Here’s Nic Cheeseman’s summary:

Instead of sitting back and waiting for foreign investors and the “market” to inspire growth, the new administration intervened directly in a process of state directed development. Most notably, his government kick started economic activity in areas that had previously been stagnating by investing heavily in key sectors. It has done so through party-owned holding companies such as Tri-Star Investments.

Combined with the careful management of agriculture, these policies generated economic growth of around 8% between 2001 and 2013. Partly as a result, the percentage of people living below the poverty line fell from 57% in 2005 to 45% in 2010. Other indicators of human development, such as life expectancy and literacy, have also improved.

Cheeseman rightfully cautions against copying the Rwanda model:

Shorn of the internal and external political control required to make it work, the application of the Rwandan model elsewhere would generate very different results.

Extending the control of the ruling party over the economy is more likely to increase graft and waste than to spur economic activity. And efforts to neutralise opposition parties are likely to be strongly resisted, leading to political instability and economic uncertainty.

What this means is that if other countries on the continent try to implement the Rwandan model, the chances are that they will experience all of its costs while realising few of its benefits.

Read the whole thing here.

Cheeseman argues that the RPF’s total political monopoly is a necessary condition for the observed bureaucratic discipline in Rwanda. While this might be true, I am curious about what conclusions we might arrive at if we drop the assumption that Rwanda’s is a system of “developmental patrimonialism”.

What if we were to see it as just bureaucratic developmentalism (infused with good old crony capitalism)? Are there lessons on the industrial organization of the Rwandese state that are transferable to Malawi or Sierra Leone?

For more on neopatrimonialism and development in Africa check out this important paper by Thandika Mkandawire.