A landlocked country in East Africa, Rwanda lies just south of the Equator. Practically invisible on a map of Africa, it measures about 10,170 sq. mi., making it slightly smaller than Massachusetts – and less than 1/14 the size of Montana! Rwanda is home to about 10.7 million people and is the most densely-populated country in Africa. Population density may become an even bigger problem in the future, considering that Rwanda has the world’s 14th-highest population growth rate.
Ruanda-Urundi (present-day Rwanda and its neighbor to the south, Burundi) was a German colony from 1884 until the end of World War I, when Germany lost all of her colonies in Africa (including present-day Togo and Cameroon in West Africa, Tanzania in East Africa, and Namibia in Southwest Africa). In accordance with a League of Nations Mandate, Rwanda and Burundi became Belgian colonies (joining Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgium’s only other former colony in Africa). Rwanda attained independence from Belgium in 1962, and Grégoire Kayibanda became the first President of independent Rwanda.
The most pivotal point in Rwanda’s history since independence was, of course, the 1994 genocide, which has been documented in a host of books and movies. In the years since, Rwanda made tremendous strides in development and governmental accountability.
Despite its recent progress, though, Rwanda still faces a number of development challenges, ranking 167 out of 182 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index. As is most African countries, health problems in Rwanda include HIV/AIDS, malaria, and typhoid. Rwanda’s women also face a number of reproductive health issues. Further, the average woman here has over five children, and the country’s infant mortality rate is 67.18 deaths per 1,000 live births (compared with 6.22 in the U.S.). Rwanda is also, of course, plagued by poverty – a majority of the population lives below the national poverty line of 250 Rwandan francs (approximately US$0.43) per day. As 80 percent of Rwanda’s population lives in rural areas, the majority of Rwandans work primarily in agriculture. The country’s primary crops are coffee, tea, and plantains, and its main resources are gold, iron ore, tungsten ore, and methane. Rwanda’s biggest earner, though, is its currently thriving tourism industry, which rests largely on opportunities for gorilla trekking.
President Paul Kagame, leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, has been in power since 2000. The country’s next Presidential election will occur this August. The government is extremely decentralized. Rwanda has five provinces, or intare - North, South, East, West, and Kigali City. Each province is divided into six districts (akarere), each district has about 12 sectors (umurenge), each sector has about eight cells (akagari), and each cell has about 7 villages (umugudugu). Each of these levels has an elected or appointed leader, all of whom are paid by the government, except the village leader, who is a volunteer. On a somewhat unrelated note, Rwanda’s Parliament is over half women!
Rwanda is currently in the process of changing its official language. Until last summer, the country had three official languages – Kinyarwanda, French, and English – but English was spoken very little. Last year, however, the government decided to drop French as an official language and switch everything to English. (See this Christian Science Monitor article for a discussion of why.) Where most education and government business used to occur in French, everything now occurs in English. This presents huge challenges, because few people in Rwanda speak fluent English. It’s hard to say what effects this change will ultimately have, but it will certainly be interesting to see! Meanwhile, Rwanda has obtained membership in the East African Community (made up of exclusively English-speaking countries) and the Commonwealth (making it one of just two Commonwealth members without a British colonial background).
Anyway, that’s Rwanda in a nutshell!
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