwanda. Colombe was awestruck by her drawings – they were patterns she had never seen. It awakened her sartorial sensibilities, and she tried to learn whatever she could.
“At that point, there were no schools for fashion and design in Rwanda – there still aren’t. And the schools that had these courses were abroad and expensive,” says Colombe.
So, she decided to enrol for her second favorite subject: information technology. As a student, she also made money as a designer. After her bachelor’s degree in December, Colombe signed up with Rwanda Nziza to display and retail her label, consisting of apparel and accessories. She sources her fabric, mostly cotton, from Nairobi. Her designs are Africa-inspired but, as she asserts, not limited to Africa. When we meet her, she is wearing a short funky skirt, featuring African patterns on denim, mixing traditional with contemporary cool.
Next step: she wants to make enough money to open her own store in Kigali. “There is great demand, mostly through custom orders, for good clothing. I want to create simple and beautiful things for people,” says Colombe. She is also striving to promote African heritage and generate job opportunities for women. In 2009, Colombe was the youngest designer at the first Rwanda Fashion Festival. She has recently returned from Washington DC, after a prestigious six-week fellowship with the Young African Leaders Initiative Network.
“I am happy to place Rwanda on the fashion map in my own way,” says Colombe. For a country torn by war in the past, she is one of many entrepreneurs continuing to change its image.

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‘I Wanted To Do This On My Own’

It’s a scenic two-hour drive from Kigali to the rural landscape of Kinazi in Rwanda’s southern province. Being the only journalist in this field mission led by the energetic and dynamic Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, has its advantages.
Firstly, there’s a grand welcome awaiting us at the other end.
Barefoot children and grateful women greet the convoy, erupting in song and dance in pink, yellow and blue costumes that put the beautiful hillsides to shame. The men and infants are huddled under umbrellas in the warm sun, and the women give the occasion “so much zest”, as Mlambo-Ngcuka later says.
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In Kinazi, UN Women partners with Terimbere Mutegarugori, a cooperative bringing together 93 women from various backgrounds to enable them to financially support themselves and their families through agricultural initiatives.
This group is one of 11 cooperatives supported through the Imali Project, meaning ‘wealth’. Currently, they are being given seed money, modern greenhouses and training to increase tomato and mushroom production. This project is financed through core funding to UN Women, from the Government of Korea and in partnership with the Imbuto Foundation, headed by Rwanda’s First Lady Jeannette Kagame.
That the Rwandan government is committed to gender promotion is evident even in this tiny village.
Women are an unprecedented 63.8% of Rwanda’s parliament. Yet, there is need to ensure they are given skills to generate daily income, develop a savings mindset, upgrade their skills and sustain their communities.
As Mlambo-Ngcuka tours the greenhouse inspecting rows and rows of red, juicy tomatoes, soon to be sold to the market, the farmers around her swell with pride. This project has changed their lives.
In just two years of operation, the results are there to see. Members are using the money to pay the children’s school fees, and have also opened savings accounts to transition to the next level of empowerment.
“Food is a woman’s issue. It’s your responsibility to make sure the nation is well-fed, to make sure that out of the good land, you also have opportunities. You feed your children and yourself and you also come here to generate the surplus to sell, and [you get] income. You have done well,” said Mlambo-Ngcuka in her address to them.
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“We should also remember the other cooperatives and the 11 greenhouses spread throughout Rwanda. Together you can create a critical mass and take charge of the market. Sitting in New York, I should be able to eat a tomato from Imali. I want to be in South Africa, and eat a tomato from Imali,” she said.
Truly, you help a woman, you help the world.

