Editor, RE: “Made in Rwanda Expo: Africa needs more ‘Helen Hais’” (The New Times, December 12). In my opinion, even foremost, Africa and Rwanda very urgently need product developers, conceiving genuinely local products, both for local consumption and for export. To my knowledge, nowhere throughout the continent one finds higher research and learning institutions in product and service development. In everyday life, we just consume and use foreign-made artifacts. So far, we merely are consumers and not ‘creators’ of whatever we need to live. If we had in place local well established product development institutions, both potential local and foreign investors would definitely find it much easier to just bring in their funds and know how, and fast start to organise production. But now we are asking those capital investors to bring in along their money, equipment, and expertise, and even more complicated, to bring in as well ready-made foreign product designs. Yes, eventually ‘Made in Rwanda’, but designs that aren’t neither ‘Rwandan’ nor ‘African’, in sense that they wouldn’t necessarily be well fit to local and regional requirements, ways and uses. This mismatch ultimately curtails their rapid economic success on local, regional and foreign markets. Francois-Xavier Nziyonsenga
