This week, Rwanda opens the twentieth National Dialogue Council, or Umushyikirano. For two days, citizens will ask questions directly to government officials, who will respond live. ALSO READ: Umushyikirano returns after one-year break Commitments will be recorded publicly and tracked after the cameras are turned off. In an era where trust in institutions is declining internationally, eroded by polarisation, disinformation, and widening gaps between policy and lived reality, Rwanda’s National Dialogue occupies a rare place in global governance. ALSO READ: Umushyikirano: Over 80% of 2024 resolutions implemented – minister In most countries, citizens are invited to listen to leadership, but not to question it. Umushyikirano does something different: it institutionalises direct questioning of authority and binds it to a system of follow-up. Over two decades, Umushyikirano has brought everyday problems into public view, and shortened the distance between citizens and decision-makers. ALSO READ: Strengthening poultry safety my Umushyikirano 2026 dialogue request The more difficult issue is whether a mechanism built for reconstruction can continue to serve a society that has largely moved beyond it, one that is younger, more educated, more urban, and more exposed to global comparison than at any point in its history. First held nine years after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the dialogue was part of a broader effort to rebuild trust between citizens and a state emerging from institutional collapse. Drawing on cultural traditions of collective deliberation, it became one of Rwanda’s home-grown solutions. Citizens raised real concerns: a feeder road that had stalled, a school without teachers, a community without water and electricity, a justice issue, a health centre lacking staff, and more. Leaders responded in real time, committing to specific actions. Over time, this public pressure helped fast-track infrastructure, expand access to basic services, and embed accountability into the daily language of governance. Public officials learned that unanswered concerns would return the following year. The cumulative impact is visible. Roads, clinics, schools, electrification, and digital services expanded rapidly. The World Bank repeatedly cites Rwanda’s effectiveness in service delivery and public-sector implementation. The IMF has pointed to disciplined macroeconomic management and sustained growth relative to regional peers. But success changes the nature of demand. Today, Rwanda faces a different set of demands. Young people are more educated than any generation before them, yet many struggle to translate credentials into stable employment. Agricultural productivity improved, but climate variability increasingly disrupts yields and incomes, despite expanded irrigation and post-harvest investments emphasised in the nineteenth Council. Health illustrates this transition most clearly. Rwanda has achieved near-universal access to health services, one of its most widely recognised development successes. Yet the country is now confronting a rising burden of non-communicable diseases typical of societies in transition. Risk factors are growing: nearly half of adults (48.1%) consume alcohol, and overweight and obesity affect close to one in five people, rising to more than one in four women. Mental health exposes an even sharper gap. While an estimated 20.5 percent of the population experiences mental health conditions, fewer than five percent receive care, leaving the majority untreated. These trends, do not signal system failure so much as epidemiological change. They expose the limits of delivery-focused governance when prevention, long-term care, and behavioural change become central policy challenges. Economic growth remains strong by continental standards, yet the cost of living weighs heavily on households, particularly amid global inflationary pressures flagged by the IMF. These are not governance failures but pressures of transition, suggesting that Rwanda moved from questions of access to demands of quality, equity, and sustainability. This year’s event convenes under the second National Strategy for Transformation (NST2), which reflects that shift. The focus is no longer primarily on expansion, but on productivity; no longer on access alone, but on quality and resilience. NST2 emphasises value chains rather than raw output, skills rather than credentials, and sustainability rather than speed. Recent Umushyikirano resolutions mirror this evolution: accelerating agribusiness and irrigation, strengthening technical education, professionalising sports and creative industries, expanding digital governance, and creating platforms for diaspora investment that move beyond remittances toward productive capital. These priorities align with broader global realities. Climate shocks, tightening development finance, geopolitical fragmentation, and demographic pressure are reshaping the policy landscape for Rwanda. In light of this, the demands citizens should bring to this Umushyikirano should differ in character from those of earlier years. They should be less about whether services exist and more about whether those services function effectively in daily life, are delivered equitably, and truly reach those who need them. This shift, from celebrating access to scrutinising quality, affordability, and reliability, does not signal dissatisfaction so much as a more mature and engaged citizenry. Rwandans are increasingly measuring governance not by the promises made, but by the tangible outcomes experienced in their communities. This evolution presents the dialogue with its most important test yet. In the post-genocide period, performance could be evaluated largely by delivery. Today, many of Rwanda’s most pressing challenges; urbanization, global volatility, the quality of employment, inequality, demographic transition, and emerging health burdens, cannot be addressed through top-down measures alone. They demand open discussion of trade-offs, recognition of constraints, and engagement with uncertainty. Umushyikirano’s continued relevance will hinge on its ability to evolve: sustaining citizen engagement beyond annual sessions, integrating independent evidence with official reporting, and creating space for open deliberation on policy choices. In so doing, Rwanda will be able to demonstrate the transformative power of dialogue in shaping a more inclusive, responsive, and resilient society. The writer is a management consultant and strategist.
