What civil engineers and planners should know about building infrastructure in the real world: Lessons from Rwanda - CANCELED

Over 25 years ago, Rwanda was almost on the brink of being wiped off the world map. Rwanda had just gone through one of the twentieth century’s worst genocides: the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. This tragedy and the civil war more broadly left the country’s infrastructure completely destroyed. Everything had to be built from scratch. Yet today, the City of Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda is widely known as the cleanest city in Africa. Rwanda, meanwhile, is ranked by the World Bank as the 2nd easiest place to do business in Africa. How can a country undergo such a complete transformation in so little time? What engineering and planning skills are really needed to rebuild a whole nation, at the pace Rwanda has done it?

Engineers, planners, and other actors have played a critical role in Rwanda’s construction process. In this presentation, I will describe their contributions, and highlight broader lessons regarding how world class infrastructure can be built with limited resources, even after complete destruction.

Speaker: Patricie Usase, Rwanda Ministry of Infrastructure