Why Rwanda presents interesting case for devt

Sometime in 2012, I got an exciting assignment to participate in a regional research project on media regulation. The study focused on the eastern Africa region. The researchers were looking at the models of regulation in comparative terms. It is an assignment I credit for my subsequent interest and further research on media policy and regulation to date.

We scratched our heads with the principal researchers wondering if I would be safe, going to Rwanda and asking the kind of questions we had. The narrative at the time was how strict and tight on media the Rwandan regime was. There were narratives that perhaps persist to date, that it is next to impossible to speak your mind in Kigali.

It is strange how that experience had biased me enough to not even just visit Rwanda until recently. Even though as an academic, I had the privilege to engage with multiple narratives of Rwanda to be objective, it still was not enough to push me across the border. I was aware of the narratives of transformation as much as I was of the lack of freedom in there.

And when I eventually went a decade later, I did mind my business. Like most people, I regarded those who sing praises of Rwanda, a little suspiciously, and perhaps categorised them as friends of President Kagame or those hoping for some favours.

Eventually, we settled for doing the field work in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, countries we felt were ‘safe’. The researchers did not want to put me in danger, a young woman whose future was ‘just beginning’ as a post graduate student in Nairobi and an emerging scholar in my own right.

I enjoyed doing that work, visiting Tanzania and finding my narratives of the country as a failed experiment of the Ujaama Village model of development thoroughly challenged. I remember going to Arusha, Dar es Salaam, Moshi and even Dodoma, and wondering where on earth I have been.
 
I had been to Tanzania before, but this was the first time for me to truly engage with it. Living in Nairobi at the time, engaging with its media closely and what a marvel they seemed to be, it was difficult not to love Kenya. I had a special relationship with Nairobi, a fact that perhaps led me to study there while my friends looked for opportunities in the ‘real abroad’.

Kenya was emerging from the Daniel Arap Moi regime and their new found freedoms embedded in their 2010 Constitution was worth celebrating. You just had to love this place, and observe it keenly in order not to miss the gaps in the system. Their regulatory system was deemed ‘a hybrid’, taking in the best models. Kenya was the envy of other countries on press freedom then.

I came to Uganda for data collection, and appreciated our challenges, consoling myself that east or west, home is best. But the media environment was troubling to say the least. Even though I was among those protesting a recent report classifying Ugandan media space as nearly non-existent, at the time I could have easily made the judgment.

 The Daily Monitor had been shutdown and so much was happening, while media actors were also really fragmented. So, I was truly delighted when invited to attend the 10th Annual National Security Symposium organised by the Rwanda Defence Force Command and Staff College at the Kigali Convention  Centre recently. 

I was excited because maturity allows you to make decisions for yourself knowing your fears of a decade ago could well be better understood today or even gone. While the symposium was themed around ‘contemporary security challenges: the African Perspective’, it really was a development question on the table, discussing the role of institutions in socio-economic transformation, migration and brain drain, trade in Africa, foreign interference in Africa’s development and the impact of emerging digital technologies on development, including peacebuilding missions.

Spending days in Kigali, visiting various areas, listening to all these speakers, the deep perspective of Rwandan government officials, and the quality of the conversation, all left me asking so many questions.

In the coming weeks, I will be exploring some developments in Rwanda, on its socio-economic transformation, its choices on democracy and development, and its capacity to transform itself from ruin. I will be bringing in perspectives from the conference, the surprises and observations, and the reflection on our development agenda.

Indeed, it is impossible to properly engage with a place and all of its elements without truly being present. And of course, if you have not eaten at your neighbours’ house, you may be tempted to think that your mother is the best cook in the world. Rwanda presents us with an interesting case for socio-economic transformation in an African context. It is worth fully engaging with.

Ms Maractho (PhD) is the director of Africa Policy Centre and senior lecturer at Uganda Christian University.                       [email protected]