Macroeconomic development in the country
Rwanda aims to achieve middle-income country status by 2035 and high-income country status by 2050. This will be achieved through a series of seven-year National Transformation Strategies (NST1).
Rwanda was in the midst of an economic boom before the pandemic. Growth was over 10% in 2019, mainly due to public investment to implement the National Transformation Strategy.
In Rwanda, meanwhile, the pandemic is under control. With the Omikron variant, the number of infections has increased from 10-15 to 1,000 cases/day. 60% of the population has received at least 1 vaccine dose today, 42% are fully vaccinated.
Rwanda's development model is led by the public sector. This has shown limitations, as public debt has increased significantly in recent years. In the future, the private sector will play a greater role in ensuring economic growth. Low domestic savings, a skilled labor force and the high cost of energy are some of the main obstacles to private investment. Entrepreneurship is therefore strongly encouraged, and in the past 5 years numerous SMEs have been able to develop successfully thanks to the conducive business environment.
BPN activities on site
We look back with gratitude on a very successful year: Promising seminar trainers were recruited, which made the expansion of the Business Academy possible. The number of seminars could even be doubled.
The partnership with Enabel has enabled us to double our operational capacity. In order to continue to ensure BPN quality standards with this growth, the number of employees has also increased to 15 this year, including 8 business coaches. Around 200 entrepreneurs are actively participating in the BPN program. The feedback from entrepreneurs is consistently positive. Two loans were granted as part of the BPN business owners' association . The COVID emergency loans have so far been repaid 100% on time. Within the BPN association, the topics of "investment" and "scaling up" are increasingly coming to the fore. The BPN team in Rwanda is stable, motivated and working at full capacity.
