Rwanda has made unsurmountable strides along its development path. Rwanda has placed among the world's fastest-growing economies, climbing the development ladder from second-poorest in the world in 1994 to sit ahead of nineteen other countries. Today, job creation lies at the heart of Rwanda's development challenge. The government of Rwanda (GoR) recognizes the urgency of creating new jobs. The new thirty-year Vision for the period up to 2050, which is currently being finalized, elaborates the country's long-term development goals. The core of transformation for prosperity is developing high-value and competitive sectors, to transition the population and economy from subsistence agriculture toward industry and high-skilled services. The purpose of the Rwanda country privates sector diagnostic (CPSD) is to identify market opportunities and constraints in sectors that advance the country's development objectives. By assessing the landscape of private sector investment in the country, the CPSD identifies specific constraints to private sector investment and productivity growth, concrete opportunities that could materialize in the short term, and the reforms that will enable this materialization. It then discusses how specific actions by the public sector in collaboration with the private sector by filling gaps in public investment, reforming regulations, and addressing market failures could unleash sectors' private investment potential.

This volume represents a cornucopia of research studies coming out of an international conference held in Kigali, Rwanda in 2018. The essays comprise contributions on various microeconomic and macroeconomic policy angles that are crucial for a less developed economy to embark on a road to recovery to converge with the desired trajectory. The topics encompass a broad range of issues like the role of savings, capital formation, human capital, innovations, entrepreneurship, profit-shifting by multinational corporations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and firms’ strategies for achieving sustained and balanced growth. The chapters are organized under three major themes based on the commonality of areas that they cover: (i) Macroeconomic Constraints: Monetary Policy, Investments, and Population; (ii) Firms’ Performance, SMEs, and Role of Entrepreneurship; and (iii) Entrepreneurship and Business Performance: Strategies and Policies. It has a collection of 12 empirical studies that have an overall focus on macroeconomic policies such as savings among the rural poor; sustained investments in and development of capital markets; role of entrepreneurial sustainability; role of innovations for firms’ performance; healthcare reforms; the benefits of technology, policy incentives such as tax benefits for promoting growth, and strategic considerations such as marketing or positioning strategies; export strategies; and productivity enhancement via processing and profit sharing. With contributions from 27 authors, the studies bring forth knowledge about the factors that influence well-being via better technologies and innovations favoring productivity, firm performance, and their positive externalities in the food, nutrition, and health sectors. Given the wide-ranging coverage of top-down and bottom-up approaches and strategies for development, the book offers insights for policy interventions necessary for Rwanda’s gradual transition from agriculture to an industrial transformation via manufacturing and service-led development without smokestack industries.

This paper explores some of the key factors behind Rwanda key successes, including unique institution-building that emphasized governance and ownership; aid-fueled and government-led strategic investment in people, infrastructure, and high-yield economic activity;re-establishment and expansion of a domestic tax base; policies to reduce aid dependency by attracting private investment and bolstering exports; and a purposeful strategy to harness the economic power of gender inclusion.

A strong and widely acknowledged record of economic success-including a three-and-a-half-fold increase in per capita income since 1994--places Rwanda among the world’s fastest--growing economies. Traumatic memories of the 1994 genocide are gradually fading, as associations begin to take a more positive form--of a nation on the rise, powered by human resilience, a sense of common purpose, and a purposeful government. Past successes and a sense of frailty have fueled aspirations for a secure, prosperous, and modern future. Sustaining high rates of economic growth is at the heart of these ambitions. Recent formulations of the nation’s Vision 2050 set a target of achieving upper-middle-income status by 2035 and high-income status by 2050. Future Drivers of Growth in Rwanda: Innovation, Integration, Agglomeration, and Competition, a joint undertaking by experts from Rwanda and the World Bank Group, evaluates the country’s possibilities and options in this endeavor. The report identifies four essential drivers of growth--innovation, integration, agglomeration, and competition--and reforms in six priority areas: human capital development, export dynamism and regional integration, well-managed urbanization, competitive domestic enterprises, agricultural modernization, and capable and accountable public institutions.

Eighteen years after the genocide that made Rwanda international news, but left it all but abandoned by the West, the country has achieved a miraculous turnaround. Rising out of the complete devastation of a failed state, Rwanda has emerged on the world stage yet again-this time with a unique model for governance and economic development under the leadership of its strong and decisive president, Paul Kagame. Here, Patricia Crisafulli & Andrea Redmond look at Kagame's leadership, his drive for excellence and execution that draws comparisons to an American CEO and emphasizes the development of a sophisticated and competitive workforce that leverages human capital. In Rwanda, the ultimate turnaround, strong and effective leadership has made a measurable and meaningful difference. Rwanda's progress offers an example for other developing nations to lift themselves out of poverty without heavy reliance on foreign aid through decentralization, accountability, self-determination, and self-sufficiency. The authors also explore Rwanda's journey toward its goal of becoming a middle-income nation with a technology-based economy, and its progress to encourage private sector development and foster entrepreneurship, while also making gains in education, healthcare, and food security-and all with a strong underpinning of reconciliation and unification. As so many nations stand on the brink of political and economic revolution, this is a timely and fascinating look at the implications of Rwanda's success for the rest of the continent-and the world.

Seventeen in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2020 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity.