Rwanda is a small East African country of 14m people. In the 1990s it suffered a genocide—the worst mass atrocity of the past four decades—in which more than 500,000 people, mostly Tutsi, were slaughtered in around 100 days. The genocide was halted by a rebel group led by Paul Kagame, who has since ruled the country.
Under Kagame, economic growth has averaged 6.7% per year since 1994, the eighth-fastest rate of the nearly 200 countries tracked by the IMF, ahead of Vietnam and India. GDP per person has quadrupled from just over $250 at the turn of the century to around $1,000. Rwanda has tried to build a service economy based on tourism, conferences and finance. "Vision 2050" aims to make Rwanda a high-income country by mid-century. (Kagame said in 2000 he wanted Rwanda to be a middle-income country by 2020—a target he is still to meet.) Kagame wants to host what would be Africa's only Formula One circuit.
But growth has mostly benefited the urban rich (disproportionately Tutsis), while the rural poor, most of whom are subsistence farmers (and Hutus), have lagged behind. Rwanda's inequality rate is among the highest in east Africa. The ruling party (the RPF) and the Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) run firms involved in everything from milk to construction and private security, deterring private investment; over half of Rwanda's investment comes from state-owned firms. The government has provided venture capital for ventures from milk production to peat mining, then sold stakes in successful ones to private investors (part of a telecommunications firm recently went to T-Mobile, an American giant, for instance). An IMF official has suggested that the true Rwandan GDP growth rate is a couple of percentage points below the official one. The ratio of public debt to GDP has risen from 19% to 78% since 2012, in part because of projects like a new airport in Bugesera. The current-account deficit is a troubling 13.8% of GDP. Tourism is an important source of dollars; visitors pay to see the country's mountain gorillas.
In 2024 Rwanda recorded $1.75bn in mineral exports, up from about $500m in 2021, though the figures include smuggled minerals from Congo. The RDF part-owns tin and gold smelters. In March 2025 Moody's revised its outlook for Rwandan bonds to negative, in part because of the war in eastern Congo.
Rwanda is one of seven African countries to have reached the UNAIDS 95-95-95 target, meaning at least 95% of HIV-infected people are aware of their status, at least 95% are being treated, and at least 95% have their infections suppressed by drugs. The country has taken granular data collection seriously for years, nipping problems in the bud. Rwanda hosted the International AIDS Society meeting in July 2025.
Rwanda has used football sponsorship as a diplomatic tool. In 2018 it struck a deal with Arsenal, the British club, said to be worth $10m a year. It later made similar agreements with Paris Saint-Germain in France and Bayern Munich in Germany.
Rwanda has befriended rising powers, acquiring weapons from Turkey (drones), Russia (helicopters) and China (artillery). It exports gold to the United Arab Emirates. Qatar has a 60% stake in the Bugesera airport project and is negotiating an investment in Rwandair, the national airline. Rwanda has perhaps the closest ties of any African country with Israel, a source of surveillance technology and a fellow small nation shaped by genocide.
The EU helps pay for the RDF's mission to fight jihadists in Mozambique and in 2024 signed a memorandum of understanding on critical minerals. Kagame's offers to receive deported migrants (including from America), export critical minerals or send troops to places where the West is unwilling to go have helped limit criticism of Rwanda's human-rights record and its backing of M23, a Congolese militia operating in eastern Congo.
Western sanctions have mounted. The UN Security Council has told Rwanda to stop backing M23. The EU has sanctioned three Rwandan generals and a Kigali refinery that the bloc says processes illicit gold from Congo. America has sanctioned a cabinet minister. Britain has cut some aid. Kagame said in April 2025 that those sanctioning Rwanda could "go to hell". Rwanda is dusting off the deal it struck with Britain to receive deported migrants and trying to sell a similar arrangement to the Donald Trump administration.
A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose.