Talk:Rwanda

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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

	Rwanda is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 1, 2012.
Article milestones Date Process Result March 20, 2008 Peer review Reviewed February 16, 2011 Peer review Reviewed June 6, 2011 Peer review Reviewed July 2, 2011 Featured article candidate Not promoted April 6, 2012 Featured article candidate Promoted December 5, 2015 Featured article review Kept November 25, 2023 Featured article review Demoted Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on July 1, 2011, July 1, 2012, July 1, 2013, July 1, 2014, July 1, 2015, July 1, 2016, July 1, 2017, July 1, 2018, July 1, 2019, July 1, 2020, July 1, 2021, July 1, 2022, and July 1, 2023. Current status: Former featured article

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I hear Rwanda dropped French in favor of English as the official language in 2008? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.89.200.51 (talk) 10:20, 7 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, English is the main language and No, French was not dropped as an official language. (They both are official languages together with Swahili.) But still, Kinyarwanda, the native language, is the most spoken language. Vixalien (talk) 23:01, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have copied two paragaphs of the history section of this article across to Banyarwanda, with this diff. I will be modifying that text to adapt it to the specific topic, but noting the copy here per WP:COPYWITHIN. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 11:55, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just copied another paragraph. Thanks.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:05, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Amnesty International is also critical, saying that genocide ideology laws have been used to "silence dissent, including criticisms of the ruling RPF party and demands for justice for RPF war crimes" and links to footnote NO. 71, Amnesty International 2010.

But there's no link to the actual source, only one similar is Amnesty International (2012). "Human Rights in Republic of Rwanda". Retrieved 2014-04-16., but the year doesn't match.

And I also can't found the actual quote "silence dissent, including criticisms of the ruling RPF party and demands for justice for RPF war crimes" within the 2012 article.--Jarodalien (talk) 03:16, 16 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Jarodalien: it appears that the original reference, pointing to the 2010 Amnesty report was at some point replaced by the 2012 version, which of course had different text. I've restored the previous one and clarified in the text that the report was from 2010. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:32, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Amakuru:，I have found that article myselft using google just about 48 hours ago, just doesn't get the time to fix it here, because I'm translating this article to zh.wikipedia.org, thank you.

But there's one more problem I didn't found solution about the education section, there's one line I can't found the source, and I add ^{[citation needed]} already.--Jarodalien (talk) 11:45, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, since this is an FA class article I wanted to make it clear that I just added a paragraph on the country's military to the Government section. There was nothing on it before but there was a link at the top of the section to the military's wiki page as the main article reference.Monopoly31121993 (talk) 13:34, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Monopoly31121993: apologies I've only just noticed this, I've not been too active on WP recently, but thanks for the addition of the military paragraph.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that the sport section, the education section and parts of the health section of the article have some sourcing and POV/balance issues. In the sport section, there's what seems like a disproportionate focus on cricket and the cricket material lacks citations. In the education section, the detail about XO-XS laptops seems a bit disproportionate given the relatively short length of the section as a whole. In the health section, there's the passage "45 percent of women between the ages of 15 to 49, use family planning methods. This comes as no surprise as Rwanda women on average, give birth to 4.6 children throughout their lifetime (RDHS 2010)". "This comes as no surprise" doesn't sound that encyclopedic, and the citation needs to be replaced with a full footnote reference. Later in the section, there's a sub-heading "Millennium Development Goal 6", but what MDG6 is isn't explained. There may well be other issues with the article - I just spotted these in a quick scan when I was updating material about the University of Rwanda - but I'm concerned that these alone threaten the article's FA status. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:00, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there @Cordless Larry: I should apologise here, because I've been aware of the issues you mention for a little while now, and it has been on my to-do list to fix them, but I haven't had the time yet. There is some vaguely useful content in the newly added material in the sport and health sections, which is why I've not yet removed it altogether, but as you say it's too long, and does need much more strict sourcing and balancing with respect to other content. Since you've now raised the issue here, my temptation is in the short term to largely take these sections back to how they were at the time FA was attained in 2012 (they are not fast moving topics, so I think that's reasonable), and then to come back to them in the near future when I have some time to look into the issue properly. Would that work for you? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:48, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds reasonable, Amakuru, as long as care is taken not to remove any sourced, useful additions (or at least to make sure they are added back in again at a future point). It's probably worth mentioning cricket, but not with the current level of detail, and I would argue that other sports are of at least equal prominence and should be covered (e.g. cycling - see Tour of Rwanda, Adrien Niyonshuti, Rising from Ashes, etc.). Cordless Larry (talk) 10:52, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hang on though - I'm not sure it's that simple. At the time of FA status being granted, the article didn't even have a sport section! Cordless Larry (talk) 11:00, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Cordless Larry: Yes, that's true. In that case let me try to find some time - maybe at the weekend - to do a bit more of a thorough job of pulling together a decent balanced sport section. I'll leave it up to you if you'd rather leave the current content there in the mean time, or to remove it until I'm able to do that task. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 11:04, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to trim back and source the cricket material for now, and perhaps I might be able to help you improve the section further in the near future. Cordless Larry (talk) 11:07, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that's done and I've also added some material on cycling. As a result, there's probably now too much emphasis on cycling, but I think the answer is to add more detail about other sports rather than cut the cycling and cricket material. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:46, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think the whole of the sport section is now referenced. Whether it features a suitable balance of coverage between different sports is still up for debate, but it's a start. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:12, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

excellent, thank you for your work there. It looks good and balanced from a quick read through!  — Amakuru (talk) 22:30, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Amakuru. I think it needs more coverage of athletics and Paralympic sports since they're identified as two of the biggest sports in the country. It could also do with more coverage of women's sport because it's all a bit male-dominated at present. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:33, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Amakuru, do you think you'll have time to look at this any time soon? I don't mean to put this all on you (I've posted at WikiProject Rwanda too), but it would be good to make some more progress towards ensuring the article's FA status isn't threatened. Cordless Larry (talk) 11:03, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think we really need to start making progress with this, otherwise I don't see any other option than to take it to WP:FAR. Are there any volunteers who will help me update the article and address some of the issues identified above? Cordless Larry (talk) 21:43, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The article states that 'The Berlin Conference of 1884 assigned the territory to Germany as part of German East Africa, marking the beginning of the colonial era', but the History of Rwanda article states that 'Unlike much of Africa, Rwanda and the Great Lakes region was not decided by the 1884 Berlin Conference. Rather the region was divided in an 1890 conference in Brussels'. This should be corrected. Also, I assume the 1890 conference is the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty - but I think this treaty was signed in Berlin, see source. Ssu (talk) 05:55, 28 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Neither the statement in this article, nor that in History of Rwanda, currently has a reference attached to it, so I don't know which one is correct. I think some more research will be needed. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:13, 29 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Alexander Domanda is insisting on adding a figure of 1 million Anglicans to the article, without a source. I have raised this on his user talk page, but there has been no response. In edit summaries, Alexander is referring to Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, where the figure appears but is unsourced. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:22, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The text of this edit refers to the CIA World Factbook, but there is no figure for Anglicans given in that source. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, Alexander Domanda: if you cannot provide a source for your edits, I will remove the figure from the article. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:38, 1 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Even though I don't have any sources, I disapprove of these figures as a Rwandan resident. According to my mind, The Catholics are almost half of the population and the Protestants and Islamists making up the rest. The majority of protestants are ADEPR (Association of Protestant Evangelists in Rwanda) and EPR (Protestant Evangelists in Rwanda) There is very little space left for Anglicans. But this could be possible too, because Anglicans were among the first to establish churches in the country. Vixalien (talk) 22:59, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to this news "National Assembly has adopted a law to make Swahili an official language of the country. The text will however have to be submitted to the Senate before being accented to by President Paul Kagame". So, until confirmation of adoption this law by Senate and the President, as well as publication this low in official gazette, we can't say that Swahili is official language of Rwanda. Aotearoa (talk) 19:20, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would also like to add that this does not remove French as an official language according to this source. While some sources say that French has been removed, these claims may be dubious until further information arises. - Anonymous — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:C640:4C00:F9EB:DE6D:1A1D:6157 (talk) 18:05, 15 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Swahili has now been approved as one of the country's official languages (Although it is rarely used in official or casual scenarios, I believe it was approved to integrate Rwanda well into the East African community) and no, French has not been dropped as an official language (Nor do I think it will ever be dropped, as it holds a special place in Rwandans' hearts and is more mastered overall by the Rwandans despite it's negation in use in Official scenarios and being taught in school) Vixalien (talk) 22:54, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When did Rwanda change its name from "Rwandese Republic" to "Republic of Rwanda"? – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 02:52, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Illegitimate Barrister: I'm not sure there was an exact moment in time when it was officially changed, but the change in English demonym has been taking place gradually since 1994. I think "Rwandese" was used a lot initially, because it matches the French "Rwandais", but since English is becoming more and more the second official language (after Kinyarwanda), it has moved towards "Rwandan", which matches "Ugandan". There may be a more accurate answer than this though!  — Amakuru (talk) 12:13, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

