Review: How Rwanda became a model for Africa

• Devastated nation becomes model for developing world
• President Paul Kagame is characterized as CEO of country
• Country rises phoenix-like from hellish nightmare of genocide

There are few countries of its size that command the global attention of Rwanda, a compact nation of 11 million people just south of the equator at the crossroads of East and Central Africa.

For most, Rwanda is best know as home to one of the most ghastly episodes of the 20th century: the 100 day period in the spring of 1994 when at least 800,000 people – mostly ethnic Tutsi – were murdered by government-backed death squads, as world powers stood by unwilling to intervene.

Yet today, Rwanda is increasingly distinguished by its striking post-genocide turnaround: a period that has brought security, economic growth, and vast improvements in education and public health.

This dramatic re-birth is chronicled in Rwanda, Inc.: How a Devastated Nation Became an Economic Model for the Developing World, a new book by Chicago-based authors Patricia Crisafulli and Andrea Redmond.

Rwanda, Inc. follows the pair's 2010 collaboration Comebacks, a book that profiles several corporate leaders who thrived after rebounding from major setbacks. Their latest work, in a sense, is Comebacks writ large: a book that examines the renewal of an entire country, as well as its CEO-like president, Paul Kagame.

For Rwanda watchers, the authors' insights are familiar. Like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and several other high placed Rwanda advocates, Crisafulli and Redmond are full of praise for Kagame – a former guerrilla fighter whose Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) seized power in the wake of the genocide and has since built the nation from the ground up.

From the genocide to the present, Rwanda, Inc. navigates the history of Kagame's leadership and highlights several homegrown policies that have been critical to Rwanda's development. These include gacaca, a system of community-based tribunals used to deliver justice to tens of thousands of genocide suspects, and imihigo, strict performance-based contracts that ensure accountability among all holders of public office.

The results, including improvements in food security, vast reductions in maternal and child mortality, and a million people removed from poverty between 2006 and 2011, speak largely for themselves.

There is, however, another side to Kagame's Rwanda: a nation where dissenting voices are silenced, critical journalists assassinated, and ethnic grievances fester beneath the surface because they cannot be openly acknowledged. Though Rwandans today know peace, critics argue, this has come at the cost of their neighbors in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Rwandan government continues to support rebellions that have displaced hundreds of thousands of people in 2012 alone.

While Crisafulli and Redmond acknowledge these and other criticisms, they are ultimately captured by the Kagame party line and emerge as staunch defenders of the president. Though Kagame, they write, is no messiah, he is "a servant leader who puts the needs of others ahead of his own," and a man responsible for making his country "stronger, unified, and one of the best business climates in Africa."

Given the authors' main sources of information, these conclusions are not surprising. Rather than probe a diverse set of opinions, Rwanda, Inc. is over-reliant on interviews with government officials – including Kagame and his PR savvy foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo.

Had they decided to dig a bit deeper, Crisafulli and Redmond might have provided insight into why so many former Kagame insiders, including the one-time army chief of staff, ambassador to the U.S., and prosecutor general, have been marginalized; why looking over one's shoulder in Rwanda is far too common; and why foreign CEOs – like the former country head of the telecom firm Tigo – have been forced to leave the country in an hour for daring to speak up to the president.

Had the authors managed to better sift through propaganda, they might have discovered that many Rwandans, like the blogger Rama Isibo, reject the characterization of Kagame as a "servant leader" and believe the country needs a more inclusive government.

"For all the reforms, the attitude of those in power is the biggest obstacle to investment," Isibo, a self-described "hereditary RFP member," wrote in a September post. "The idea that 'This country is my personal property and you people are alive because of me, I can kill you, crush you, anytime I want because I have the power.' "

In the authors' defense, access to informed criticism is not easy in a country where information is so tightly controlled – particularly for a duo like Crisafulli and Redmond, who are experts in Western corporate leadership but have little experience in Africa. Still, by regurgitating so many government-crafted clichés, at the expense of more rigorous analysis, Rwanda, Inc. does disservice to its readers and – ultimately – to Rwandans.

Done properly, Rwanda Inc. could have been a book offering an exacting probe into Rwanda's complex history and the politics and economics of the Rwandan development model. Yet what emerges from its pages is a cursory narrative that reads like an extended investment brochure – not a definitive study of Kagame's leadership or Rwanda's economic prospects.

Rosen is a freelance journalist focusing on sub-Saharan Africa and the global economy. He has reported from Rwanda on and off since March 2010.