Q&A: How Political Will can Accelerate Green Growth in Africa

While the African Green Growth Forum 2018 was taking place for the first time ever in Kigali, Rwanda last week, IPS sat down with Okechukwu Daniel Ogbonnaya, the Acting Country Representative and Lead Advisor for the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) to talk about the new forum, working with Rwanda and green growth integration in Africa. GGGI organised the forum with the Government of Rwanda.

Rwanda to Build Ecotourism Park in Kigali

Rwanda’s capital city Kigali will be home to a 134 hectare urban park in the city’s biggest valley in 2020. The Nyandungu Urban Wetland Eco-Tourism Park will conserve wetlands and habitat for wildlife while providing walking and cycling trails, fish ponds and botanical gardens for residents and tourists.

Fostering Green, Made-In-Africa Innovations

Over 1000 policy makers, experts, investors and financial specialists from across Africa are gathered this week in Kigali, at a week-long Africa Green Growth Forum 2018 to discuss how to foster green, made-in-Africa innovations to meet the needs of the continent. 

Rwanda Action Plan Aims to Make Cities Green

An ambitious programme aimed at developing six green secondary cities in Rwanda is underway and is expected to help the country achieve sustainable economic growth through energy efficiency and green job creation.

Development of ICT Innovation Expected to Help in Fight Against Banana Disease in Rwanda

When Telesphore Ruzigamanzi, a smallholder banana farmer from a remote village in Eastern Rwanda, discovered a peculiar yellowish hue on his crop before it started to dry up, he did not give it the due consideration it deserved.

Rape as an Act of Genocide: From Rwanda to Iraq

The governments of Rwanda and Iraq have agreed to work together to fight rape as a weapon of genocide, noting disturbing similarities between sexual violence in Iraq today to the Rwandan genocide twenty years ago.

India Needs to “Save its Daughters” Through Education and Gender Equality

Women constitute nearly half of the country's 1.25 billion people and gender equality -- whether in politics, economics, education or health -- is still a distant dream for most. This fact was driven home again sharply by the recently released United National Development Programme’s Human Development Report (HDR) 2015 which ranks India at a lowly 130 out of 155 countries in the Gender Inequality Index (GII). India trails behind most Asian countries, including lesser developed Bangladesh and Pakistan which rank 111 and 121 respectively, and fares not much ahead of war-ravaged Afghanistan at 152.

“Why Hire a Lawyer When You Can Buy a Judge?”

A woman is stopped at a checkpoint; she gives birth, and dies. Another is sold in a slave market. A boy is killed by a tank. A young man drowns at sea, trying to reach a haven safe from oppression and poverty.

Activists Protest Denial of Condoms to Africa’s High-Risk Groups

Tatenda Chivata, a 16-year old from Zimbabwe’s Mutoko rural district, was suspended from school for an entire three-month academic term after he was found with a used condom stashed in his schoolbag.

Halting Progress: Ending Violence against Women

As Juan Evo Morales Ayma, popularly known as 'Evo', celebrates his victory for a third term as Bolivia’s president on a platform of “anti-imperialism” and radical socio-economic policies, he can also claim credit for ushering in far-reaching social reforms such as the Bolivian “Law against Political Harassment and Violence against Women” enacted in 2012.

Tech Entrepreneur Encourages Rwanda’s Young Women to Venture into ICT

Akaliza Keza Gara is only 27, but she’s achieved much for women in Rwanda’s technology sector in just a short space of time.

Future of Rwanda’s Orphans Still Uncertain

Every day, 14-year-old Deborah wakes up in an orphanage, goes to school, and comes home to an orphanage. It does not matter when or for how long she leaves the orphanage, she always knows she’ll be back.

From Genocide to African Catwalks – How Rwandan Women are Building their Lives and the Fashion Industry

Before Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, Salaam Uwamariya’s husband, a professor, was the family breadwinner, providing for her and their eight children. Uwamariya sold vegetables at a nearby market to supplement their income.

Popular Rwandan Rights Group Helps Youth Create Jobs with Popcorn Venture

Twenty-year-old Fabrice Shyaka sells popcorn in brown paper bags five nights a week from his stand in a small alleyway, situated next to a DVD shop blaring loud music, and a supermarket. Here in Kanombe, a suburb in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, he is the only person selling popcorn in the area.

Sweet Dreams are Made of Rwandan Ice Cream

From all across Rwanda, and even from parts of neighbouring Burundi, people flock to the southern town of Butare to a little shop called Inzozi Nziza or Sweet Dreams. They come here for a taste of something of the unknown, something most have never tasted in their lives — the sweet, cold, velvety embrace of ice cream.

Trauma Still Fresh for Rwanda’s Survivors of Genocidal Rape

Claudine Umuhoza’s son turned 19 this Apr. 1. And while he may be one of at least thousands of children who were conceived during the Rwandan genocide, he’s not officially classified as a survivor of it. But his mother is.

On 20th Anniversary of Genocide, Rwanda’s Women Lead

When Rwandan Member of Parliament Veneranda Nyirahirwa was just a girl, she wasn’t allowed to attend secondary school because of her ethnicity. 

Biofortified Beans to Fight ‘Hidden Hunger’ in Rwanda

Joane Nkuliye considers herself an activist. She is part of a select group of farmers producing biofortified crops on a commercial scale in Rwanda. 

20 Years On – Rwanda Uses Genocide Reconciliation to Boost Economic Growth

It’s almost 20 years now since Sylidio Gashirabake, a Hutu, was a perpetrator in Rwanda’s genocide. It’s also almost 20 years since his neighbour, Augustin Kabogo, a Tutsi, lost his sister and family in the violence. But today, both men work side-by-side in their joint business venture in Kirehe district in southeastern Rwanda.

Peacekeeping 20 Years after Rwanda

On Jan. 11, 1994, Romeo Dallaire, force commander of the United Nations Mission in Rwanda, sent a fax to U.N. Headquarters in New York, telling officials there a source close to the government had confided to him that Tutsis were being forced to register themselves in Kigali.

Almost 20 Years On – International Justice Still Fails Rwandans

"There is a saying that all Rwandans believe in. You can't forgive if you forget, but when you remember, you know what harmed you and you can forgive and move forward," Honore Gatera tells IPS as he walks through the grounds of the Kigali Memorial Centre in Rwanda’s capital.