Previously a German protectorate known as Ruanda-Urundi, it was granted as a trust territory to Belgium in 1920 and became fully independent on 1 July 1962. In 1973, a coup d’état brought to power General Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu from the north who established an authoritarian one-party regime. In October 1990, armed groups of Tutsi refugees from the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) started a civil war between the Tutsi minority and Hutu government forces. In 1993, the government and the FPR signed a peace treaty, but in April 1994, following the assassination of President Habyarimana, the situation hurled headlong into a terrible bloodbath (with 800 000 dead and two million refugees). Victors in the civil war (which ended in 1994), the FPR along with moderate Hutu parties set up a provisional government. Elected President in 2000 by the Transitional Assembly, the FPR leader, Paul Kagame was reconfirmed in the subsequent elections. However, the process of ethnic reconciliation has encountered new obstacles on account of the political domination of the Tutsi minority. The country is also involved in wars taking place in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. Based on the Constitution approved by a referendum on 26 May 2003, the President of the Republic, also head of the executive, is elected by direct voting for a term of seven years, but a constitutional amendment that was approved via referendum (18 December 2015) reduced the presidential term to 5 years after 2024. The Chamber of Deputies is made up of 80 members (53 directly elected, 24 women elected by the local councils and 3 members appointed by youth and disabled organisations) for a term of five years; the Senate (26 members, 12 of whom elected) is elected for a term of eight years.

Before the crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy, driven by the development of services, had maintained good growth levels. It remains dependent on international aid and sensitive to oil and food prices trends, the country’s main imports. Agriculture occupies most of the active population. Although under development, commercial crops (coffee and tea) are far from widespread; subsistence crops (bananas, cassava and potatoes) are not sufficient enough to meet the demand for food. Mineral resources (methane in Lake Kivu, gold, cassiterite, wolframite, columbite-tantalite, beryllium) are often exploited on a small scale due to inadequate infrastructure. Industrial activity includes a tin foundry in Kigali, small factories processing agricultural products as well as cement factories and tobacco manufacturing. In 2011, the Kigali Special Economic Zone was created. The telecommunications sector is under fast development. The country exports gold, coffee, tea, tin.