End of democratisation
‘You can fool some people sometime, but you can’t fool all the people all the time’ –Bob Marley, Get up, stand up! In the early 1950s, following the wave of independence in Africa and South America, former colonial powers wanted to ensure that their multinationals would...Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - 12:06am
Staying on track to end malaria
BASEL – Ending an epidemic is a marathon undertaking, and in the case of malaria, we are nearing the finish line. But we will need to keep up the momentum. Over the past few decades, governments, nongovernmental organisations, and the private sector have broken new ground in the science of...Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - 11:53pm
Newly found mass graves raise more questions
Hardly a week had passed after the official mourning period for victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, than four mass graves of more victims were discovered on the outskirts of the city. As we go to press, the first grave has just been excavated and 207 bodies exhumed and more are...Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - 11:50pm
In Rwanda education, science and technology are the new drivers of pan-Africanism
African politicians and intellectuals used to talk passionately about pan-Africanism. You hardly hear the word now, except among a small group dedicated to keep it alive. That, of course, does not mean that the idea is dead. Far from it. It is actually alive and well and flourishing in Rwanda. You...Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - 12:44am
Editorial: REB has a lot of ground to cover; it should do so diligently
Rwanda Education Board (REB) seems to have learnt its lessons the hard way, but it was a necessary learning curve. Its top leadership was recently shaken up following a school textbook saga and confusion; foreign printers were contracted, who in turn subcontracted local firms who failed miserably...Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - 12:40am
How inequality fueled the Euro crisis
BRUSSELS – Since the Great Recession of 2007-2009, most economists have begun to regard finance as a key driver of the business cycle. But the precise dynamics are not yet fully understood. For example, the University of Chicago’s Amir Sufi and Princeton’s Atif Mian argue that...Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - 12:37am
The sky is not falling
VIENNA – Humans are partial to bad news. Media outlets reflect and shape this preference, feeding us woe and panic. Long, slow, positive trends don’t make it to the front page or to water-cooler conversations. So we develop peculiar misperceptions, especially the idea that a...Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - 12:32am
Researchers need to actively engage policymakers
Beginning today, Kigali will play host to a three-day workshop for top University lecturers and researchers from around the East African Community (EAC), with the goal of exploring ways of expanding postgraduate programmes across the region. Participants will seek to find solutions to critical...Monday, April 23, 2018 - 9:24am
Kwibuka24: Time to crack the whip on non-state actors
As we continue to commemorate the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi for the 24th time, we all need to be vigilant on certain Genocide denial elements (implicit and explicit), especially in the private sector and among non-governmental organisations, where government has little influence. This is because...Monday, April 23, 2018 - 8:37am
Any kind of humanitarian suffering must be averted
Towards daybreak of April 14, 2018, a coalition of countries comprising USA, Britain and France launched more than 100 missiles against Syrian targets in a strike that aimed at weakening President Assad’s chemical weapons capabilities. In the operation, as described by Lieutenant General...Sunday, April 22, 2018 - 11:14pm
A tale of two realities
MADRID – The opening line of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities retains its universality to this day. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” Dickens writes, “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,… it was the spring of hope...Sunday, April 22, 2018 - 10:55pm
CHOGM is coming to Kigali and so is Mike Sonko
As a cool drizzle wetted the streets of Kigali during the evening rush hour, news trickled in that the British Prime Minister, Theresa May had announced that Rwanda will host the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting commonly referred to by its acronym, CHOGM. The light chats around cold...Sunday, April 22, 2018 - 12:52am
Editorial: Hosting the Commonwealth Summit is not what matters; it is the work behind the scene
Leaders of the 53-member Commonwealth of Nations who met this week in London, selected Rwanda as the next host of the Summit slated for 2020. Rwanda’s choice is of great significance for two distinct reasons; it is the youngest member of the organization, having joined recently in 2009. It...Sunday, April 22, 2018 - 12:49am
Watch out for deadly lightning strikes!
Thursday afternoon, I escaped, narrowly, becoming the latest statistic of death by lightning; that is probably because, deep down my heart, I knew I hadn’t robbed or annoyed anyone and God agreed with me because when I checked, shortly after the thunder strike, I was still in one piece. It...Sunday, April 22, 2018 - 12:46am
How blockchain can grow small business
When Hernando de Soto published his classic The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else in 2000, he had no idea that emerging technologies would solve the problem before the end of the new century that had just started. This Peruvian economist, known for...Sunday, April 22, 2018 - 12:43am
The silverback among most “charismatic”animals
The mountain gorilla has easily made the top-ten list of the most “charismatic” animals in the world. Its global fame is to be expected, except that many remain unaware of its status among some of the most endangered in the wild. These were the findings in a paper titled, “The...Friday, April 20, 2018 - 11:48pm
Editorial: Rayon Sports’ popularity not exploited as it should
Whenever popular football club, Rayon Sports, plays and wins, even against small local clubs, euphoria grips the whole country. But when they overcome continental teams, its supporters go berserk, pour into the streets in their thousands and generally inundate the country in a cacophony of horns,...Friday, April 20, 2018 - 11:42pm
Women in the fight against genocide ideology
We are in the second week of 100 days of mourning. During this time we reflect on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi through different commemoration activities and also in our communities during community discussions (Ibiganiro). Such are important to ensure that genocide does not happen again,...Friday, April 20, 2018 - 11:39pm
The “Next Eleven” and the world economy
LONDON – On a recent holiday in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, I couldn’t resist thinking about these countries’ economic potential and ongoing policy challenges. After all, in 2005, my Goldman Sachs colleagues and I had listed Vietnam as one of the Next Eleven (N-11) – all...Friday, April 20, 2018 - 11:33pm
Third world, reject being turned into “the grass that suffers”
Every time you wake up, Rwandans, you should all remember to give a thought to the God of Rwanda, Imana y’u Rwanda. It’s not all the time that a people manage to choose a leadership whose governance code is the single-minded pursuit of one goal: their total emancipation. But...Friday, April 20, 2018 - 12:54am
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