Our nation’s collective commitment to inclusion and the hard-won achievements of Rwandan women are helping lead our country toward a brighter future.
Gender empowerment – Rwanda’s female parliamentarians and President Kagame.
The empowerment of Rwandan women is intrinsically linked to our vision for the country and the transformation that our society has undergone since 1994. Female empowerment was and is one of the main driving forces of this transformation, as well as one of its most valuable outcomes.
When the BBC reported recently that women were being trained to drive electric-powered motorcycle taxis in Rwanda, many readers were surprised. Not only is this an innovative, environmentally conscious line of work, but it’s also one that many might not regard as a typically female profession. Not in Rwanda, however, because we regard every job as gender-neutral.
Rwanda has received a considerable amount of criticism in the news recently. No country is perfect, but there has been no recognition of everything that Rwanda has achieved since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi – such as the huge advances in female empowerment. I am proud to say that, today, Rwanda has the highest rate of female labor force participation not just in Africa, but the entire world.
86 percent of Rwandan women are active in the national labor market. They also hold 55 percent of government cabinet positions and 61.3 percent of seats in our country’s parliament. For me, it is clear: The leaps that Rwanda has made over the last 28 years wouldn’t have been possible without the contribution of the extraordinary women of our country.
In 1994, Rwanda was a nation in ruin. The horrors of the genocide against the Tutsi had left the economy crippled and our society damaged almost beyond repair. At the time, I never could have dreamed that we would find ourselves where we are today: In less than three decades, it is estimated that over a million Rwandans have been lifted out of poverty as a result of sustained economic growth. From 2005 to 2017, the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty was slashed from 35.8 to 16 percent.
Today, we continue to work to get that number down to zero, but I firmly believe that we are on the right path to getting there and that this transformation would have never happened had Rwanda not unleashed the talents and abilities of the women of our country. This hasn’t only benefited our economy but it has also helped change the fundamental nature of Rwandan society as well.
Pre-genocide Rwanda was a primarily paternalistic society, with little opportunity for women to assume leadership roles in government or the wider society. But the atrocities that occurred in that period profoundly disrupted the old social order.
Research shows that improving gender equality helps foster reconciliation and peace-building, increases economic growth, reduces poverty, enhances societal well-being, and helps ensure sustainable development – all of which we have seen in Rwanda first-hand.
Early on, it was clear to the post-genocide government that women’s leadership and influence would be vital at a time when forgiveness, reconciliation, and peacebuilding were desperately needed. So, from the outset, equality of opportunity and of representation was central to Rwanda’s reconstruction policies.
The empowerment of Rwandan women is intrinsically linked to our vision for the country and the transformation that our society has undergone since 1994. Female empowerment was and is one of the main driving forces of this transformation, as well as one of its most valuable outcomes.
Research shows that improving gender equality helps foster reconciliation and peace-building, increases economic growth, reduces poverty, enhances societal well-being, and helps ensure sustainable development – all of which we have seen in Rwanda first-hand.
None of this was easy. Undoing societally ingrained patriarchal norms and building a more equitable society takes serious work, which is why Rwanda devised innovative mechanisms to promote women’s representation and inclusion.