The best way to experience Rwanda’s business environment is to take a walk up Kigali’s immaculate central business district (CBD) or down the small shopping streets of Kacyiru.
The ‘land of a thousand hills’, with its sprawling green valleys and vistas, has seen many ups and downs in its history, but this is a nation visibly on the move – more construction cranes the size of skyscrapers, more global hotel brands setting up, and a classy convention center that lights up the night sky in rainbow colors.
Beneath this veneer is a hardworking young population eager to be protagonists of their country’s progress.
At the Union Trade Centre, a popular hub for young coffee-lovers and mall-hoppers in Kigali’s CBD, Mois, an entrepreneur in his mid-20s running a shop selling African bric-a-brac, welcomes you with a smile that makes the afternoon sun pale in comparison.
He points to his gleaming jewelry collection – contemporary pieces made out of what looks like brass, but isn’t.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2018/03/26/heroes-in-the-sky/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Heroes In Rwanda&#8217;s Sky</a>
Mois makes them himself, out of used padlocks from the scrapyard, and old coins, which he melts and upcycles into jewelry. His creations are in demand in the US and the Netherlands, he says.
A qualified civil engineer, he has more knowledge about alloys and metals than most jewelers.
“I have a proper professional degree,” says the unassuming Rwandan. “But what I do now is my passion, one that makes me money, and helps the co-operatives I work with.”
<div id="attachment_35731" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35731" class=" wp-image-35731" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Mois-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="400" />Mois (Photo by Irankunda Yves Jean Sauveur)</div>
While the country records growth of 8%, it’s this spirit of “not just money, but meaning” that echoes through the contoured landscapes of Kigali.
In the heart of Kacyiru, down KG 5 Avenue, are more examples of small, medium and micro enterprises – one-storied shops that have survived for decades.
From a 71-year-old grandmother who helms a grocery store to the starry-eyed salesgirl selling cheap moccasins, and charming salons, gaming bars, resto-bars and Afro-chic boutiques, the street is a smorgasbord of experiences and a subset of Rwanda’s informal economy.
Off the same street and on to a dirt road, we meet Jacques Nkinzingabo, a “street photographer” sporting dreadlocks and a hat. The red-brick building we meet in has a large exhibition space out at the back by a patch of lawn where Sawa, Nkinzingabo’s adorable German Shepherd pup, is goofing around.
On the studio’s white walls are numerous photographs recording Rwandan life.
Nkinzingabo was born a week before the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, and as a photographer, wants to now portray “new Rwanda” to the world. His visitors are mostly tourists who book on vayando.com, to meet with the country’s skilled entrepreneurs, instead of visiting the standard tourist attractions.
“The image that tourists have of this country is Hotel Rwanda,” says Nkinzingabo, referring to the hit 2004 film on the Rwandan genocide.
“But I want to reframe the country to show where we come from; I want to show them how we live, dress, cook and lead our daily lives.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2013/10/01/rwanda-inc-rules-land-thousand-cranes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Rwanda Inc. Rules In The Land Of A Thousand Cranes</a>
Since signing up with Vayando over two years ago, Nkinzingabo says it has helped him connect with tourists and locals. He makes about $300 a month on average through this partnership.
Scott Wilhelm, Vayando’s co-founder, is an American who has been in Kigali three years now. A social entrepreneur from Chicago, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in El Salvador until 2006.
With his business partner Jason Seagle, he set up Vayando, “a tool for curious travelers and a marketplace for entrepreneurs”. Rwanda appealed to them for its “stability, security and progressive approach”.
Tourists, mostly from America and Europe, book the experience online, at about $100 per customizable experience, and meet at the Kigali city centre – “by the elevator outside of Nakumatt”.
“We take them to places they wouldn’t go, to neighborhoods within the labyrinth close to town. These are people looking for meaningful experiences,” says Wilhelm.
<div id="attachment_35732" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35732" class=" wp-image-35732" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Jacques-Nkinzingabo-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Jacques Nkinzingabo (Photo by Irankunda Yves Jean Sauveur)</div>
Those like Nkinzingabo are a part of Vayando’s trusted network of entrepreneurs.
“Jacques sets the price and gets 100% of what he asks for. We add 30% for our charges. It’s an alternative revenue stream for entrepreneurs and primarily, a networking opportunity,” says Wilhelm.
“We drive bookings to entrepreneurs… we want them to have a 13th month of income.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/03/15/something-to-wine-about-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Something To Wine About</a>
A short drive away is the bustling Gisozi, and the assaulting smell of wood and paint – this is the area that sells woodwork, construction materials and hardware.
<div id="attachment_35733" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35733" class=" wp-image-35733" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Irenee-Gumyushime-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="450" />Irenee Gumyushime (Photo by Irankunda Yves Jean Sauveur)</div>
As you walk up an uneven road, with deep tyre marks in the mud, you pass cows and curious onlookers. This is the rustic route Vayando customers take to meet Irenee Gumyushime, known as ‘Magic Hands’ in these parts.
There are broken pieces of glass and wood shavings on his dusty shop floor. Gumyushime is crafting a bed out of pinewood. He acquired a diploma in civil engineering but chose to be a carpenter.
“They say I touch the wood and it turns to wonder,” beams Gumyushime. He can speak English which is a boon for Vayando’s overseas customers wanting to hear about the 29-year-old entrepreneur’s life.
“This shop mainly caters to expatriates,” he says. “They bring their own ideas and I customize furniture for their spaces. I get to meet international tourists, and make some money on the side. They learn from me; I learn from them.”
Walking back to the city center, more heartening stories unravel along the way, even as Rwanda’s informal economy winds down after a long, productive day.

