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Rwanda

Rwanda

The Republic of Rwanda is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa, bordered by Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania.

Country name:

  • conventional long form: Republic of Rwanda
  • conventional short form: Rwanda
  • local long form: Republika y'u Rwanda
  • local short form: Rwanda
  • former: Ruanda, German East Africa

Nationality:

  • noun: Rwandan(s)
  • adjective: Rwandan

Capital:

  • name: Kigali
  • geographic coordinates: 1 57 S, 30 04 E
  • time difference: UTC+2 (7 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)

Independence:

  • 1 July 1962 (from Belgium-administered UN trusteeship)

Population:

  • 10,186,063
  • note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS
  • This can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2008 est.)

Population growth rate:

  • 2.779% (2008 est.)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:

  • 5.1% (2003 est.)

Ethnic groups:

  • Hutu (Bantu) 84%
  • Tutsi (Hamitic) 15%
  • Twa (Pygmy) 1%

Religions:

  • Roman Catholic 56.5%
  • Protestant 26%
  • Adventist 11.1%
  • Muslim 4.6%
  • Iindigenous beliefs 0.1%, none 1.7% (2001)

Languages:

  • Kinyarwanda (official) universal Bantu vernacular
  • French (official)
  • English (official)
  • Kiswahili (Swahili) used in commercial centers

Literacy:

  • definition: age 15 and over can read and write
  • total population: 70.4%
  • male: 76.3%
  • female: 64.7% (2003 est.)

Government type:

  • Rrepublic, presidential, multiparty system

Location:

  • Central Africa, east of Democratic Republic of the Congo

Area - comparative:

  • Slightly smaller than Maryland

Land boundaries:

  • total: 893 km
  • border countries: Burundi 290 km, Democratic Republic of the Congo 217 km, Tanzania 217 km, Uganda 169 km

Climate:

  • Temperate, two rainy seasons (February to April, November to January)
  • Mild in mountains with frost and snow possible

Natural resources:

  • Gold, cassiterite (tin ore), wolframite (tungsten ore), methane, hydropower, arable land

Economy - overview:

Rwanda is a poor rural country with about 90% of the population engaged in (mainly subsistence) agriculture. It is the most densely populated country in Africa and is landlocked with few natural resources and minimal industry. Primary foreign exchange earners are coffee and tea. The 1994 genocide decimated Rwanda's fragile economic base, severely impoverished the population, particularly women, and eroded the country's ability to attract private and external investment. However, Rwanda has made substantial progress in stabilizing and rehabilitating its economy to pre-1994 levels, although poverty levels are higher now. GDP has rebounded and inflation has been curbed. Despite Rwanda's fertile ecosystem, food production often does not keep pace with population growth, requiring food imports. Rwanda continues to receive substantial aid money and obtained IMF-World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative debt relief in 2005-06. Rwanda also received Millennium Challenge Account Threshold status in 2006. The government has embraced an expansionary fiscal policy to reduce poverty by improving education, infrastructure, and foreign and domestic investment and pursuing market-oriented reforms, although energy shortages, instability in neighboring states, and lack of adequate transportation linkages to other countries continue to handicap growth.

GDP - real growth rate:

  • 6% (2007 est.)

GDP - per capita (PPP):

  • $900 (2007 est.)

Background:

In 1959, three years before independence from Belgium, the majority ethnic group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi king. Over the next several years, thousands of Tutsis were killed, and some 150,000 driven into exile in neighboring countries. The children of these exiles later formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and began a civil war in 1990. The war, along with several political and economic upheavals, exacerbated ethnic tensions, culminating in April 1994 in the genocide of roughly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu regime and ended the killing in July 1994, but approximately 2 million Hutu refugees - many fearing Tutsi retribution - fled to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire. Since then, most of the refugees have returned to Rwanda, but several thousand remained in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC; the former Zaire) and formed an extremist insurgency bent on retaking Rwanda, much as the RPF tried in 1990. Despite substantial international assistance and political reforms - including Rwanda's first local elections in March 1999 and its first post-genocide presidential and legislative elections in August and September 2003 - the country continues to struggle to boost investment and agricultural output, and ethnic reconciliation is complicated by the real and perceived Tutsi political dominance. Kigali's increasing centralization and intolerance of dissent, the nagging Hutu extremist insurgency across the border, and Rwandan involvement in two wars in recent years in the neighboring DRC continue to hinder Rwanda's efforts to escape its bloody legacy.

Environment - current issues:

  • Deforestation results from uncontrolled cutting of trees for fuel
  • Overgrazing, soil exhaustion, soil erosion and widespread poaching
 

For more info please contact:
African Studies
(310) 825-3686
africa@international.ucla.edu