President Kagame: As we were rebuilding the country after the tragic history following 1994, actually years before that as well, part of the things we discovered was we have to invest in our people, in education, in their health & many other things. We have to start somewhere.
President Kagame: As we were rebuilding our education, we found we were starting from scratch in some instances and that is how we found we had to send some of our young people to study abroad, we did not have enough here.
President Kagame: As we were thinking about what to do, as the country was stabilizing, we thought how do we establish strong institutions in Rwanda so we have our own institutions developing to take in some of our students
President Kagame on starting CMU in Rwanda: Not everyone believed it was going to work, some thought it was even a waste of time. But there were more people thinking this was going to be helpful and therefore we did everything to make it a success, part of it you see today.
President Kagame: As we were making progress there was also thinking that this kind of world class institution that CMU had agreed to establish with us, shouldn’t be something that only serves Rwanda but we should be looking beyond and serve the continent.
President Kagame on existing gaps: We understand the problems of Africa, we have even discussed them extensively. The problem lies in being able to do what we know very well that is going to work for us.
President Kagame: We have many young people across the continent. Many Africans have been able to study, develop their talent & acquired very impressive qualifications, in fact many of which are applied in other parts of the world to address solutions there.
President Kagame: The gap that remains is how do we also tap into this pool of talent that is so well developed and vast. There is a lot we can do on our continent by establishing institutions like this one, or many others we see on other parts of our continent.
President Kagame: We have to work towards creating the stability and governance that allows people who have developed their talent and skills to address challenges Africa faces & those on our continent trying their best, to feel they are in the right place on their own continent
President Kagame: I don’t mean to say Africa is only for Africans, it should be for Africans primarily but it should be for everyone to come to Africa and find what they can do.
President Kagame: There are gaps that are still there. Investments have to be made to develop institutions like this one, in collaboration with other renowned institutions to find their place here so there are more of our people developing their talents, close to home.
President Kagame: We need to keep reducing the cost of accessing quality of education. Africa is not limited in terms of resources, though it is a problem, in the way it is perceived. We have to change that.
President Kagame: Many people wonder why there is this sort of paradox, Africa is actually very wealthy, whether you talk about human capital, or natural resources, I don’t think you have a richer continent than Africa.
President Kagame: It now becomes our question to answer, how do we turn the potential wealth in terms of people into this reality of where Africa should be where it actually has resources to deploy.
President Kagame: We have to realign our thinking and make sure it is going in the right direction and answering the basic and most important questions.
President Kagame: How do we stop being a potentially wealthy continent, to a continent that is actually wealthy with people who have access to what they should to take Africa to another level?
President Kagame on sustainability: You form part of that sustainability, you are here to study to do what? You are here to develop talent.
President Kagame: You are here studying so that what you study is applied to situations to address problems. The engineering is about what you want to apply it to, what problems you are solving. You are also dealing with society.
President Kagame: Sustainability comes with broadly investing in people, people who grow in an environment that shapes them to be responsive to address many challenges we see in our countries, in Africa, and between Africa and the rest of the world.
President Kagame: I dont want to anoint sustainability, I just want to invest in people more broadly and among them will come sustainability.
President Kagame on choosing reconciliation over revenge: There is no rule book here. The margin of error is the smallest. The consequence of failing in this case would have been even more costly than what we had already faced.
President Kagame: Understanding that, forces you to do certain things beyond the ordinary.
President Kagame: In the case we had, young people who were deprived of their country, who had arms in their hands & had been fighting, find their families wiped out and then they see people they hold responsible for that, the urge for revenge is very high and maybe justified.
President Kagame: But then you go beyond the ordinary. If we allowed this to happen, we would all be wiped out, the cycle would just kill all of us.
President Kagame: Even today, we would still be having killings going on because it just becomes a sort of spiral that goes on almost forever, because everyone would find justification, or perceived justification to do harm to the other.
President Kagame: I was in the middle of it. It was weighing heavily on my mind, I did not have any other particular person to look up to and say I will find a solution here. If I had failed to carry that burden, the consequences were huge.
President Kagame: Sometimes I had to make a decision about young people who carried out revenge, and deep in my heart knowing it is even justified, but I had to say no you can’t do that. Knowing that if I allowed that one to do it, then everyone else will start doing it.
President Kagame: We had to face up to this and even had to detain those who had done it. You are doing it to make sure it does not go on but at the same time in my heart I say maybe this guy had a justification
President Kagame: From a human perspective, you have a family that was killed, the man who was fighting for his country finds the family is no longer, because he has a weapon he kills the one responsible. And I have to stand in the middle & say you can’t do that, you go to prison
President Kagame: We did not have institutions, to tell the other one the justice system will take care of it, the person will say, which justice system are you talking about. This was one of my most difficult moments.
President Kagame: I had to be in full understanding that failure was going to be very costly. Not the kind of failure where you fail and try again, for me there was no trying again, you fail here and gone is the nation.
President Kagame: It was a test, it wasn’t just me alone, there were many other people. It was a testing time, in fact having in a way succeeded in this, I dont mind failing in everything else.