Land Of A Thousand Ideas

At this year’s <a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/03/13/africa-left-cold/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">World Economic Forum in Davos</a>, Rwanda featured prominently for its drone technology, especially for its delivery of blood supplies to its rural areas.
The small East African nation was praised for being the first country in the world to adopt performance-based regulation for drones, which includes policies for safety, innovation and approvals.
Most would imagine that a small emerging land locked economy would have far more pressing priorities than drone technology, an element of the fourth industrial revolution which is still in concept phase in most developed countries, but they would be wrong.
The country is using it as an opportunity to address age old struggles, such as preventable deaths like postpartum bleeding.
Regulation, however, is not Rwanda’s first global milestone with drone technology. In October 2016, the country was the first in the world to commercially launch and use drones to deliver medical supplies.
To understand this development, one has to travel to Muhanga, a small town in Rwanda’s Southern Province, which hosts the country’s ‘drone port’.
On a cloudy Thursday afternoon in January, a remotely-piloted buzzing drone flies low above Ruhango District Hospital, in Muhanga, drops a red package on the lawn and takes to the skies again.
The hospital’s patients are not surprised by the low-flying drone; they are accustomed to such occurrences. A nurse rushes out of the nearby consultation waiting area, picks up the package and makes his way back to the patients.
Earlier in the day, another drone made a similar drop at Kabgayi Hospital, about 30 minutes away. This is how Rwanda’s remote healthcare facilities receive blood supplies in the southern and western parts of the hilly country.
Previously, the delivery of blood supplies from the central National Centre for Blood Transfusion to remote parts of the country took hours, holding up resources and medical staff, and at times forcing them to spend a night in Kigali.
Prior to drones, it took ambulances four hours to transport blood supplies from Kigali to Kabgayi Hospital by road. The ambulance would need to make this trip two to four times a week.
Apart from the difficulties of the road trip, laboratory technicians had to abandon their facilities and patients to process orders of blood supplies. With the adoption of drone technology by the Rwandan government, through a public-private partnership, the process now takes about 30 minutes.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/07/17/mind-blown-drone-160kmh/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Mind Blown By Drone At 160km/h</a>
The innovative initiative was launched in October 2016, following an agreement between the Rwandan government and Zipline, a robotics company in California.
The partnership was one-of-a-kind. Across the world, drones are associated with bombing and spying. In Rwanda, however, drones were a sight for sore eyes as they came with much-needed medical supplies.
To many people, the two partners were underdogs. Zipline was a start-up firm and was yet to commercially roll out the concept, while Rwanda was not renowned for being a global innovation hub.
Keller Rinaudo, the CEO and Co-Founder of Zipline, says they were driven to succeed because of the millions of lives lost across the world due to preventable causes, like excessive blood loss.
<div id="attachment_35690" style="width: 313px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35690" class=" wp-image-35690" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Zipline-300x278.jpg" alt="" width="303" height="281" />Zipline co-founders Keller Rinaudo (left) and Will Hetzler at the launch of the firm&#8217;s operations in Muhanga (Photo by Faustin Niyigena)</div>
While most countries adopted a wait and see attitude, Rwanda was willing to step up.
“Millions of women across the world die each year due to postpartum hemorrhaging (PPH). In fact, the United States has the highest rate of maternal death due to PPH in the industrialized world. It&#8217;s a major global problem. Rwanda was the first country in the world to step up and decide that they would tackle it with the most cutting-edge technology available,” says Rinaudo.
As the Rwandan government established regulatory framework to operate drones, Zipline gathered advice from everyone involved, including governmental departments, doctors, nurses, National Centre for Blood Transfusion officials, and laboratory technicians.
“The easy part was building the technology. The hard part was integrating with the national health system,” says Rinaudo.
As Zipline was building an ecosystem for drone technology, the state was looking at the safety and security concerns around the disruptive technology. This resulted in regulations such as seeking clearance from the Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority before taking off, registration of drones, and acquiring flying permits.
These regulations reduce the likelihood of drones being used for illegal activities or interfering with a plane’s flight path.
The hype around the innovative project attracted the attention of international corporations.
UPS, a global logistics firm, and Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), a public-private global health partnership, sought to be involved.
UPS, with an interest in using drones for their own deliveries, supported the initial launch with a grant of $800,000. GAVI was using the project to see if they could use the model elsewhere and improve healthcare across the world.
With a staff of about 50 and a fleet of 15 drones, Zipline has since made over 2,000 deliveries with over a quarter of them saving lives. The company is now looking to double the number of its drones as well as adding more advanced drones to its fleet.
“Our base in Rwanda has operated with 15 planes. We&#8217;re replacing those aircraft with the next generation and will soon begin flying 30 drones from each base we operate,” says Rinaudo.
This is welcome news for Rwandans, like Esperanza Ugirambabazi, who needed a transfusion when giving birth to her son at Kabgayi Hospital. In about 30 minutes, this was made possible because of one of the drones.
Another young mother from the same district tells of her months-old son who had malaria and urgently needed a blood transfusion. He is alive today because of the drone delivery.
The success of the project has led to a second phase starting in the eastern part of Rwanda, as well as demand for the service in other African countries.
“We&#8217;re in the process of setting up a second base in Rwanda to serve the rest of the country, bringing all 11 million citizens within a reach of this lifesaving technology. We&#8217;ll be expanding across Africa and the world this year. Zipline is building an instant delivery service for the planet,” Rinaudo says confidently.
Tanzania, with a neighbor of Rwanda, has expressed demand for the services. In 2017, the country announced that it would launch drone delivery services to provide medical supplies in the first quarter of 2018.
The Tanzanian Ministry of Health ambitiously intends to make up to 2,000 deliveries a day to over 1,000 facilities across the country, targeting about 10 million people. The country has already established regulatory framework for the technology.
<div id="attachment_35691" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35691" class=" wp-image-35691" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/A-drone-on-a-ramp-ready-to-take-off-from-Muhanga-Drone-Port-in-Southern-Province-of-Rwanda.-Faustin-Niyigena-300x208.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="346" />A drone ready to take off from Muhanga drone port in Rwanda&#8217;s Southern Province (Photo by Faustin Niyigena)</div>
For Rwanda, the success of the partnership with Zipline is just the start.
Rwanda’s Minister of Information Technology and Communication Jean de Dieu Rurangirwa says that the country is creating an enabling environment for further deployment of drone technology.
Beyond regulation, the government has been mulling plans to build capacity among emerging techies to increase the number of players in the sector.
“Building on the success of Zipline’s blood delivery technology, we are working to nurture a drone industry. As we look to the future, we will continue to put in place the infrastructure and policy frameworks that accelerate the adoption of emerging technologies to transform people’s lives,” says Rurangirwa.
“We are also establishing capacity-building programs to invest in local talent and leverage public-private partnerships to lay the groundwork for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2015/10/01/something-to-drone-about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Something To Drone About</a>
Already, other sectors have been working around incorporating the technology in their line of work.
In Musanze District, in the Northern Province, a pilot test phase is underway to introduce drone technology for potato crop monitoring, involving around 20 farming cooperatives. This will monitor for pests and diseases, which could boost crop harvests.
There are also conversations about introducing drones in the famous Akagera National Park to combat poaching.
With the new regulations in place, small businesses and entrepreneurs are finding ways to make the most of the technology. Local photographers, for example, are in the process of acquiring drones so their services can include aerial photography.
Renowned British architect Norman Foster is another who has been quick to take advantage. His firm, Foster + Partners, has expressed interest in building the world’s first drone port in the country.
Rwanda’s approach and progress in drone technology is seen as a model for other countries in the region.
“The government of Rwanda’s leadership in co-designing agile policy frameworks around the use of drones could be a model for other countries that want to accelerate adoption of this game-changing technology,” says Murat Sonmez, Head of the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, based in San Francisco.
Rwanda may be a small country, but it’s taking giant strides.
&nbsp;
&#8211; By Collins Mwai

Heroes In The Sky

For much of 2017, two of Africa’s biggest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, have struggled. Nigeria is only just stuttering out of a recession, while South Africa’s economy has just returned to stability following several quarters of turbulence. Against this background, there is a need to ponder the implications of such periods of economic turbulence for entrepreneurs in these countries.
I have always said that Africa is the business frontier of the future, the market that holds out the most promise for investors. However, in Nigeria, where the bulk of my business takes place, I have watched entrepreneurs struggle since our economy took a dip. I have seen promising businesses closed down. Some of these could have survived if there were avenues for entrepreneurs from different African states to exchange ideas and collaborate.
As an entrepreneur that operates a real estate business in Nigeria and South Africa, I have never found a more important moment to reflect on my own experience, and to highlight how a transnational collaborative platform can offer entrepreneurs from these two African economic powerhouses an opportunity for substantive engagement.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/09/13/tech-can-close-gap-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: How Tech Can Close The Gap In Africa</a>
I have come to appreciate the peculiarities of the Nigerian and South African business environments, with each presenting their own challenges and opportunities.
In Nigeria, I have to rely on wealthy individuals to pay the full sum on any of my buildings. Yet, in South Africa, anyone with a good credit rating can acquire a payment plan and get backing from a financial institution.
In Nigeria, the challenge of not having a reliable and standardized database system and inability of banks to offer a payment plan for clients makes it harder to trade a property. It also means that more Nigerians were willing to pay a full once-off sum.
The downside, however, is that when there is slow growth in the economy, fewer people buy properties. With a payment plan, there could be adjustments that allow them to continue the financing, or in the worst-case scenario where they cannot make payments, the bank repossesses. Either way, the entrepreneur’s business is never in serious jeopardy.
I feel that many businesses in Nigeria would’ve survived the country’s economic stutters if opportunities for a payment plan existed. Invictus Real Estate, for example, has like many other Nigerian businesses suffered the pinch of the time. The company had to rely on its energy offering, Invictus Energy, to weather the storm.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/01/19/nigeria-needs-new-national-carrier/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Why Nigeria Needs A New National Carrier</a>
Meanwhile, uncertainties about the South African economy have led to a lack of confidence from entrepreneurs to start new ventures. But there is no entrepreneurship if one isn’t prepared to take some risks. What these periods of economic volatility emphasize is the need for a platform for entrepreneurs to cross-pollinate ideas and enrich each other’s perspective.
The transnational entrepreneurship collaboration would set the agenda for a promising Rwandan entrepreneur to learn about the resilience of their Nigerian counterpart; the Nigerian entrepreneur would be able to tap into the experience of their South African colleagues in attracting venture capitalists, and so on. Each would bring their knowledge, experiences and expertise to bear. With this, there is an opportunity for important ideas to be shared and joint ventures to happen. The Forbes Under 30 Summit in Israel in April introduced me to forward thinking young entrepreneurs. One in particular was interested in doing business in Nigeria, and we discussed establishing a joint venture. Unfortunately, we discovered that the Nigerian Central Bank had imposed restrictions on outbound dollar transactions, making it difficult for foreign firms to repatriate their profits.
This could have proven an end to our project until I suggested that there might be a way to establish the venture with my company in South Africa. But, if I had no registered company in South Africa, wouldn’t it have been an opportunity to pitch the venture with a South African who would also take into account my own interest? This would be some of the opportunities a transnational entrepreneurial collaboration would create.
The time to create a transnational collaborative platform for African entrepreneurs, one that provides a guided approach for sustained collaboration, is now.
This transnational collaboration would guarantee a broadening and enriching of the imagination of the African entrepreneur. It would free the African entrepreneur from the shackles of borders, time and space. It would redefine business for the African entrepreneur. &#8211; Written by Obinwanne Okeke

