Over a decade removed from the 1994 genocide, tiny Rwanda struggles to repair its economy and its image on the world stage. While efforts are being made to bring tourists to the northern mountains – home to over a third of the world’s gorillas – President Paul Kagame has embarked a new tactic, one that may bring the promise of a new tomorrow: comprehensive computer education.

Under the ambitious “Vision 2020” plan, President Kagame hopes to triple the per capita income (from $230 to $900) by the end of the next decade. To do this, he hopes to ready Rwanda’s population for the Internet through the nation’s network of schools. Already, 2,300 primary schools have at least two computers and over 20% of the nation’s secondary schools have wireless. On a larger scale, Kigali, the capital, will soon be the terminus on an undersea cable bringing cheap broadband to East Africa.

Clearly, it remains to be seen how effective the “Vision 2020” plan will be, and whether it will achieve its goals. But unlike much of the developing world, Rwanda has shown a tremendous amount of foresight, pinning its hopes on something other than exports, tourism, and dubious mega-projects. There will be no quick fixes to the country’s problems, but if Rwanda – once the example of all that is wrong with Africa – can do it, any country can.

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This entry was posted by Jeffrey Goodman on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 9:44 am and is filed under Environment, Social Change, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.