Counting Progress: Reading about Economic Development in Rwanda

1Before you read

1. Name three changes you have seen in your area in the last five years. Which would you call "development"?
2. What does a government need to measure to know whether life is getting better?
3. Have you heard of Vision 2050? What do you think it aims for?

2Reading: Counting Progress

A feature article written for this course. The figures come from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) and from MINECOFIN's National Strategy for Transformation (NST2).

1 Ask ten people what "development" means and you may get ten answers: a tarred road to the village, electricity in every home, a job after school, a clinic within walking distance, children who grow to their full height. Economists bundle much of this into one headline number, gross domestic product (GDP), the value of all the goods and services a country produces in a year. But a careful reader of any development report soon learns that one number is never the whole story.

2 Start with the headline. According to NISR, Rwanda's economy grew by 9.4% in 2025, and GDP at current prices reached Frw 23,387 billion, up from Frw 19,918 billion in 2024. Divided by the population, GDP per head was about US$1,156 in 2025, compared with US$1,091 a year earlier. Services, which include trade, transport, banking, tourism, education and health, produced 52% of GDP; industry, including manufacturing, mining and construction, produced 22%; and agriculture 20%.

3 Growth is measured against a plan. Rwanda's long-term plan, Vision 2050, sets two goals: to become an upper-middle-income country by 2035 and a high-income country by 2050. The vision is carried out through five-year strategies prepared by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN). The first, NST1, covered 2017 to 2024. According to MINECOFIN's review of that period, access to electricity rose from 34.4% to 78.9%, life expectancy rose from 66.6 to 69.9 years, and more than 27,000 classrooms were built. Over 1.3 million jobs were created, and the number of government services available online grew from 155 to more than 680.

4 The same review is frank about what remains to be done. In 2023 unemployment stood at 17.2%, and among young people it was 20.8%. A third of children under five (33%) were stunted: poor nutrition had kept them shorter than they should be for their age, with effects on learning and health that can last a lifetime. Exports of goods and services almost doubled between 2017 and 2023, from US$1.9 billion to US$3.51 billion, but imports grew faster still, so the gap between what the country paid to the rest of the world and what it earned from it widened.

5 The second strategy, NST2, runs from 2024 to 2029 and turns these gaps into targets. It aims for average growth of 9.3% a year, and for income per head to rise from US$1,040 in 2023 to US$1,369 by 2029. It plans 1.25 million productive jobs, about 250,000 a year; it aims to raise exports to about US$7.3 billion; and it seeks to cut stunting from 33% to 15%. Each target names a number and a date, so anyone can check later whether it was met.

6 Checking is not always simple. In 2025 NISR changed the base year it uses to calculate GDP, so figures published before and after the change do not always match. NISR's first estimate of growth in the first quarter of 2025 was 7.8%; its revised figure for the same quarter is 6.5%. Neither number is a mistake: the second was calculated with newer and fuller information. A careful reader therefore asks not only "What is the number?" but also "Who measured it, when, and has it been revised?"

7 Numbers also leave out things that matter but are hard to count: the quality of a lesson, the fairness of a decision, the health of a river. That is not a reason to ignore statistics; it is a reason to treat them as evidence for a discussion rather than as its conclusion. For young Rwandans the discussion is personal, because the jobs, exports and nutrition targets will be met or missed partly by the generation now in school.

3What Rwanda's economy produced in 2025

Paragraph 2 divides GDP into sectors. The chart shows NISR's figures; they add up to 99% because each share is rounded.

4Comprehension

Questions 1 to 5 test what the article says; 6 to 8 test what it means; 9 asks for your judgement.

1. What is GDP, according to paragraph 1?
2. By how much did Rwanda's economy grow in 2025, and which sector produced the largest share of GDP?
3. What are the two goals of Vision 2050?
4. Name three results of NST1 that MINECOFIN reports, with their figures.
5. What does it mean that a child is "stunted"?
6. Why does the writer say that "one number is never the whole story"? Use two examples from the article.
7. Exports almost doubled between 2017 and 2023, yet the writer presents trade as a challenge. Explain why.
8. Paragraph 6 gives two different figures for growth in the first quarter of 2025. Why does the writer say "Neither number is a mistake"?
9. Which NST2 target do you think matters most for people of your age? Give two reasons.

Show answersHide answers

1. The value of all the goods and services a country produces in a year.
2. By 9.4%; services, with 52% of GDP.
3. To become an upper-middle-income country by 2035 and a high-income country by 2050.
4. Any three: access to electricity rose from 34.4% to 78.9%; life expectancy from 66.6 to 69.9 years; more than 27,000 classrooms were built; over 1.3 million jobs were created; online government services grew from 155 to more than 680.
5. Poor nutrition has kept the child shorter than he or she should be for that age.
6. GDP cannot show everything: for example, unemployment among young people was 20.8% and a third of young children were stunted, even while the economy grew; and things like the quality of a lesson or the health of a river cannot easily be counted.
7. Imports grew even faster than exports, so the gap between what Rwanda paid to the rest of the world and what it earned widened.
8. The second figure was calculated later, with newer and fuller information and a new base year. A revision is a normal part of producing statistics, not an error.
9. Answers will vary. A good answer names one target and gives two reasons linked to young people, for example: "The jobs target, because youth unemployment was 20.8% in 2023 and because a job lets a young person save and plan."

5Vocabulary in context