[edbaskerville]

The Rwanda case cannot be told without Paul Kagame, one of the rare authoritarians who is also a real nation-builder, analogous to Park Chung Hee (South Korea, 1960s-1970s). He locks up his opponents but also has leveraged aid to really help socioeconomic conditions. E.g., the very close and productive collaboration with Partners in Health/Paul Farmer.

[alephnerd]

Kagame cannot be compared to Park Chung Hee or LKY. Park's economic policies actually helped South Korea climb up the economic value chain, though a lot of that was also due to Japanese technology transfers to Korea in the 1960s-90s.

On the other hand, Kagame's execution on economic reform has been a failure when compared against Uganda, as Uganda [0] has a significantly more complex (ie. higher value) economy than Rwanda [1] despite also suffering a severe civil war in the 1990s and dealing with the Idi Amin's kleptocratic rule in the 1980s.

[0] - https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/800/export-basket

[1] - https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/646/export-basket

[edbaskerville]

Thanks, that's interesting.

& that is a great website...