Rwanda became the name on everyone’s lips in the UK back in 2022, when the then-Conservative government announced their controversial asylum plan. To the British public the term ‘Rwanda’ became synonymous with our never-ending immigration debate. The prospect of offshoring our illegal migration problem led to fierce criticism. But in truth, it was the latest chapter in a story of Rwanda doing Europe’s dirty work.
Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame, is a divisive figure. To his admirers, he is the former military commander who ended the his country’s appalling genocide, united his people, and became an exemplar of developmental progress on the African continent. To his critics, he is an autocratic dictator, holding onto power since 2000 by targeting his opponents and fixing elections. In last year’s poll, Kagame supposedly ‘won’ 99% of the vote, a margin of victory Vladimir Putin could only dream of.
Despite Kagame’s authoritarianism at home and his backing for rebels in the brutal war in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Western nations remain rather mute in their criticism. Why is this? Has Kagame amassed sufficient leverage over Western nations to ensure their criticism is heard in private instead of in public?
The answer is that Kagame has made himself useful if not indispensable to the West. Rwanda has been a key ally in the fight against transnational terror networks on the African continent. It received around €10m from the EU in 2022 to help Mozambique counter an Islamic State insurgency in the country’s northern Cabo Delgado province.
This was doubled in September 2024, with the West all too happy to support ‘African solutions to African problems’. The EU’s then-representative for foreign affairs and security, Josep Borrell, went so far as to call Rwanda Defence Force involvement as ‘instrumental’ to the slowly improving security picture. That picture matters, and not just for regional and international security. France’s TotalEnergies is investing heavily in developing Mozambique’s vast offshore gas reserves, stores which Europe’s leaders hope will one day reduce their reliance on Russian gas.
Rwanda’s willingness to contribute to regional security operations has helped it to create one of the most experienced militaries on the continent. Crucially, it has also given European leaders political cover to avoid putting boots they don’t have on the ground. In the past decade its forces have been deployed as far afield as Mali, Chad, and Cote d’Ivoire.
Kagame has positioned Rwanda as a useful partner on a continent where few have existed for Western nations. His willingness to assist is, of course, calculated, yielding an abundance of funding and concessions that strengthen his domestic position.
But it is not just international maneuvering that has strengthened Kagame’s domestic position, he has also overseen a period of dramatic improvements in Rwandan living standards. Under Kagame, metrics like GPD, income per-capita, life expectancy, infant mortality, gender equality, and public health all have skyrocketed, creating a distinct sense of a “before” and “after” Kagame. What makes this all the more impressive is the fact that these dramatic increases in living standards were also all stated ambitions of Kagame when he launched his Rwanda 2020 program in 2000, with every benchmark he set out being either met or exceeded.
It is his stewardship over this multi-decade process of transforming the nation that has made Rwanda one of the few success stories on the African continent. Tangible proof of this success was provided in 2020 when the World Bank published their Ease of Doing Business rankings. Rwanda, somewhat astonishingly, finished 2nd, only behind Mauritius, providing that final piece of evidence that Rwanda had moved far beyond their tragic recent history.
So is it perhaps the success of Kagame that keeps Western voices hushed, and not his willingness to step in as their fixer? Well the answer seems to be a bit of both. When there is governmental success that both improves the lives of millions and in an area of the world that sees governments fall quicker than the Conservatives change leader, it is perhaps best to keep quiet on criticisms. Similarly, Kagame’s willingness to combat the nastier groups of the world, like the Islamic State, will of course do nothing but gain him international admirers.
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