I'm sticking with my hypothesis that info tech will let Africa develop faster than most expect though. AI probably even more so.
I agree that ICT will help development massively, but that's Kenya and to a certain extent Tanzania.
ICT makes up around 15% of Kenya's exports and 10% of Uganda's, and they've both been working hard on actually building a both a strong tech industry and a strong financial industry.
Tanzania doesn't have as same a size of tech industry as Kenya or Uganda, but has been investing a massive amount on building that muscle. They also have a fairly decent industrial economy for their relative position as a LDC.
Rwanda just doesn't have a similar base or bureaucrat class as Tanzania or Kenya or Uganda. Also, Rwanda doesn't actually have a tech industry. The handful of tech companies that are even there are Indian and Chinese run MSPs there to help Indian and Chinese conglomerates that temporarily setup shop there.
FDI within Rwanda has actually been decreasing because of a larger pullback of donors out of Rwanda [0][1]
Most high value projects that are being built in Rwanda are being targeted at the energy sector [2]. Specifically in oil refining. The other half of major exports from Rwanda is gold, that is primarily extracted from DRC and exported from Rwanda.
Compared to its peers in East Africa, the Rwandan economy is much less complex than it should be. In all honesty, it's smokes and mirrors exacerbated by a strong PR relationship between the Rwandan govt, donors, and NGOs. You don't hear half as much about Kenya, Tanzania, or Uganda as you do about Rwanda, yet almost everything within Rwanda is basically being managed by donors, and a couple Chinese and Indian conglomerates making a quick buck [3]
> Sometimes free market economics lets countries grow without a government plan
Free Market economics still requires a formal vision or strategy to develop a country. South Korea had a formalized strategy in the 80s and 90s, China in the 90s and 2000s, India in the 2010s, etc.
If you go purely free market, then there is no actual incentive.
Take a look at neighboring Kenya. Tanzania, and Uganda. They have actual formal industrial and Human capital development projects with the intended aim of building out that muscle locally. The kinds of programs Rwanda creates like this (eg. CMU Kigali) simply don't have an RoI. The exact same thing happened in Ethiopia.
> implying they are doing ok
High GDP growth is expected at Rwanda's stage of development. But Rwanda's rate of growth is not as impressive compared to Cambodia and Vietnam when they were at a similar stage to Rwanda, but with a much lower dependency on foreign aid. Around 1.3% of GDP growth in Rwanda can be attributed to foreign aid alone. With foreign aid, it ends up getting disbursed and managed by NGOs and Donors directly, not the government. As such, this causes a significant deficiency in institutional knowledge. This has been seen with falsified poverty and economic data from Rwanda.
[0] - https://issafrica.org/iss-today/could-fdi-be-rwandas-lifelin...
[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RWA/rwanda/foreign-dir...
[2] - https://www.gov.rw/highlights/economy-and-business
[3] - https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/China-and-India-stage-invest...