Tear Down Africa’s Walls

It was a gamble that paid off, 8,500 kilometers away from their comfort zone.
Two 21-year-old fashion students, Inés Mille and Marc Collines, left the hallowed hallways of fashion in Barcelona and with just $9,000 in their pockets, traveled all the way to East Africa to set up shop in little-known Kigali in Rwanda, which at the time was building itself – a fully-fledged fashion industry was not yet on its radar.
&#8220;Rwanda. It’s where our heart is. It’s where the soul of this company is. It’s where we were born and where everything happened,&#8221; says Mille.
Eight years on, Mille Collines, the brand she built with Collines from Kigali, is a million-dollar fashion line that can spotted on the runways of Lagos and Cape Town. Now 32, Mille looks back at the memory with a smile.
&#8220;The obliviousness, the ignorance. We were mad and we were so young and we were so crazy. So we said we can do this.&#8221;
Mille sits in her home in Tamboerskloof, Cape Town, among inspiring pictures of fashion models on runways, African sculptures from her travels and intricate bookshelves. Naturally, it is the epitome of one conscious of subtle African style – much like her work.
Her story goes back to a time when she was young and fresh in fashion school in Barcelona. It was 2005 and Mille was traveling in Rwanda with her mother&#8217;s NGO looking for outreach programs to sponsor. Here, she met a seamstress named Antoinette, who trained women and kids to sew.
&#8220;She said ‘you are a fashion designer. You have no idea of the handcraft skills we have here, if only you can put your brain in design and their handcraft skills together, it would be incredible’,&#8221; says Mille.
The idea hit home. A year later, and in her final year of design, Mille thought it would make the perfect thesis. She decided to travel to Kigali and pursue Antoinette&#8217;s suggestion. Along with her came Collines, who at the time was at another school and also looking for a project.
&#8220;The funny story is when I went [to Kigali], there was huge resistance from my tutors and the board of teachers at my college. They said ‘there was absolutely no ways you are going to Africa to do a collection where there is no infrastructure. How are you going to make garments in Africa, they don&#8217;t even dress in clothes’&#8230; I was at a progressive design school in Barcelona. They were afraid that just because I went there and worked with poor people, I would come back with a sh***y collection. That was the spark,&#8221; says Mille.
A 50% mark prompted Mille to move to the heart of Africa. They took with them $9,000 in savings and set up shop in Kigali where they developed their first collection, in partnership with Antoinette. At the time, Mille recalls there was no infrastructure for fashion in Rwanda whatsoever. They had to start from the ground up looking for people to work with.
&#8220;Many people thought, &#8216;where are they going? Are they going to be able to do anything in Kigali? Is there even fashion there?'&#8221;
<div id="attachment_34613" style="width: 273px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34613" class="size-medium wp-image-34613" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Mille-Collines_JC-5-263x300.jpg" alt="" width="263" height="300" />Mille&#8217;s first designer diary. (Photo by Jay Caboz)</div>
One of her prized possessions from this time lies on the stone table in front of her – their first designer diary. Kigali springs to life and Mille&#8217;s eyes light up as she fingers the pages recalling drawing African masks and collecting slivers of material from the markets.
&#8220;There were informal collectives of women around the country, which were amazing and very well organized, they&#8217;d been doing handcraftsmanship for a long time&#8230; Initially, we tried to think everything is going to be coming from Rwanda. If it was textiles, it was found in the markets with a few wholesalers here and there. Obviously, it was challenging.
&#8220;I remember some women were doing baskets and I said ‘do just flat disks’. They said what for? I said we&#8217;re going to do necklaces. They went crazy over the idea. They then started doing their own earrings and selling them in the market. They were everywhere from corporate to home. It was the thing to have in Rwanda,&#8221; says Mille.
Their ticket to success was blending the creativity, strength and culture of the African spirit with ever-evolving global trends.
&#8220;There was a lot of intrigue. Nobody was doing this in Rwanda. No other brand existed that had taken handcrafted skills, redone it and made a contemporary product. We were some of the first ones to do it. It sparked a number of other brands to follow,&#8221; says Mille.
The team moved in to Kenya, casting their net in Nairobi. The demand was high and four more stores followed. It wasn&#8217;t always easy – a store on the coast of Kenya and a store in South Africa failed because they didn&#8217;t catch the right market.
&#8220;We were opening the door to the African clothing market&#8230; We thought if we sell abroad with all our challenges we already have, in terms of logistics, in terms of quality, we needed to align our market. We are producing in Africa; it makes sense to sell in Africa and make this product African.&#8221;
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/10/06/fashion-operation-theater/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Fashion in The Operation Theater?</a>
Along with the birth of Mille Collines grew the fully-fledged fashion atelier, which is owned and operated by the Kigali team that helped build Mille Collines.
&#8220;It was the hardest moment in the company. We needed to hand over the workshop to the team in Rwanda. They were prepared. We needed to transfer it and move away from production and focus on distribution and design. Otherwise we couldn&#8217;t grow further. It took one-and-a-half years. We sold it to the Kigali team for $1. The employees all have a stake. Rwanda is not in our core business, it&#8217;s became an actual supplier.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_34612" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34612" class=" wp-image-34612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Mille-Collines_KatGrudko_Shot01-433-e1512375288376-300x200.jpg" alt="Mille Collines" width="500" height="333" />Mille Collines on the catwalk. (Photo by KatGrudko)</div>
Now their journey has taken them to Cape Town and the house we sit in. Their team is here to begin the next step of their journey.
Mille wants to see their clothes hang in major retail stores across the continent and hopefully take an even larger chunk of Africa’s dynamic fashion industry.
&#8220;I was the first one to land in Cape Town in 2015. We had to start from ground zero. We had participated in fashion weeks, so people kind of knew us. Our main market it still Kenya. But we&#8217;ve been building relationships with suppliers in Cape Town.&#8221;
As the company expands, Mille has shifted to purchasing textiles because it&#8217;s cheaper. They are also looking to the likes of Mauritius and Madagascar for textiles once their orders get larger.
&#8220;You need to find who is better for what. When we left Rwanda, that&#8217;s what happened, we became more pan-African. We only produce in Africa.&#8221;
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/09/14/from-pizzas-to-pizzaz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: From Pizzas To Pizzaz</a>
The company has even expanded in ways they didn&#8217;t expect. Without owning a store or being on the shelves of retail outlets, Mille says South Africa is their second largest customer. This is because of online sales and a strong presence on Instagram.
&#8220;Instagram is the strongest source for us. We make sales on it. I think it’s because it’s a visual platform. Instagram is my baby. It&#8217;s difficult to delegate. How can I explain to someone that an image is not Mille Collines? It&#8217;s very tangible, either you feel it or you don&#8217;t. We go a lot with how people react when we put images up.&#8221;
The brand’s attention to detail and passion for telling beautiful stories continues.
Mille&#8217;s clothes have been worn, she says, by the likes of Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, Hollywood actress Lupita Nyong&#8217;o and journalist Mélanie Gouby.
<div id="attachment_34614" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34614" class=" wp-image-34614" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Mille-Collines_JC-3-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="450" />Inés Mille in her Mille Collines studio in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Jay Caboz)</div>
It&#8217;s a brand for the African woman.
&#8220;She is a mother, an entrepreneur, an individual. She is alive with bursts of color and print and grounded in muted tones of Africa&#8217;s landscape.
“In a world where differences are increasingly emphasized and where people are divided and separated, it seemed fitting to celebrate the rich beauty that comes from combining many different influences. We wanted to celebrate the fact that, despite parochial thinking in some quarters, the world is becoming more of a mélange every day,” says Mille.
&#8220;I never dreamed I&#8217;d open a business in Africa. Not a business in fashion, never. My father was a businessman and my mother was passionate about Africa. I said I was going to be a vet. I loved the fact that [fashion] is a business and art. It&#8217;s a space where it meets in the middle. It&#8217;s very commercial and it’s very challenging and very interesting.&#8221;
For Mille, Africa is the muse that keeps on giving.

