Singapore of Africa Remains the Poorest in East Africa, Except for Burundi.

View of downtown Kigali, Rwanda

Foreign Investment to Rwanda Collapsed in 2020, While Personal Remittances Did Not Decline As Sharply.

By David Himbara

The newly published World Bank data for 2020 paints a pathetic picture of General Paul Kagame’s Singapore of Africa that was supposed to become a middle-Income economy by 2020, per Vision 2020.

Rwanda’s GDP per capita is US$797.9, confirming its low-income status – the only country poorer in East Africa is Burundi at US$274.

Rwanda is poorer than the failed state of Haiti, whose GDP per capita is US$1,176.8.

Meanwhile, foreign direct investment to Rwanda collapsed to US$135 million in 2020 from US$354 million in 2019.

The good news is that money sent home by the Rwandan diaspora did not decline as sharply.

Personal remittances to Rwanda dropped from US$260.7 million in 2019 to US$241 million in 2020. Stay tuned.