Key lessons Kenya can learn from Rwanda

I felt somewhat fortunate to be in Rwanda recently as the nation prepared to mark the 20th anniversary of the civil war and genocide that killed more than 800,000 people in 1994. The government planned an elaborate set of events and invited regional, global and UN leaders, and friends of Rwanda to commemorate the unspeakable horrors that forever altered the nation’s history and to reflect on the nation’s unity, growth and stability as it journeys into the future.

I was last in Rwanda exactly four years ago and I am just amazed at the remarkable achievements that this tiny, landlocked nation of ten million people has accomplished. Over the last decade, poverty rate has been halved; GDP per capita doubled; and the economy has averaged per capita growth of around eight percent.

Health statistics are even more impressive. Over the years, Rwanda has dramatically accelerated the trend of progress on all key indicators including infant mortality, under-five mortality, maternal mortality and immunization coverage. It has one of the highest numbers of people on AIDS treatment in Africa, and their multi-drug resistant TB treatment approach is held up as a model that other countries come to learn from.