Rwanda

Rwanda has made remarkable strides in its development in recent years. It is one of the few countries in Africa to have reached the MDGs for the most part, and it is a leader when it comes to implementing the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement.

View of Kigali from the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre — Straight to

The government is development-oriented and is very much focused on achieving its ambitious goals with the aim of reforming the country. However, authoritarian government structures have become even more entrenched under President Paul Kagame.Ethnic conflict between Hutus and Tutsis has been a recurrent theme in Rwanda's history. In 1994, it escalated and resulted in a genocide against the Tutsi minority that is thought to have cost up to one million lives in just 100 days. The genocide, the physical and mental trauma suffered by large parts of the population and the mass displacement and subsequent return of some 3.5 million refugees have had, and continue to have, a lasting impact on Rwanda and have thrown the country back considerably in its development.

Dealing with the aftermath of the genocide remains one of the major challenges for the country. Other challenges include the severe economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the poverty in rural areas, high population density and land scarcity, the impact of climate change and a huge demand for jobs compounded by a shortage of well-trained people. The current United Nations Human Development Index (HDI) ranks the east African country 161st out of 193 countries.

German development cooperation with Rwanda

The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) incorporates key goals of Rwanda’s own development strategies and of G20 Compact with Africa (External link) initiative into its development cooperation with Rwanda.

Under this G20 initiative, Germany has joined with other donors to support Rwanda in improving the environment for private investors. Under this framework, a German Business Desk has, for instance, been set up in Rwanda’s capital Kigali to promote investments in areas relevant to development.

Germany’s bilateral development cooperation with Rwanda focuses on the following core areas:

Sustainable economic development, training and employment
Climate and energy, just transition
Peaceful and inclusive societies

German Development Minister Svenja Schulze and Dr Uzziel Ndagijimana, Rwandan Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, after signing the Rwandan-German Climate and Development Partnership in Kigali on 1 March 2022.

In addition, Germany is supporting the work of civil society organisations in the area of human rights in order to strengthen the rights of especially disadvantaged groups vis-à-vis public institutions (for example young people’s, women’s and health rights).

Rwanda is also benefiting from various regional and supra-regional programmes under German development cooperation.

At the government negotiations in October 2022, Germany committed 93.6 million euros in new funding to Rwanda for the period from 2022 to 2024 with 63 million euros being earmarked for Financial Cooperation and 30.6 million euros for Technical Cooperation.

This includes 2.1 million euros made available under the Special Initiative “Displaced Persons and Host Countries”. Some 135,000 people are currently registered in Rwanda who have fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Burundi (as at August 2024).

Two trainees in metal construction at the Integrated Polytechnical Regional College (IPRC) in Kigali, Rwanda, operate a machine.

Roughly 40 per cent of Rwanda’s population are under the age of 15. Creating jobs and opportunities for the young generation does not only contribute to reducing poverty, it is also an important prerequisite for social peace, security and stability in the country.

Cooperation in the core area “Climate and energy, just transition” was agreed in 2020. The political dialogue between Germany and Rwanda in this area is being expanded further under the Climate and Development Partnership which Germany and Rwanda signed in 2022.

More than 80 per cent of Rwandans live in rural areas. Germany is supporting efforts to strengthen local government in order to improve living conditions for those people. The authorities at district and municipal level know best where improvements in local infrastructure are required and what kind of public services are most needed.