From Mille To A Million

The long delayed signing of a new trade agreement with the European Union further exposes the chaotic state of integration within the East African Community (EAC) bloc.
The pact, known as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), was originally set for ratification on October 1, 2016, but, five months later, that is still to happen.
The impasse has split the EAC bloc. While Kenya and Rwanda signed the agreement in September last year, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi are yet to do so, citing the need for more time to analyse the deal.
The stance taken by Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi means that the pacts signed by Kenya and Rwanda are inconsequential – a new agreement with the EU must be endorsed as a bloc.
Tanzania’s President John Magufuli and his Uganda counterpart l have remained vocal against a rushed deal with EU, even as Kenya’s frustrations deepened given the risks of not concluding a deal with Europe.
“It is better if the signing of the deal is shelved until further consultations are made,” Museveni told a media briefing while on a state visit in Tanzania at the end of February.
Kenya stands to lose the most if the deal falls through. The other EAC member states – Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda – would continue to get duty- and quota-free access under the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative, since they are classified as the least developed countries.
This whole quandary shows how shallow the EAC integration has been, despite the bloc attaining the critical customs union status way back in 2005 and a common market in 2011. Integration goes beyond just having such structures; other aspects, such as trust and solidarity, are critical to moving things forward.
A review of recent key events in East Africa reveals massive levels of negative rivalry and mistrust which doesn’t augur well for the bloc. Things have not been well since 2013 when Tanzania fell out with Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda following the formation of their short-lived ‘coalition of the willing’, ostensibly to push for faster integration.
The now collapsed initiative was a terrible diplomatic mistake by Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya because it weakened the spirit of consensus and teamwork in the bloc. Since then, the chaos and mistrust triggered by this wild experiment has been evident in key issues involving the bloc. For instance, a new infrastructure and energy partnership between Tanzania and Uganda has left Kenya frothing at the mouth, especially after Kampala pulled out of an initial deal to build a joint crude pipeline with Kenya in favor of a route through Tanzania.
Kenya clearly feels slighted by the latest dalliance between Dar es Salaam and Kampala as was shown during the recently held election of a new chairperson of the African Union Commission. When Kenya’s candidate in the elections, Amina Mohamed, was defeated, Nairobi promptly pointed accusing fingers at Tanzania and Uganda for allegedly sabotaging its efforts to clinch the position it had highly campaigned for. Both Tanzania and Uganda denied the claims.
“Uganda wishes to state categorically that our support to the candidature of Amina before and during elections was unequivocal. Uganda wishes to reassure the government and the people of Kenya, and Amina in particular, that we remain a reliable ally and partner given our warm and close relations and our commitment to the EAC integration,” Uganda’s Foreign Affairs ministry said in response to Kenya.
Tackling the mistrust and clandestine power rivalry will be critical in putting the EAC back on a clear path to full integration which would help address challenges such as those being experienced in the elusive EPA deal. The big brother syndrome has no place in regional integration and all partners must inculcate a spirit of comradeship to excel.
Kenya and Rwanda must not been seen to be bulldozing the rest to sign a pact with Europe. Their decision to sign the deal ahead of the rest sent the wrong signal to other EAC partners who read mischief in the whole process.
Concluding the deal with Europe is critical for the EAC as it would help settle anxiety among investors. Business loathes a vacuum and efforts must be made to clear all hurdles to find a deal that would be favorable to all.

The Elusive Trade Deal  that split east africa

As you drive past one of the most iconic roundabouts in Rwanda’s capital city Kigali, it’s hard to miss a giant billboard honoring one of the country’s most recent triumphs in sport: the national cricket’s team captain Eric Dusingizimana, who broke a Guinness world record batting non-stop for 51 hours in May 2016. He had trained months on end to accomplish the feat of the ‘longest net session’.
This has made Dusingizimana one of Rwanda’s most recognizable faces but has also brought awareness to a sport few talked about before. Remarkably, cricket is now being hailed as a new cohesive force for a country that has seen one of the world’s greatest human tragedies.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame is all praise for the country’s new hero and his sport.
“The record-breaking feat of endurance recently accomplished by Eric Dusingizimana is a fitting example of the perseverance and determination that characterize the Rwandan people. Sport is a unifying force that builds both individual character and national cohesion and cricket is no exception,” said Kagame.
The president is an ardent lover of sport and one sees him occasionally expressing his views on various sporting disciplines to his million-plus followers on Twitter.
Rwanda reveres football, and has well-entrenched interests in basketball and cycling – the country’s rolling hills are filled with cyclists in colorful gear on Sunday mornings.
And now cricket is also getting its share of the limelight. The sport also has big names supporting it in Rwanda.
Former British prime ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair were famously part of the fundraising drive for the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation, which has now, over the past four years, managed to raise over a million pounds for phase one of a world-class facility for cricket in Rwanda. Blair was present when Dusingizimana broke the world record – he was in Kigali at the time to attend the World Economic Forum on Africa.
After bowling to Dusingizimana on his way to the world record, Blair noted the importance of the sport in a country like Rwanda.
“Cricket is known as a gentleman’s game and one cannot ignore the impact the sport has had in uniting the people of Rwanda,” he said.
The national team’s captain is mighty pleased about the mileage the sport has received since, which in turn helped raise additional funds for the stadium’s construction.
“That was easily the largest crowd I’ve seen at any cricket event in Rwanda and now more people know about the sport,” said the batsman.
<div id="attachment_32156" style="width: 650px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32156" class="wp-image-32156 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/0091.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="640" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0091.jpg 640w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0091-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0091-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0091-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0091-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />Mary Maina, captain of the women&#8217;s cricket team</div>
His accomplishment exemplified the many things the Rwandan people stand for, one of which is the country’s perseverance in rebuilding its economy after the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.
But before Dusingizimana became an overnight celebrity, it was not all rosy for the sport. One would hardly hear cricket mentioned outside its small circle of players and foreign enthusiasts. Newspaper coverage was hard to come by and radio and television did little. This made the task of finding sponsors for the game difficult.
It is partly for this reason that Dusingizimana and Alby Shale, founder and project director of the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation decided to try something different.
Dusingizimana’s record was previously held by an Indian batsman but it was Shale who set out to achieve the first record. As part of the first campaign to raise funds for the sport, Shale had set a new world record batting for 26 hours but this was eventually broken by another Englishman whose record was 48 hours.
“It was at this point that my friends asked if I could do 49 hours but then came an Indian guy who made it 50 hours. That’s when Eric came and started working for the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation and when I suggested it to him, he didn’t think twice.”
Shale’s first interaction with Rwanda came as part of a group of British volunteers who would come to the country every year to work for the Rwandan people.
“My father [Christopher Shale] set up a social action project that would go to Rwanda every year to try and justify why the British government should spend some of its GDP on international aid. I immediately fell in love with the people and saw first-hand how Rwanda was trying to rebuild its community having gone through the horrors of 1994,” says Shale.
It is during this time that he noticed the love the few cricket enthusiasts in the country had for the game.
“After my return to the UK, I started having extensive conversations with some organizations and my father about how cricket is a resource-intensive game and Rwanda was really lacking in facilities, this was ultimately prohibiting their development, that’s when we agreed to set up the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation to help the sport grow in the country.”
Unfortunately for Shale, a few months after setting up the foundation, his father passed away and that’s when it became more obvious he needed to focus on this as part of his legacy.
“I needed to channel my grief and keeping my father’s dream alive was the only thing I could think of. Cricket needed to be taken to the next level and ever since, we’ve been trying to raise funds to try and create the first international cricket stadium in Rwanda.”
The facility will include a cricket square, cricket nets, a maintenance facility and all the equipment needed to maintain the oval to international standards.
The foundation has to now raise a further £250,000 for the construction of a cricket pavilion. Its design will replicate a bouncing cricket ball in a bid to make it look authentic, and complementing Rwanda’s beautiful landscape. The local community will be involved in the construction of the facility.
Just like most development projects in the country, the Rwandan government has had a hand in seeing this dream come alive.
The government, through the Ministry of Sports and Culture, has not only given VAT exemption to the foundation but also provided the land on which the facility is to be built, free of charge.
“Such has been the government’s role in facilitating not only the growth of the sport of cricket but also across other sectors that has seen a whole-scale infrastructure transformation in the country,” Charles Haba, President of the Rwanda Cricket Association, had said in an earlier interview.
The story of Rwanda’s growth over the past 22 years is never complete without the mention of the role its women have played in seeing it come to fruition. Rwanda holds the record for the highest number of women in public office with a 64% representation in parliament.
This empowerment has been reflected across various sectors and the sport of cricket hasn’t been left behind. In its journey towards achieving the dream of a world-class cricket stadium, the national women’s team captain Mary Maina will attempt to set a new world record for the longest net session by a woman.
The feat has never been attempted before and Maina will have to bat for a minimum of 24 hours. A university student, she believes that the growing popularity of the sport among women is a reflection of women’s empowerment in the country. In fact, the growth of women’s cricket in Rwanda has seen it surpass that of international powerhouse India despite the latter having more people supporting it.
“Our leaders have made us believe that a woman’s place can be anywhere. In Rwanda, a woman is not only restricted to the kitchen stereotype, we have been made to believe that we can achieve anything and even be better at most things,” says the 24-year-old.
Clearly, the journey of cricket in Rwanda is not so different from the country’s own growth. They are both setting world records.

