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Rwanda

The Politics of Rwanda reflect Belgian and German civil law systems and customary law takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential republic, whereby the President of Rwanda is the head of state with significant executive power, with the Prime Minister of Rwanda being the constitutional head of government. The current president is Paul Kagame, who took the office in 2000 and was re-elected to a third seven-year term with 98.79% of the vote on 4 August 2017.

Politics

Official languages

The official languages are English, French and Kinyarwanda.

Population

Rwanda’s 2024 population was estimated at 13.86 million people. (1)

Figure XII:  Rwanda: total population (2)

Rwanda total population.png

Figure XIII:  Percentage of Population in Urban and Rural Areas in Rwanda (3)

Ethnic group

The largest ethnic groups in Rwanda are the Hutus, which make up about 84% of Rwanda's population, the Tutsis, which are 15%; and the Twa, 1%. (4)

Figure XIV:  Population Distribution by Ethnic Group in Rwanda

Religions 

The majority of Rwanda's population is Christian. About 45% belong to the Catholic faith, 35% to the Protestant faith. Only about 5% profess Islam. This is primarily due to the first German, later Belgian colonization, in the course of which the country was Christian missionized.

Figure XV:  Population Distribution by Religion in Rwanda

Health

Economy

In 2024, Rwanda’ s economic growth averaged 7%, The GDP of Rwanda reached 13.83 billion USD and the Per capital was 997.98 USD in 2024 (7). 


In 2022, the share of agriculture in Rwanda's gross domestic product was 24.9%, industry contributed approximately 21.24% and the services sector contributed about 46.49%. (8)

By 2023, there are about a quarter of a million HIV/AIDS infected people in Rwanda, with almost 210,000 of those actively being treated (5). In 2022, there were 0.91 million estimated malaria cases reported, accounting for 6.6% of the total population (6).

Education

Six years of primary education is compulsory beginning at age seven. It is followed by six years of secondary education, consisting of two three-year cycles; the first cycle is also compulsory. Beginning in the 2000s, the government implemented, in stages, free primary and secondary education. The literacy rate reached 76% by 2021. (9)

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