Tomatoes From  Kinazi To New York

It’s a late afternoon in May and Jean de Dieu Kagabo is sitting, not in his airconditioned office, but on the steps of his two-storied factory in Kigali’s sprawling new industrial park. He gazes at the rolling green hills in front of him. It truly is a pretty panorama – Rwanda’s bountiful and verdant landscape.
Train the lens on Kagabo and his picture is impressive too: a successful, strapping young businessman in his shiny new office premises. Look closer and another layer emerges: a young man lost in thought, his silence impregnable.
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When he finally speaks, it’s with emotion.
“No one from the outside can feel the pain on our behalf. No one can feel the pain of the Rwandans more than us [Rwandans],” says Kagabo, the 34-year-old founder and director of Soft Group, a consumer goods company that started with manufacturing toilet tissues and is one of Rwanda’s most successful SMEs today.
“We have seen the reality, we live in the reality, we know where we came from, we know where we are and we have hope for the future,” he says, summing up Rwanda in one breathless sentence.
Kagabo was in Ndera, on the outskirts of Kigali, during the 1994 genocide, when his father was among the one million Rwandans killed. He does not want to revisit the pain that followed, but says it turned him – the happy-go-lucky 14-year-old that he was – into a man overnight. The memories of those 100 gruesome days still make him uncomfortable.
“My father had a petrol and transport business that was doing very well, but after he died, we lost everything. Even paying school fees became difficult. I shouldered responsibilities from a very young age,” he says.
Kagabo had no option but to finish high school and think of ways to make ends meet. His older brother had mismanaged much of his father’s fortune. With a capital of $3,000, Kagabo started out by importing cars from Dubai to Kigali, selling them for a profit in the local market. He then attempted to revive his father’s petrol station business. He was too young to convince the companies he approached for fuel and credit, but he presented them with business proposals and succeeded. He moved to Uganda to broaden his market, but that’s when his mother died, and he became a guardian to his two younger sisters. He had no option but to return to Kigali.
At the time, there was a new buzzword in Rwanda – China. He took advice from a friend who had studied in China and decided to head to this new land of opportunity. He picked up a few words in Mandarin and was soon on the plane to Guangzhou.
“China was advertising in Rwanda in the early 2000s. I didn’t know what I would do when I got off the plane in China. I knew I was taking a big risk,” he says.
Kagabo attended trade fairs while there. That’s when he saw opportunity in manufacturing fast-moving consumer goods and started looking for the right machinery.
In 2008, with $20,000 from his savings, he set up a small rented office overlooking a scrapyard in Kicukiro in Kigali. This is where he has been since, only recently moving to the industrial park.
He decided to provide Rwandans with the goods they needed every day, and started by manufacturing toilet tissues, eventually diversifying to kitchen towels, shampoos, soaps and sanitary napkins.
Kagabo says it took a while for his business to become profitable. It was not easy and he had to keep reinvesting. His target was the low-end mass market, the small groceries, retailers, hospitals and schools in Rwanda and the rest of East Africa.
At his new warehouse in Kigali’s industrial hub of Masoro, diligent staff test-run new imported machines that roll out reams of toilet paper.
“I bought my own factory. There was nothing here [in the new industrial area] two years ago. The Rwandan government is a gift from God,” he says.
With its new investor-friendly policies, Kagabo sees plenty of business opportunities in revitalized Rwanda.
Kagabo has invested $1.2 million in a new recycling plant for producing biodegradable woven plastic bags for farmers and manufacturers to pack farm produce. The new facility overlooks his factory, on one of the hills.
“Rwanda is encouraging agricultural businesses and they all need packaging. There is a big market for woven plastic bags,” he says.
Kagabo also says his company is the only one manufacturing drinking straws in Rwanda, and has been doing so for the last three years.
“Traditionally, Rwandans used natural straws, but these were considered unhygienic and the government banned them. People saw it as a problem; I saw it as an opportunity,” he says.
Be it tissues or straws, Kagabo feels it’s all about changing mindsets.
“The leadership is taking the time to educate people. The government is encouraging Rwandans to improve their hygiene and it has worked,” says Kagabo.
Kagabo has done well for himself. He lives in an upscale gated community in Kagugu; prized real estate in Kigali, drives a Mercedes ML350 and parties in Kigali’s nightclubs, mostly at the Legacy Lounge at the Hotel des Mille Collines by Kempinski.
He says he continues to look after his sisters, funding their education. One of them is a student of psychology in Brussels and the other is studying public relations in South Africa.
“I will feel settled only once they are settled,” says the still-single Kagabo.
Recognition has also come his way. In 2011, the Rwanda Development Board honored him with the Young Entrepreneur of the Year and Best SME in General Manufacturing awards.
“My company is still small, but my ambition is to help my country’s economy grow and be a part of its progress. I am grateful I have come this far through hard work.”
Like many in his country, Kagabo struggles to put his traumatic past behind him, but his success in rebuilding his life has seen him become a role model for Rwanda’s youth.

Tag: Kigali

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