Visiting Rwanda

Or, more accurately, Kigali for the Commonwealth Business Council Investment Forum for East Africa.

My first encounter with Rwanda was in 1994, when I was working for the International Red Cross Federation's regional delegation in Nairobi. As an accountant, my job for a short period was to deliver huge sums of cash to the relief effort in Goma and Bukavu, just across the Congo border. The weekly consignments averaged about $500,000 in cash - mixed denominations, 1999 series or later. By keeping the process low-profile, I managed to avoid becoming a target myself, but it was an uncomfortable, but very necessary task. At the time the banking system in Eastern Congo (Zaire) had broken down completely, so cash was the only means of financing the massive relief operation.

Since then, I have been back on a number of occasions, always with delight at the visible and tangible progress since the dark days of 1994. Most memorably, I made a trip in 2002 to Ruhengeri to visit mountain gorillas. I had tagged a day visit on the end of a business trip to Kigali and as a result was extremely badly equipped for the short hike up the mountain to the forest. It had rained the night before, as we left early in the morning, the valleys were cloud-filled but the hills clear. The image of the deep green "mille collines" floating in a sea of white clouds in the early morning sunlight is unforgettable, yet it pales by comparison with the sight of a family group of 15-20 mountain gorillas.

Kigali is clean, orderly and functional but, in comparison with the hustle and bustle of other East African commercial centres, strangely devoid of apparent colour and energy. There is a reserve and a sense of watchfulness which leaves the visitor with a sense of remoteness....

As for the conference, well, I was very interested in about 20% of the agenda. Protocols observed, there were some very interesting discussions on the future of agriculture and forestry in Africa (both of which are close to my heart) and, as is always the case, a good opportunity to meet a range of useful contacts. Sadly, the session on financial inclusion - the delivery of appropriate financial services to the unbanked majority - was disappointingly bland. The simple fact is that banks in East Africa are extremely profitable and simply do not need to invest in delivering banking services into rural areas. Furthermore, they are far too costly - tending, as everywhere else in the world - to grow fat on the huge and indefensible spreads between customer deposit interest rates and borrowing rates.... Am I alone in thinking that there is something fundamentally wrong when bankers are the highest paid segment of the workforce?

I hope I will be back in Rwanda soon. And I hope, next time, that I will be able to see something more than a hotel, a taxi, a conference centre and an airport. On the flight back this morning, I realised that I had in all honesty had no contact with Rwanda... again. East Africans, international delegates, foreign-owned and managed organisations, but nothing that brought me any closer to a relationship or an understanding of Rwanda. The remoteness remains.