“Whenever I’m in Kigali,” says New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, “I am always impressed by how spotless it is, how the city hums with efficiency — all the more remarkable considering that Rwanda remains one of the poorest nations in the world.”

Traffic flows smoothly, and even on a Saturday, Gettleman says, groups of white-gloved women sweep the streets. There is no garbage: “None of the black plastic bags that get tangled up in the fences and trees of so many other African cities,” because the Government banned them. Slums are not allowed, and homeless people, vagrants, and petty criminals are housed on Idjwi — an island in the middle of Lake Kivu, one of the African great lakes between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is not a special sanitising exercise for a high-profile visitor; it is daily life in Kigali.

In fact, so safe, clean, and orderly is the city that it is hard to even spot a jaywalker, Gettleman says, or to believe that this was the site of one of the world’s worst genocides 20 years ago. In a terrible escalation of a civil war, which began in the early 1990s, the 85 per cent ethnic Hutu majority tried to eliminate the 14 per cent Tutsi minority in the East African country, between April and July 1994. Nearly a million men, women and children — Tutsis, and Hutus who opposed ethnic cleansing — were killed. It ended when Rwanda’s current president, Paul Kagame, led the Tutsi resistance — the Rwandan Patriotic Front — overpowered the Hutu rebels and took control of the government.

In 2001, Kagame established Gacaca Courts to try perpetrators of the genocide. Modelled on the principle of transitional justice, it emphasised healing for both victims and perpetrators. The Economist, March 28, 2015, noted that he was largely able to achieve justice without committing further injustices. That set the foundation for unity, stability and growth, and today “business is booming, corruption is minimal, and foreign investors flock to the country”.

Rwanda receives about a billion dollars in international aid annually; Kagame has determinedly used it as a launch pad, alongside efforts to develop the private sector, attract foreign investments, and inveigle Rwandans abroad, including those who fled the genocide, to return and or invest in Rwanda. Over the last five years, the economy has grown an average eight per cent, its aid budget is supported by growth in agriculture, tourism, infrastructure, housing development, and foreign direct investment. With tangible results to look at, Rwanda has decided to pursue the objectives of becoming a middle-income economy by 2020, with GDP per capita of US$1,240. It is investing a tenth of the country’s annual budget in roads, rail, water and transport aimed at reducing cost to both businesses and individuals. In 2012, the country jumped to 52nd, from 158th in 2005, on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Annual Report.

The social gains are equally impressive with outstanding gains in education, health and inclusiveness. For example, life expectancy rose from under 48 years in 2000 to more than 62 in 2011; deaths of under-fives fell from 230 per 1,000 live births in 1998 to 55 in 2012; and infant mortality from 120 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1998 to fewer than 40 in 2012. Rwanda is the only country in the world with more females than males in parliament.

Kagame’s success is attributed to his embrace of modern management techniques, including cutting-edge communication technology, and a disinterest in personal aggrandisement, which means that public funds do not end up in his or his family’s pocket. Gettleman describes him as a “spartan, stoic, analytical and austere” personality who stays up long into the night reading back issues of The Economist and responding to articles on Twitter.

“He…is very good at breaking sprawling, ambitious projects into manageable chunks,” Gettleman says, a quality that played a pivotal role in the country’s leap on the Ease of Doing Business Index. Kagame set up a special unit in the Government to “break down the World Bank’s ratings system, category by category, and figured out exactly what was needed to improve on each criterion”.

Most importantly, Kagame monitors his government by requiring that officials sign imihigo, a kind of corporate performance contract, pinpointing targets to be achieved. These are as specific as the number of street signs to be posted over a certain time frame, or the amount of pineapples to be harvested; the number of adults in a specific rural district who will be taught to read (1,500 in one case) or the number of cows to be inseminated (3,000). Kagame signs each of them himself.

Since the passing of former Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew, tributes have flowed, and rightly so, even if some of the analysis are too abstract and void of alternative paradigm when the circumstances do not compare. Worse, it gives way to unease about our tendency to lionise individuals — put their images on walls and quote them endlessly — while ignoring or misunderstanding the principles of their lives, or demonstrating no interest in, or intention to emulate the sacrifices they made in the process of becoming our favourite heroes or heroine.

Notwithstanding, there are lessons to be learned from Lee Kuan Yew, as there are to be learned from a flawed Paul Kagame, who is coming under increasing pressure for what some see as repressive tactics and covert human rights abuses, not just in Rwanda, but in neighbouring Congo. There is concern, too, that after his spectacular success, he might try to change the constitution to retain power rather than cede on schedule in 2017. Among those lessons then, is, as The Economist says, is that tight political control is essential to development. The challenge is that its misuse can easily reverse apparent progress.

Mindful of that caveat, Rwanda remains a study in the effectiveness of strategic planning, execution and stakeholder accountability. I strongly recommend imihigo with large doses of Ubuntu — the belief in our interconnectedness and humanity — in our quest for a future that is sustainable.

Grace Virtue, PhD, is a social justice advocate.