34 Middle East & Africa The EconomistAugust 17th 2019
21extortcashwhiletheycan,outoffearthat
theymayeventuallylosetheirjobs.
Gabon’sneighbours,Congo-Brazzaville
andCameroon,arealsoformerFrenchcol-
onieswithplentyofoil.Andbothhaveage-
ingleaderswhoarerarelyseeninpublic.
PaulBiya,Cameroon’s86-year-oldpresi-
dent,spendsmuchofhistimeina suiteat
theInterContinentalHotelinGeneva.In
hisabsence,protestsintheEnglish-speak-
ingnorthofthecountryhaveturnedintoa
civilwar.DenisSassouNguesso,76,has
ruledCongo-Brazzavilleforallbutfiveof
thepast 40 years.OnAugust6thhisson
wasaccusedbyGlobalWitness,a watch-
dog,ofstealing$50mofstatefunds.
Sinceindependencein1960,Gabonhas
avoidedcivilwarandcoups.Itmaintains
closerelationswithFrance.Yetit isbecom-
inginhospitableforforeignbusinesses.Mr
Bongo,forallhisflaws,knewnottokillthe
goldengoose.Someofhisofficialsseem
nottohavelearnedthelesson. 7A
t the heartof Rwanda’s capital sits
the Kigali Convention Centre, a $300m
monument that lights up the night with
the national colours of blue, yellow and
green. It symbolises modernity and pros-
perity in a country that has bounced back
from a genocide in 1994 when perhaps
500,000 people, mostly Tutsis, were killed.
As impressive as the skyline are Rwan-
da’s economic statistics. In the past decade
the economy has expanded by 8% a year.
The share of people classified as poor has
fallen by seven percentage points since
2011, to 38% in 2017.
Numbers such as these impress inves-
tors, donors and other African leaders.
Many see Paul Kagame, the former general
who ended the genocide and has called the
shots in Rwanda ever since, as providing a
model of development: that of an authori-
tarian who gets things done and helps the
poor, even if he also tramples human
rights. But what if the numbers are wrong?
Questions have hung over Rwanda’s sta-tistics since the government claimed in
2014 that poverty had declined to 39% from
45% in 2011. A closer examination of the
data by Filip Reyntjens of the University of
Antwerp found that the fall was largely due
to a change in how it calculates the num-
bers. In 2011 Rwanda’s poverty line reflect-
ed the cost of consuming a basket of the
foods that poor Rwandans were buying. For
its 2014 calculation the agency replaced
some low-calorie items the poor tend to
buy with higher-calorie foods they could
have bought instead. By changing the bas-
ket the agency reduced the income level
that defines poverty by 19%.
Had Rwanda used the same basket in
both periods, the academics argued, the
poverty rate would have increased by five
to seven percentage points (depending on
the basket). Rwanda’s statistics agency de-
nies this, saying that poverty declined even
if comparable poverty lines are used.
But its rebuttal relied on an estimate of
inflation that has invited new questions.
One academic who has dissected the price
figures is Sam Desiere of the University of
Leuven in Belgium. He thought the official
rate of food inflation was curiously low at
5.3% a year. After recalculating the figure
using the statistics agency’s own survey
data on how much households were
spending, Mr Desiere found that food
prices had increased by 9.4% a year. Other
academics looking at the same data reckon
that rising prices alone may have increased
poverty by seven percentage points.
These jumps in poverty, if indeed they
took place, are surprising, given Rwanda’s
rapid gdp growth of 8% a year. But some ac-
ademics are questioning whether growth
has been overstated, too. As evidence they
point to a sharp divergence between two
different official measures of consumption
per person. In the national accounts, con-
sumption is totted up across the economy
and divided by the population. Then there
are household surveys, in which people are
asked how much they spend and consume.
Both measures usually move together. In
Rwanda they did until 2005. But since then
the national accounts have shown con-
sumption rising even as survey data
showed it stagnating. By 2013 the gap be-
tween the two had widened to 50%, accord-
ing to some economists.
One reason for this could be that the
benefits of economic growth went to a
small elite, whose spending is poorly cap-
tured by household surveys. Other coun-
tries, such as India, have also seen a widen-
ing gap between the two measures.
Another explanation is that robust eco-
nomic growth in the national accounts has
been overstated.
The latter does not seem far-fetched if
one looks at farming, which accounts for
about 30% of gdp. It has been an important
contributor to economic growth. Yet whenMrDeseire lookedattheofficial figures
claiming a 55% increase in crop yields be-
tween 2006 and 2013, he concluded that
they were probably inflated. Other data
sources suggest that the increase may have
been only 20% or so.
Questioning Rwanda’s statistics may
seem to be no more than quibbling over
numbers. But at stake is Mr Kagame’s repu-
tation, and that of the developmental mod-
el he embodies. 7KIGALI
Has a country viewed by many as a
model been fudging its numbers?Poverty in RwandaThe devil in the
details
How bright is the future?Corrections: Our article on Congo (“An epidemic of
violence”, August 3rd) said that its annual mineral
exports were barely a quarter of a dollar per head.
That is actually the daily amount. We also said that
Congo needed 300 kilowatts of electricity per
person to industrialise. It should have said 300kWh
per person per year. Our article on Liberia (“On the
edge”, August 10th) said Ebola killed almost 11,000
people in Liberia. In fact it was in the region.S
audi Arabia’sair strikes in Yemen have
often missed their mark, causing hun-
dreds of civilian casualties. But when the
kingdom bombed its own allies on August
11th it was no mistake. The target was
southern separatists, who had seized the
city of Aden from Yemen’s internationally
recognised government a day earlier. On
paper, at least, the Saudis, the separatists
and the government are all on the same
side in Yemen’s war—members of a fragile
alliance battling Iranian-backed Shia re-
bels called the Houthis.
It has been more than four years since
the Houthis pushed the government out of
Sana’a, the capital, and captured most of
the country. The Saudi-led coalition has
since retaken the south, but it has failed to
oust the Houthis from the north (see map
on next page). The fighting has shattered
what was already the region’s poorest
country. Tens of thousands of people haveIt is becoming even harder to keep
Yemen in one pieceYemenThe war within
the war