By FREDERIK LANGE
The story seems otherwise written in Rwanda. After 800,000 people were killed in less than 100 days at the 1994 genocide, President Paul Kagame has been the man behind a miraculous economic recovery.
Since coming to power in 2000, he has lifted thousands out of poverty. With high growth rates, halved child mortality and better access to health and education, Rwanda has become the golden boy of the developing world .
But that tale may need to be rewritten now.
The British newspaper Financial Times on Tuesday published an article (paywall) that casts doubt on whether official poverty statistics from Rwanda are to be trusted.
The Financial Times has reviewed Rwanda’s official information and believes it can prove that the narrative of declining poverty in the East African country does not match reality.
On the contrary, the Financial Times points out that poverty in the country has actually increased between 2011-2015. How much it has risen depends on the way in which inflation is calculated.
“The government is trying to draw a picture of Rwanda being developed so that it can hide what is really going on,” says Diane Rwigara, who spent one year in prison after running for presidential candidate against Kagame in the 2017 election , to the Financial Times.
“When you come here as a visitor, everything is set to impress you, but the reality is hidden away. You have to live here to experience reality, ”she says.
The World Bank is on Rwanda’s side
There has long been speculation as to whether the economic and social progress in Rwanda was reliable.
In 2010, Kagame’s director of strategy and policy, David Himbara, fled to Canada, accusing the president of tampering with a host of statistics – including the poverty statistics.
“Every single statistic counts for Kagame. That’s the way he convinces donors to ignore his oppression of particular groups and instead look at economic development, “Himbara told the Financial Times.
Again in 2015, Rwanda’s poverty statistics were cast into doubt as a small group of researchers hit the drum for figures to not match reality. Independent experts at the time called their allegations credible, but both Rwanda and the World Bank have denied the accusations.
Since the 1994 genocide, the World Bank has contributed over $ 4 billion in development aid to Rwanda. Every time there have been accusations of speech manipulation against Kagame, the World Bank has been in charge with the President.
World Bank reputation at stake
While the World Bank outwardly insists that Rwanda’s official poverty statistics hold water, there is more cure on the inside.
In 2015, five employees wrote an internal letter to senior World Bank executives voicing their concerns about “manipulation of official statistics”. They warned in the same vein that it could cause “serious deterioration of the organisation’s reputation”. The letter first became public on Tuesday when its content was published by the Financial Times.
The five employees never received a response, and at that time decided not to proceed with the case. Since then, the World Bank has twice defended Rwanda’s official poverty statistics.
In 2017, President Kagame was re-elected for his third term in Rwanda with 99 percent of the vote. In 2018, the World Bank donated $ 545 million to Rwanda, which is a new record and a doubling from the previous year.
Source: https://globalnyt.dk/content/fortaellingen-om-rwandas-oekonomiske-mirakel-er-loegn?fbclid=IwAR0nOiiJ2yyBLvN_ibzIw604eG_OilbAXhEXRAw8vcezh-PXUNC-WRTxZpg