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Cricket: Rwanda’s New Unifying Force

The Collective Rwanda (RW) Week of Fashion wrapped up its inaugural edition with a successful press launch, several ‘business of fashion’ seminars and a sparkling evening of runway shows that saw the latest collections from local designers showcased to an array of esteemed guests, including Rwanda’s First Lady, Jeannette Kagame, and her daughter Ange Kagame.
In attendance too was an excited, style-savvy crowd.
In what was a highly-anticipated debut, the fashion event took place at the five-star Kigali Serena Hotel, hosted by Collective RW (a creative collaboration founded in 2015 by the city’s local designers Sonia Mugabo, Teta Isibo, Matthew Rugamba, Linda Mukangoga and Candy Basomingera) in partnership with Journal Rw and national airline RwandAir.
With the aim to promote ‘Made In Rwanda’ fashion and encourage collaboration within the African fashion industry, the week of fashion saw no shortage of contemporary, bold, and colorful collections from all the featured designers, against the backdrop of ‘teamwork makes the dream work’. FORBES WOMAN AFRICA was present too; here’s a report of the highlights:
<h2>Haute Baso</h2>
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Having ventured into the world of fashion precisely because it offers the freedom to transform ideas into pieces that can be shared with an audience, the designers at Haute Baso presented a collection inspired by a book about Rwanda’s military history called Resilience of a Nation. Showcasing women’s wear with simple yet contemporary silhouettes, the resultant collection featured classic military print jackets and tees mixed with stylish, easy ready-to-wear pieces.
Haute Baso’s mission is to translate the passion for art and design into a vehicle for positive change, so highlighting local artisans while promoting job creation particularly for youth and women is important.
“We know that to empower a woman is to empower her community,” says designer Linda Mukangoga. Her belief in the potential of showcasing Rwanda in a global market through fashion and at the same time empowering artisans in the community is what drives this quiet, determined and passionate designer.
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<h2>Sonia Mugabo</h2>
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“If ever there is a market where the fashion world still has potential, it is Africa. I believe it is the right time to change the African narrative and I feel as though it is our creative responsibility to do so,’’ says designer Sonia Mugabo. Following her heart despite being advised to do fashion ‘on the side’, she delivered a SS17 collection featuring bold colors mixed with delightful floral prints and layered ruffles in silhouettes inspired by a refined femininity.
Best known for playing with the perfect mix of vintage and modern design, the brand creates pieces that reflect a documentation of ever-evolving experiences and style.
It represents a collection of memories, of places, people and moments brought to life by #madeinrwanda.
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<h2>Inzuki Designs</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-32142 aligncenter" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Haute-Baso-DSC_3276-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Haute-Baso-DSC_3276-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Haute-Baso-DSC_3276-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Haute-Baso-DSC_3276-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Haute-Baso-DSC_3276.jpg 683w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
Inzuki Designs is best known for its specialized brand of accessories that are globally appealing, African-inspired and Rwandan-made. Presenting bold, mostly-beaded statement pieces on the runway most suitable to a modern-day contemporary style, every product sees authentic design translated into a vibrant and fashionable accessory.
“I team up with numerous local artisans to transcend traditional Rwandan design and seek to customize it into comtemporay design,” says founder and designer Teta Isibo.
In what was unprecedented for a Kigali show, she believes the fashion week went a long way in showing the potential of ‘Made in Rwanda’.
“We are hoping to grow this movement, get more Rwandan fashion designers on board and forge ahead together to take Rwanda fashion global,” she says.
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<h2>House of Tayo</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-32144 aligncenter" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Inzuki-Designs-designer-DSC_3066-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Inzuki-Designs-designer-DSC_3066-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Inzuki-Designs-designer-DSC_3066-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Inzuki-Designs-designer-DSC_3066-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Inzuki-Designs-designer-DSC_3066.jpg 683w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
Designer Matthew Rugamba took his turn showcasing his menswear collection combining touches of bold African patterns and textures on shirts and jackets.
Key items included a new mix of African-inspired print shirts, pocket squares and scarves, with slim fitting pants.
Feeling both relieved and happy after the show, the designer said he believes togetherness will create a difference in Rwanda’s fashion industry, and that being a part of this platform means there is a growing opportunity to share experiences and widen networks, whilst growing together.
The Collective RW Week of Fashion looks set to keep contributing to an already growing conversation about African fashion and talent in Africa and around the world.

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Clothes Encounters  In Kigali

