{UAH} A dizzying week in Kigali, capital of a country in a hurry - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
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A dizzying week in Kigali, capital of a country in a hurry - Comment
It's been a dizzying week in Rwanda. First was the coming together of the tripartite "coalition of the willing" to push forward the agenda of fast-tracking regional integration as the foot-draggers continue to dither over which way to jump.
Tagging along were the South Sudanese, who would rather not be left behind, even as their membership in the EAC awaits approval.
Thanks to the Single Customs Territory now in operation, the time for moving goods from Mombasa to Kampala and then Kigali will diminish considerably, and with it, the cost of transportation will fall, as will the prices consumers have to pay for the transported goods. Even the most vociferous sceptics of the benefits of economic integration will not quarrel with that.
And that's just the beginning. Soon enough, those who cannot afford to fly but prefer to travel faster than is possible with road transport will have another option — trains.
That border crossing will soon become merely a matter of flashing one's national identity card at immigration officers; sounds almost too good to be true.
Before that, the Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali railway and the oil pipeline construction projects promise to create jobs and put some cash in the pockets of the region's unemployed multitudes who, thanks to free movement of labour, can now go to wherever they smell an opportunity.
And assuming the single tourist visa lives up to its billing, those who make a living from tourism will soon whistle all the way to their banks as torrents of tourist dollars flow in. For enthusiasts of fast-paced integration, the good times have truly arrived.
Sceptical Tanzanians, though, will beg to differ. To them, the "noise" generated by the goings-on among the coalition of the willing is in itself reason enough for the risk-averse to hold back.
As one told me recently, "Ngoma ikivuma sana, hupasuka." (If you beat a drum repeatedly, it will burst.) Will they one day say, "We told you so"?
And as Presidents Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame, Uhuru Kenyatta and Salva Kiir were firming up their commitments to economic integration, the Transform Africa Summit was in full swing around the corner, with over 1,500 technology and ICT enthusiasts in attendance.
Graced by senior executives from some of the world's top technology and communications companies, among them Korea Telecom, Ericsson, Nokia Network Solutions, Google and Microsoft, the Summit brought into town another three presidents, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali and Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon.
The three, together with their four colleagues and the secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, Dr Hamadoun Toure, sought to reflect on how Africa could leverage ICT, specifically broadband technology, to transform communities, governments and the private sector via greater access to information.
"We are here to dream," became a common refrain as aspirations flew about the room.
In many ways, Rwanda was the appropriate place from which to dream about a future Africa that would have leapfrogged into a technological revolution few dare to envisage today. The country is already an acknowledged leader in efforts to harness ICT to transform itself into a middle-income country by the year 2020.
Commenting on how his comoany could be part of this process, Hongjin Kim, president of Korea Telecom, a partner of the government of Rwanda in rolling out 4G broadband technology, was emphatic: "Korea Telecom wishes to partner those who want to go far," adding that the Koreans "did it" themselves, and that so should the Africans.
That brave idea got me thinking. How many of the presidents in the room really wanted to go far and would do whatever it took to get there, mainly on the basis of the efforts of their own government and people? Some made beautiful, determined speeches, of the kind that leave you bubbling with hope that finally Africa has figured out how to lift itself up with its own bootstraps. But then one remembers hearing similar speeches before followed by, well, very little by way of follow-up on the commitments made.
Just one example: In 2003, African leaders signed the so-called Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security under the Auspices of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad). Few went on to do what was required to eradicate hunger, including raising funding for agriculture to at least 10 per cent of their countries' budgets. So how many of these seven will actually walk the talk on harnessing ICT?
And while ICT was all the rage at the Serena, at the local offices of the World Bank, at a rather low-key event, it was announced that Rwanda had overtaken South Africa as the second best place to do business in Africa, and had leaped 22 places to 32nd position out of the 189 countries surveyed globally.
Just to compound the dizzy feeling, somewhere in the Rwandan countryside Members of Parliament and other leaders were "soul searching" about how to cultivate "the Rwanda spirit," building on the country's difficult history.
Whoever said Rwanda was "a country in a hurry" must have known what they were talking about.
Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. E-mail: fgmutebi@yahoo.com
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