Revolution is the forcible overthrow of a social order. Rwanda can teach the world about this. Nearly three decades ago, a small group of people stopped the genocide and overthrew a system that never delivered value for the majority of people. Elite Europeans supported that system to their benefit. Western politicians ran when they had the chance to stop the killing. Some in the West can’t get out of their paternalistic and condescending attitudes. They still attribute to Rwanda that it is helpless, anti-democratic, suppresses free speech, and steals its daily bread from neighbors. These attributions are factually and objectively untrue. A few of the most vocal were grasping bureaucrats who were fired and left the country and rebranded themselves from disgruntled former employees to crusaders for democracy. The attributions often come from those who started the genocide or the “third world junkies” with outsized opinions of themselves who stood idly by while it happened. The latter live in small echoing caves. They are unwilling to come out into the light. They are willing to pollute the country’s investment climate, which directly impacts every citizen, most of whom were born after the genocide. Maybe they don’t understand that investment and rising wages are highly correlated with tolerance, optimism, civic engagement, and trust in institutions and each other. Maybe they don’t understand that these values are the foundation of democracy, which in turn supports innovation and more prosperity. Certainly, they do not understand that there can be robust and home-grown forms of democracy that do not have to mimic the current confusion in the USA and Europe. The future of Rwanda will be breathtaking. The recent news about the biotechnology sector in Rwanda boggles the mind. One of the world’s great companies, BioNTech, a hero in the field of fighting COVID-19, broke ground here in the last few weeks. They promise to bring scientists from around the world, train new African scientists, develop manufacturing capability and work on malaria and TB. The early reports suggest that they are an excellent partner for the people of Rwanda. The African Development Bank has announced that it will put its African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation in Rwanda. Rwanda is in the running to host the headquarters of the new African Medicine Agency. The European Investment Bank is in the country this week. They sent their business and science experts to the country to invest in clinical trials, manufacturing, training, and commercialization. UGHE, the new medical school in rural Rwanda, is a leader in “global healthcare equity”, and now attracts students from around the world, as far away as Australia. The Cabinet is diverse, technically strong, and possesses a shared vision. Other institutions have attracted experts in the diaspora from the fields of accounting, law and science. The office of the president parses inquiries from biotech companies from North America, Europe and Asia. Rwanda will now experience a “discontinuous leap” in the productivity that the biotech sector offers, greater integration with global networks in education, healthcare and industry; and high and rising wages that are a feature of the industry, and the bedrock of democracy. This African boom in biotechnology has two aspects: the dismantling of “vaccine apartheid” and a major increase in wages. Rwanda will contribute to creating world class therapies and vaccines, and distribute these medicines within Africa. And since talent is “an increasing returns-to-scale dynamic”, motivated and trained people will move from around the world to Rwanda. The history of Rwanda will no longer be written by unacquainted academics and unoriginal journalists, most of whom won’t come out of the caves, adjust their pupils to the African sun, and see the country. Rwandans will write their own history. And they will speak of two revolutions: the revolution that closed the portal into hell of 1994 and sent Rwanda on its steep upward trajectory; and the revolution in productivity. The latter will be an improvement in the wages of the country caused by nature-adventure and convention tourism, fashion and design, software development, branded coffee and tea, medical education, and biotechnology. Michael Fairbanks is Chairman, and Dr Daryl Drummond is Chief Scientific Officer, of Akagera Medicines.