When does a country become synonymous with its community?
Just visit Rwanda on the last Saturday of any month, and you will see it here, in this hilly East African country, where the masses – from ministers to farmers, shopkeepers to entrepreneurs – rub shoulders to become one harmonious, homogeneous entity, laying roads, digging the earth, planting trees, and cleaning gutters and drains, holding broom, shovel and spade.
The only thing that counts is the richness of the earth, the fresh mountain air and a united mission to keep the streets green and immaculately clean as a contribution to nation-building and improving the living conditions of the country’s 11.5 million citizens.
It’s on one such Saturday that FORBES WOMAN AFRICA is invited to travel upcountry to Rwanda’s verdant Rulindo district, past Kigali’s bustling traffic and up the winding roads when the city’s modest skyscrapers appear no match for the country’s magnificent hills.
It’s the day the country observes Umuganda, a home-grown initiative that requires people from all walks of life, villagers and city-folk, to congregate for community work, once a month, from 7AM to 11AM.
Today, most of the action is in this northern province, where schoolgirls in blinding yellow and pink uniforms, rural women in colorful African dresses, and men in gum boots, form neat lines to take their turn planting saplings in the fertile earth.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-32082 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4279-684x1024.jpg" alt="" width="684" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4279.jpg 684w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4279-300x449.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4279-600x898.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4279-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 684px) 100vw, 684px" />
Today, they are also awaiting a special visitor, who will dig the earth with them, under the hot mid-morning sun.
The earth is an apt way to introduce Imbuto Foundation – the word ‘Imbuto’ meaning ‘seed’ or ‘fruit’ in Kinyarwanda, Rwanda’s local language. And the special guest is none other than the President of this foundation, Jeannette Kagame, also the nation’s much-loved First Lady, wife to the country’s dynamic President Paul Kagame.
There is collective silence and adulation when she arrives, wearing denim pants and shirt and a yellow cap, getting to work right away with the shovel. A stone’s throw away, in a classroom, young girls aged 10 to 12 are seated in a circle on straw mats, ready to welcome her.
They call this ‘the circle of friendship’, and around them are their mentors, young women themselves, aged 18 to 25.
Today is also the launch of the third year of Imbuto Foundation’s successful 12+ program in the area.
The program, in line with the national plan under the Ministry of Health, has achieved significant milestones, reaching 52,000 girls nationally over the last two years.
The girls are taught about savings, discipline and confidence, in tandem with Imbuto’s motto to ‘engage, educate and empower’. The 10- to 12-year-olds are also taught about sexual health, ground-breaking by itself, as sex is still a taboo topic in the communities, and the girls are equipped with the knowledge about their bodies early, before they transition to adolescence.
In the classroom, the girls pass around a ‘speaking ball’ to each other, taking turns to voice their opinions in Kinyarwanda. They speak with supreme confidence – unfaltering even in the presence of the First Lady – drawing their hands on the charts in front of them, promising to never break their circle of friendship. Her Excellency listens to them keenly, before they pass the ball to her, and she politely introduces herself.
Her next stop is further down the dirt road, for a community gathering after Umuganda, where she is expected to speak to the thousands gathered on the hills, patiently waiting under cheerful umbrellas for a glimpse of their First Lady.
Greeted with music, ribbons and flowers, there is rapturous applause from the crowd when she arrives. The cool country breeze complements the convivial mood. The district mayor speaks about how the previous phases of the 12+ program have influenced the girls to open bank accounts, start kitchen gardens, and importantly, stay in school.
A 10-year-old girl, Amina Merci Dieu, steps up to the podium to speak about how she built a vegetable garden, sold the vegetables she planted and persuaded her parents to open a savings account. She speaks without fear, walking up to hug the First Lady when she is done.
I am seated next to Assumpta Ingabire, Director General in charge of Local Government Inspection, who was formerly with Imbuto.
“Our First Lady is such an inspiring role model. You can share your problems with her and she always sees things in a positive way,” she says, smiling.
Such memories and milestones are significant as Imbuto celebrates its 15th year in 2016.
“Imbuto does not work in a vacuum, it works in line with national priorities, working with communities. Without our communities, things would have taken forever [to rebuild],” says Sandrine Umutoni, Acting Director General of Imbuto Foundation.
It’s a pertinent point, as the country has had to reconcile and persevere to rebuild itself after the horrific genocide against the Tutsi that killed a million of its people in 1994. The only way it could turn around was by involving its communities.
Imbuto was initially launched as PACFA (Protection And Care of Families against HIV/AIDS) working to help families and genocide survivors with AIDS. It changed its name to Imbuto at the end of 2007 incorporating a holistic model for individual development, focusing mainly on educational projects.
One of Imbuto’s flagship programs is a girls’ education campaign called Best Performing Girls (BPG).
“The girls who graduate from high school get training in IT, and also get laptops, which the First Lady hands out every year in March,” says Umutoni.
“They call her ‘mother’,” she adds. “In Kinyarwanda, when they call a person that, it means the person has accompanied you through difficult challenges, guiding you, counseling you, and providing support at specific moments in your life.”
Imbuto also organizes a Youth Forum Series every year. In addition, the foundation works with 22 cooperatives across 13 districts, introducing women to income-generating vocations. With the money, they pay for school fees and medical insurance and enter new entrepreneurial activities.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-32083 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4402-1024x684.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="684" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4402.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4402-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4402-600x401.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4402-768x513.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
The week that FORBES WOMAN AFRICA is in Kigali to follow the First Lady’s activities, is when the King of Morocco is also visiting, to sign an MoU with Rwanda on specific health and education projects. The Princess of Jordan, Sarah Zeid, is also visiting this week.
In between her packed schedule, the First Lady also attends a meeting with members of the 20-year-old Unity Club that she heads. The club brings together current and former members of cabinet and their spouses to promote unity and reconciliation in Rwanda. They also honor the country’s ‘torch-bearers’ every year in November, for outstanding social service.
The meeting with the Unity Club members, which I am also invited to attend, is at Imbuto’s temporary office in the President’s office complex in Kacyiru. Their office on the same grounds is being renovated. The complex is in a stunning manicured setting with frangipani trees, hibiscus flowers, ferns and foliage.
The First Lady is dressed in a smart beige and black suit and sits at the head of the mahogany table in the meeting room. She listens patiently and intently, speaking softly in Kinyarwanda as the ladies consult the files in front of them. She offers solutions and better approaches for some of the issues raised. It’s an in-depth discussion that goes on for over two hours, the seriousness interspersed at times with jokes by the First Lady – she clearly has an effortless sense of humor.
One of the ladies at the meeting is Radegonde Ndejuru, the First Lady’s advisor, who has been with Imbuto for 10 years now.
“We have a family spirit at Imbuto. Her Excellency is always so respectful. Her text messages to everyone starts with ‘good morning’ or ‘good evening’. We put passion in everything we do as that is the way she does it. She also has a phenomenal memory and shows great attention to detail&#8230; I always ask her: ‘do you sleep enough?’ She is here in the morning, reads a lot and what I admire is she always follows through projects,” says Ndejuru.
In March 2016, at the 5th Kigali International Conference Declaration General Assembly in Algeria, the First Lady was presented an award along with United Nations’ Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in recognition of their contribution to women’s empowerment and their fight against gender-based violence.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-32084 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4533-684x1024.jpg" alt="" width="684" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4533.jpg 684w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4533-300x449.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4533-600x898.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_4533-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 684px) 100vw, 684px" />
Rwanda is a global model for gender equality. The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2016 ranks Rwanda fifth globally for closing the gender gap in various spheres. The country has the highest representation (64%) of women in Parliament.
As part of gender mainstreaming, there is a Gender Monitoring Bureau in every institution in Rwanda, as the country works towards achieving a middle income status by 2020.
The First Lady works with a team of young, spirited, hard-working women, who exemplify the qualities of their leader. It is clear they have a great admiration for her work.
Before we settle for the interview, Mrs Kagame, as she is also called, begins by asking how I am, with a disarming smile. And that aptly sets the tone for the rest of the conversation. It’s easy to see how this mother of four has won the hearts of Rwandans.

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A Day In The Life Of A First Lady

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.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-31961 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Gatare-at-KCC-pic-by-Charles-Mugabe-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Gatare-at-KCC-pic-by-Charles-Mugabe.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Gatare-at-KCC-pic-by-Charles-Mugabe-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Gatare-at-KCC-pic-by-Charles-Mugabe-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Gatare-at-KCC-pic-by-Charles-Mugabe-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />
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

