A cross section of delegates who attended the AfDB meetings in Kigali: They named Rwanda the “Symbol of Resilience”
Rwanda has been named a ‘symbol’ of resilience by different delegates at a concluded five-Day annual meeting of the African Development Bank closing today.
The new nickname for Rwanda was picked by high level speakers at the meeting, mainly due to the Country’s remarkable transformation and development 20 years after the Genocide.
Speaking at one of the sessions, Mauritania President and current Chair of the African Union, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz said that the narrative on “how quickly” Rwanda recovered from what many saw as an irrevocable apocalypse should not be lost to delegates attending the meetings.
He hailed Rwanda for having evolved through a period of economic prosperity and macroeconomic stability in the past decade pushing its GDP to an average of 8 percent annually which earned the country accolades as one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.
While delivering his speech at the official opening of the annual meeting yesterday, AfDB President, Donald Kaberuka said that what many describe as the Rwandan miracle should provide at least two lessons that can be very relevant to many African countries facing challenges of reconstruction.
“The first lesson is that no matter how bad a situation is, a determined people can prevail against the most impossible odds. The second lesson is that while there are manuals on how to build complex structures, there is no such toolbox on how to rebuild a destroyed nation,” he said.
“People have to look to their culture, their history, the nature of the crisis they face and come up with their own solutions. I acknowledging the support from friends far and near in Rwanda’s reconstruction.”
Referring to last month’s kidnapping of nearly 300 school girls in Borno, Northeastern Nigeria, Kaberuka said that, as a developing finance institution, the Bank dearly upholds the right of girls to go to school alongside their brothers.
“It is at the heart of the demographic dividend. In the same vein we vehemently condemned the violence and terrorist groups bent on interrupting our economic takeoff, spreading mayhem in Nigeria, in Kenya, the Sahel and the Horn, said Kaberuka.
Conflict and fragility are among several themes discussed by participants at the Annual Meeting theme: “The next 50 years: The Africa we want.” That took place in Kigali.