Word: africa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Francine's new prosperity came from the lush terraces in the southern mountains of Maraba, through which Texas A&M University agronomist Tim Schilling had driven me in his pickup an hour earlier. Rwanda is tiny and landlocked, an oasis of rain, lakes and volcanoes in the heart of Africa. Its slopes are home to mountain gorillas and the furthest source of the Nile. They are also, Schilling says, "where God would have chosen to grow coffee...
Coffee is far from Rwanda's only success. Its roads are some of the best in Africa, and the entire country will be wireless by the end of the year. Rwanda is also clean, thanks to a ban on plastic bags since 2005 and a mandatory national "tidy up" one afternoon each month, in which even government ministers clean the streets. Partly as a result, and partly because of careful rain-forest management and a mountain gorilla baby boom, Rwanda is also a growing eco-tourism destination. The government says the economy as a whole will grow 6.5% this year...
...Mayange, outside Nyamata, Ruxin has virtually eliminated hunger and malaria in 15 months, and the government is now scaling up his success nationwide. Most significant, foreign donors report no corruption, and in its World Governance Indicators released in July, the World Bank found Rwanda's government ranked among Africa's best, such as South Africa and Mauritius, scoring particularly well on control of graft. Repeat: World Finds Little Corruption in Small African Country...
...pursuing vengeance. "Everything has been taken over by the Tutsi. The Hutu ... are intimidated." And it was two Rwandan army invasions in the late 1990s into the Democratic Republic of Congo, in pursuit of fugitive Rwandan génocidaires, that sparked a war that sucked in most of central Africa and killed more than 3 million people. Nor can the Rwandan army claim it was acting purely on a moral imperative. The Congo wars rapidly became a smash-and-grab for gold, diamonds and other minerals: at one point, Rwandan troops traded gunfire with Ugandans for control...
Kagame's misgivings about foreign powers leads to his suspicion about aid. "In the last 50 years, you've sent $400 billion in aid to Africa, but if you look back, what is there to show for it?" he asks. "Why should the West spend so much without bothering whether that is making a difference? How does Africa accept that its affairs are run by ngos and other groups from outside? It's really something that needs to be corrected." So Rwanda is trying to build a new model of development. Though foreign assistance makes up around a third...