It’s a dark and strange way to earn a living – in which you can die. If you survive, it is often prostrate on a pile of pills or swimming in an ocean of alcohol.
It is a painful story for one of Africa’s most accomplished journalists, Angus Shaw, to tell. It is also painful to listen to his excruciating experiences.
“A warzone produces two types of journalistic victims – one is shot at and injured or dies and the other type ends up screwed up in their brains,” says Shaw.
“I realized that you can’t drown your sorrows because your sorrows in most cases have learned how to swim. I try not to worry about things I cannot change and always remember that as a journalist my role is to shed light and not to bring change.”
Shaw had his own fight with alcohol. In covering wars in three decades, he says it was not all gloomy.
<div id="attachment_4869" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4869" class="wp-image-4869 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/006-300x175.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="175" />United Nations media accreditation card, Somalia. Sgt. Rocko who typed it out clearly wasn’t familiar with the first name Angus</div>
“People should know that the African story is not all about wars, poverty and savagery. Journalism for me has been enriching, rewarding, except financially,” he chuckles.
Shaw has been on the frontline in a string of Africa’s nastiest wars: Liberia, Rwanda’s genocide, Ethiopia, Somalia, two wars in Mozambique. In Zimbabwe, the country of his birth, he saw war as both a journalist and a conscript.
The story of the Shaw family is intertwined with a century of tumult in Africa. His grandfather came north from South Africa with the pioneer column in 1890. Settlers were looking for gold and diamonds but ended up farming. Shaw’s grandfather and father prospered in tobacco and lived the life of Riley.
“My father was part of the Salisbury Club and, like many of his peers, he drank hard and worked hard. Due to his drinking lifestyle one day he forgot to come and pick me up from school and only showed up late and drunk.”
Shaw senior also smashed his car into the Salisbury Club, a gentlemen’s club in Harare, after a few drinks with one wheel of his car landing in the hotel lobby. The authorities took his driver’s licence. So, he had to be driven later by his chauffer over 1,500 miles from his Miegunyah farm, 30 kilometers from Harare to Durban, for the Durban July horse race.
Along the way, Shaw’s father put money away for his son to choose between business or school. Shaw chose the latter and went to a minor public school in England.
“After a short stint in the United Kingdom, I returned to Southern Rhodesia, where I would start my journalism career at the Rhodesian Herald in 1970. Those days there were no journalism schools so one had to go for attachment,” he says.
Shaw was soon thrust into reporting the violent bush war leading up to Mozambican independence in 1975. When Samora Machel took over Mozambique, a civil war broke out that would last nearly three decades.
“In Mozambique we were traveling in the company of the Zimbabwean forces and UN peacekeepers. The Zimbabwean forces were mainly protecting their pipeline, while Samora Machel was fighting to keep control from the Renamo rebels.”
After Mozambique, the Rhodesian army drafted him to fight the guerrillas back home.
After he served his time in the rank, he left to interview nationalist exiles in Lusaka and Dar es Salaam. It was not easy.
“Every able bodied white man going through an airport needed to have a clearance,” he says.
“All of the nationalist leaders whose names are inscribed on roads in the capital, Harare, related to me on first name basis.”
They included Robert Mugabe, Josiah Tongogara and Simon Mazorodze.
“I first met Robert Mugabe when I had gone to the townships. I asked if I could interview him and he said he could only talk to me if I arranged a press conference for him in the city center, which I did.”
His experiences in his country’s war would lead to his first book- Kandaya, Another Time, Another Place.
When he moved on it was to the hell of Idi Amin’s Uganda.
“Kampala was on fire, the city was in ruins as there were bodies all over. What I saw made World War Two look elementary,” he says.
The 1978-79 Ugandan war pitted the Tanzanian liberation forces against Amin’s army.
“There were mass graves and as we accompanied the liberation forces to Luzira prison where opponents of Amin were caged, one could not fight back emotions. Prisoners were starved and in one of those prison cells, I threw up. It’s all about wealth, power and corruption,” says Shaw, whom many journalist friends believe is too ideological.
His memories of the Ugandan war would lead to his second book, written in a hotel room in London, Last To Kill, The Rise And Fall Of Idi Amin.
“I wrote the last chapter of this book in the plane to London. A limousine waited for me at Heathrow Airport and with Concorde the book was on its way the following day to New York. Four days later, the book was on sale.”
There was no stopping after Uganda.
<div id="attachment_4868" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4868" class="wp-image-4868 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/0005-300x191.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="191" />Media evacuation from Rwanda aboard a U.N. C130 cargo plane</div>
“In 1979, I also went to cover the Somalia-Ethiopia war. This was a conventional desert war and because of a 16-hour drive on a tractor when one was injured, many died before they could reach medical services. The hum of trucks, tractors and aircrafts drowned the heat of the desert. Journalists were isolated as fighting forces didn’t want anyone outside to know what was happening,” he says.
Shaw returned to Somalia after a clan war broke out. This war almost took his life.
“This was during the famine relief efforts that turned nasty. There were Americans, Germans, Canadians and UN representatives. Americans took a lot of causalities and it’s the same war that Mujahedeen shot down an American Black Hawk,” he says.
Hollywood made a movie out of this, called Black Hawk Down. The reality was worse.
“Americans were sending bodies back home in body bags. One African American said to me ‘we came to help our brothers but they are shooting us’.”
Shaw says war reporting can be seductive as well as disruptive.
“I remember being in Nairobi and felt it strange not to hear any gunshots.”
“I was lucky not to be killed; it was dangerous that we had to always move with bodyguards. Out of seven foreign correspondents that were covering the clan war in Somalia, four died in the country.”
Then came Rwanda in 1994.
“I spent several months there, I saw nice people killing nice people. I cannot describe the experience,” he says.
Nearly a million people are believed to have died in this ethnic war in 100 days.
“The United Nations had burned their fingers in Somalia and when they sent peacekeepers in Rwanda, they didn’t send enough. We went to various massacre sights, in some places we saw people running through the bushes with machetes. In Rwanda we saw piles and piles of bodies.”
What Shaw saw in Rwanda would never leave him.
“I have never been a church person, when you see such horror; you look to the skies and ask God what’s going on. That is where I saw that human nature is imperfect,” he says.
After traveling and covering wars it was time to write about events in his country.
“Between 1988 and 1998 we experienced a lot of multicultural and multiracial relations. The country was prospering but as Mugabe started losing power, all that changed,” says Shaw.
Shaw survived war, but in peacetime Zimbabwe, he was arrested three times. Mugabe saw journalists as agents of the West and supporters of his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai. From his journalism experiences sprang a third book, Mutoko Madness, A Memoir Of Angus Shaw.
“Seven years ago, I went into rehabilitation after a friend convinced me to. I was taught to count my blessings.”
He also believes the changing nature of news gathering led to him being rendered redundant.
“The media has changed so much; I am an old newspaper guy. News agencies are having a hard time. You can’t write a story with 700 words. I like ink on my fingers.”
Shaw has proved this in the dangerous business of shedding light in Africa.

Shedding Light  On Renewable Energy

‘You Can’t Drown Your Sorrows; They Have Learned How To Swim’

Every year, the month of March serves as a special time to reflect on the meaning of International Women’s Day.
In Rwanda, this year’s special month was welcome through a series of events, highlighting the roles played by all our women in the building of our nation, while also celebrating their innovative and entrepreneurial spirits.
The past weeks saw different generations come together to assess the work to be done for the continuous empowerment of our women in our various communities, building on how far we have come.
This was also a time to look back at the dignified Rwandan woman, who more than half a century later, we still remember vividly. The many who were taken away from us, and the last few, who in our darkest times, beautifully drew from the deepest roots of our culture, to keep their families together, and to nurture an abiding love and patriotism for our nation.
These women inspired us to aim for more, to do more, to never lose hope. They were the ones that kept a candle lit in our darkest times, as their star never dimmed in the starkest night. I believe history will always praise the sacrifices they consented for our communities, for their selflessness was not in vain.
The generation of sons and daughters they bore and raised, made the ultimate sacrifice, and shouldered the task of building a new and dignified nation.
It is in fact more than a moral obligation to never forget the high price paid, to be who we are today. We are forever indebted to them for investing in the future of their children and making it the purpose of their lives.
We will forever be grateful and rejoice in their achievements, while drawing pride and lessons from every obstacle they overcame as we continue to work tirelessly for this land to see the peace, respect and dignity all her sons and daughters deserve.
We will never say it enough; our Rwandan woman is truly remarkable! Her essence is made of strength and courage that define her.
Our history is filled with brave women of all ages who refused to be complicit in tearing apart our country, and were not bystanders to injustice and violence but instead they made the difficult but right choice. From the Nyange schoolgirls who paid the ultimate price with their lives, refusing to be separated along ethnic lines; to the wives who stood up against their husbands, refusing to stay silent in the face of the crimes they committed.
I think of women like Rose Mureshyankwano, who for years believed in sectarian ideology but ultimately freed herself from divisive politics. Women raised by those who carefully planned and executed the genocide, who finally broke the cycle of perpetual hatred from one generation to another; to all of those who now call themselves proud daughters of Rwanda.
We also honor the widows, who despite their aching hearts formed new families and cherished the genocide orphans who longed for their warm motherly love. These beloved Rwandan women earned the endearing name, Les Mamans Affection, for finding in them the courage to give some more, after so much had been taken away from them.
These women are indeed much more than a mother, wife, sister and daughter.
This dignified, remarkable, beloved Rwandan woman is the matriarch, pioneer, leader, descended from greatness, who holds high the torch that lights the way for others. She paves the way and weaves the thread to those who need to hear her stories, so they too, will know that within them, lie the tools to resilience.
Through her passion, she engaged us. Through her words, she educated us. Through her actions, she empowered us.
I speak from the heart, when I say we are proud of you, powerful Rwandan woman. You are the rock upon which we have built our foundation and you have now reclaimed your rightful place among the leaders of our country. Unwavering and firm, you lift up your song in synchrony with that of your brothers’ chorus, which for too long had been missing your soft, yet, powerful voice.
The word ‘no’ never stopped you from pushing on to new frontiers, for without your determination, who would the younger ones look up to? Through you, future generations will know that a woman’s worth is equal to any man’s.
So, now and always, we pay tribute to you.
&nbsp;
– The writer, Her Excellency Jeannette Kagame, is the First Lady of the Republic of Rwanda.

Jeanette-etch1

‘A Tribute To Remarkable Rwandan Women’

When he was selected to travel to the United States (US) to take part in the second edition of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI), otherwise known as The Mandela Washington Fellowship, Jean Bosco Nzeyimana knew that the sky was the limit for him.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4776" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Jean-Bosco-Nzeyimana-founder-of-waste-to-wealth-company-Habona-Ltd-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Last year, US President Barack Obama’s Mandela Washington Fellowship invited 500 of Africa’s brightest minds to learn new skills and see innovative entrepreneurial trends. For Nzeyimana it was invaluable.
Having grown up in the rural village of Gikongoro, in the Nyamagabe District of Rwanda’s Southern Province, from parents of humble origins, Nzeyimana’s journey to the top was out of the ordinary; especially when you consider he used trash to get there. Garbage is Nzeyimana’s calling.
In August last year, Nzeyimana met Obama, and other US state department officials, in Washington DC immediately after the US president visited Kenya to host the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi.
A few months later, Nzeyimana presented his business ideas at St James’s Palace, in London, at an African business event called Pitch@Palace in the presence of Prince Andrew. This event, which Nzeyimana says changed his perspective on green business, takes place twice a year and involves more than 300 CEOs, angel investors, mentors and the event’s business partners.
Nzeyimana became an entrepreneur in challenging circumstances. His neighborhood was gripped by poverty and poor sanitation bedevilled the community.
Firewood was used to cook every day. This was problematic as finding wood was daunting and burning it led to health problems. Nzeyimana felt a need to do something about it.
“I needed to be part of a sustainable solution to address lack of power and affordable sanitation and to fight poverty at my rural village in Kitabi, in Gikongoro. My solution was to try composting trash into cleaner cooking fuel and, if possible, to produce other green products too,” he says.
This led to Nzeyimana starting Habona Ltd, a company that produces 20 tons of briquettes per month, in 2013. He did when he was barely 18 and still studying at the University of Rwanda’s College of Business and Economics. Habona currently employs more than 100 people.
“I studied business administration because I needed to lead a private enterprise that could solve myriad problems that my folks faced, especially hygiene and lack of fuel,” says Nzeyimana.
While at college, he researched how waste could be turned into green products, such as biogas, compost or briquettes. He was particularly interested in new approaches that could displace firewood or help his parents access cleaner and cheaper fuels during the rainy season, when access to firewood – the primary source of cooking – was more difficult.
With time, the knowledge he acquired from university helped him to draw up a comprehensive business plan for his project.
With barely any capital, Nzeyimana formed a small team to set up waste collection points in Nyamagabe town. The team gathered waste from people’s homes and hired vehicles to transport them to a central processing point.
Here the waste is categorized and the degradable materials are processed into manure, briquettes and biogas, while the non-degradable are turned into ornaments or sold for further recycling.
“You don’t need money to start off successfully,” he says. “A lack of funds did not discourage us in any way. Instead we needed to think out of the box in order to raise capital to enable our idea to take shape.”
When the African Innovation Prize, a continental business competition for start-ups called for entries in 2014, Nzeyimana entered and won, receiving Rwf2 million ($2,700) in valuable capital for Habona.
Nzeyimana also scooped the 2014 Young Innovator Award in Rwanda and was among 10 Africans who participated in training in New Delhi, India, on running a start-up.
By August last year, while attending the YALI fellowship, Habona was granted around $25,000 from the United States African Development Foundation(USADF)  to support Nzeyimana’s waste project.
“The grant will boost our capacity substantially going forward. We intend to employ 10 more workers and increase our briquette making capacity from 20 tons to 50 tons per month,” he says.
Habona sells a kilogram of briquettes for Rwf200 (around $0.30) to people fighting the vicious circle of poverty in Nzeyimana’s rural village.
“There is more value in that the briquettes last three times longer than charcoal of the same cost. This is not only cost effective, but is environmentally sustainable.”
Nzeyimana’s experiences in the US and Britain have led to bigger and bolder ideas.
Since his fellowship in the US, Habona has scaled up its capacity in renewable energy management. Consequently, the company was contracted to run an integrated waste management plant owned by the Nyamagabe District authorities.
At St James’s Palace, Nzeyimana learned to introduce a broader vision of his business.
“I came back charged and armed with a better vision of the potential of my abilities, including where I want to be by the end of 2016.”
The event opened his eyes to the big world of green business.
“I am in the process of setting up an office in Kigali. As an entrepreneur, it is important to spread my wings. My company is in talks with a group of local, regional and international investors to set up something with the same business model, but very huge in Kigali while expanding our operations in Nyamagabe.”
Support for Habona is flooding in.
Nyamagabe District’s Deputy Mayor for Finance and Economic Development, Immaculée Mukarwego, is a firm supporter of the company.
“The project started by Habona Ltd is very good, with a very bright future as it seeks to deal with the issue of waste in a sustainable manner and, in the process, it has a high potential of improving the overall wellbeing of the entire district,” says Mukarwego.
As part of the district’s long-term plans, a plant and dumping post was built at a cost of more than $500,000 to help Habona to increase its activities.
It’s a good start for a rural village boy who started off with nothing but an ambitious dream to fight poverty.

One Man’s Trash  Is Another Man’s  Treasure

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has often urged Africa’s business and political leaders to “stop thinking about development as something we do with external resources.”
The current managers of the Nigerian economy will do well to heed this advice. They will spend 2016 struggling to rebalance their economy and its tax system. They must save their nation from the spasms of the Dutch disease.
Nigeria entered 2016 with its lowest external reserve levels in 10 years.
Nigeria’s foreign reserves peaked at $63 billion in September 2008. By January 2016, it had dipped to around $29.3 billion, barely enough to cover four months of imports.
The price of Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude was trading at $34 a barrel as this edition of FORBES AFRICA went to press. It has been dropping since September 2008 after attaining a record high of $147 in July that year. Prices for cocoa and iron ore have also been falling over the last two years.
Economists believe that the full effects of the resource curse may have finally caught up with Africa’s largest economy. For the third time in three decades, Nigeria’s economy is in serious wahala (Nigerian speak for trouble). Dwindling government revenue, foreign exchange pressure, institutionalized corruption and a massive infrastructure deficit confront the nation.
Like many resource-rich, mono-product economies, Nigeria faces the daunting challenge of curbing its appetite according to the size of its wallet. Embedded in Nigeria’s 2016 budget is a ginormous N6 trillion ($30 billion) revenue shortfall. The deficit financing will come from the domestic and international debts markets. But domestic resource-mobilization might be the key to fiscal and monetary efficiency.
Crude oil has defined Nigeria’s political economy for decades. It will continue to play a significant role, alongside commodities and Nigeria’s abundant natural gas reserves. Earnings from non-oil sectors, such as services, agriculture and entertainment, will continue to grow.
As Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, began talks with international finance institutions for external loans worth $3.5 billion to augment the 2016 budget, the local media was awash with two news reports – both revealing Nigeria’s scandalous administration of its tax regimes and import earnings under previous governments.
The first expose was a report published by ActionAid, an international NGO, which revealed how Nigeria had forfeited a staggering $3.3 billion in revenues through a three-part tax break granted to three of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, over a 10-year period. Apparently, and obviously unknown to many Nigerians outside the infamously opaque petroleum sector, the tax breaks for Shell, Total and Eni started in 1999.
In a country where millions live in extreme poverty, the social cost of the tax giveaways is huge. The amount is double Nigeria’s education budget for 2014; and the money could very well have given 70 million young Nigerians access to quality education, rebuild the university system and tackle entrenched problems in the health system, according to ActionAid.
“It is a striking example of how a global race to the bottom on tax is harming resource-rich countries,” the NGO’s report says.
Previous ActionAid research shows that tax breaks cost developing countries at least $138 billion every year.
The second matter was the revocation of all import waivers granted to several “favored” firms and politically-connected entrepreneurs by previous governments between 1999 and 2015. Excise duty revenues from the Nigeria Customs Service for 2016 is consequently expected to be significantly higher than previous years. Finance ministry sources say Nigeria lost N797.8 billion (around $4 billion), between 2011 and May 2014, to import waivers and tax holiday concessions.
Nigeria’s lax tax system is just one of several public sector development issues awaiting resolution by President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet. Figures from the Debt Management Office show that in one year, Nigeria’s debt burden grew by N1.31 trillion ($6.57 billion) to N12.6 trillion ($63.2 billion) as at the end of 2015.
Also during the 2015 financial period, the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation posted an operating loss of N267 billion ($1.34 billion). Its four refineries, with a combined installed capacity of 445,000bpd, continue to underperform.
Value Added Tax (VAT) and Company Income Tax (CIT) will account for 80% of the Federal Inland Revenue Service’s (FIRS) projected revenue haul in 2016.
Comparatively, Nigeria’s tax revenue performance is 7.4% of GDP compared with 27.4% in South Africa, 18.7% in Malawi and 19.5%, Kenya.

SERIOUS WAHALA AS THE RESOURCE CURSE BITES

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 matching 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, and 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 Britain, in her heart, she recalled the songs of Rwanda, the songs on 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 fundraising for the people and the soldiers. My mom’s family was completely wiped out,” says Rugamba.
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.
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 was get 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,” says Rugamba.
Tasked with reinvigorating tourism in the ‘Land of the Thousand Hills’, for the next seven years, she 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.
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 more than 1.1 million 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. 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.

Tag: Rwanda

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SERIOUS WAHALA AS THE RESOURCE CURSE BITES

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