According to List of sovereign states in 2003, the name change was in May 2003. However, I haven't been able to find any citations or sources saying so. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 07:24, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I got it. The name was changed from Rwandese Republic to Republic of Rwanda with the 2003 constitution. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 22:28, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I realised that my edit summary could be lost to the ether, so I am posting it here.

"Updated article, I will try to format it in the reference style, but if I cannot, can someone else"

As one can gather by me posting this here, I was unable to currently change the reference formatting style to that of the main style the rest of the article conforms to. Could some individual swoop in and format the references? Refer to the page's edit history here to see what I have changed.

JoshMuirWikipedia (talk) 10:01, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@JoshMuirWikipedia:  Done. You can see the diffs here, for your information: [1]. I know the short referencing format can get a bit confusing at times, but I find it works better for articles like this, which rely for a lot of their material from book sources. The short ref format allows individual citations to just list an author and a page, rather than repeating the name and details of the book for each and every cite. I've extended that to news sources too for consistency, although it is also possible to use a mixed style for that. Thanks for editing the article with the constitutional changes, by the way, that's very helpful. I need to come back to this one some time soon and look for other things that need bringing up to date.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:46, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just in case anyone here is interested, I've put the above article up for FAC today, in the hope of getting some feedback on it. If people here have the time and inclination, please could you have a look over it? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:10, 2 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Considering splitting the intro up. Is a bit dense. Prefer for contents to be near the top MrBojang (talk) 12:42, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Are you aware that the introduction is supposed to summarise the main points of the article, MrBojang? See MOS:LEAD on this. It's hard to write short introductions to long articles. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:17, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Rwanda is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Rwanda until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:45, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, is this fermented yoghurt drink the same as kefir? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.153.14.13 (talk) 15:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You might have better luck asking this at WP:REFDESK. Article talk pages aren't for answering general knowledge questions, whereas the reference desk is. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:21, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Sexuality" seems like the wrong section name here. The topic seems to focus on Homosexuality (not "Sexuality" as a whole, or Sexuality statistics or anything) and even mentions transgender rights, which don't fall under the scope of "Sexuality"—I would recommend this be changed to "LGBT rights" or something. Since this is an FA I'm posting here rather than making the change myself. Aza24 (talk) 00:12, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I was bold and changed it. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 00:17, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It was mentioned earlier on this talk page that Swahili has been added to the official languages of Rwanda. However, I couldn't find any citation for such. The constitution of Rwanda clearly states that the official languages of the country are Kinyarwanda, French and English. Until such proof is given that Swahili has been added to that list through a separate law, it should not be listed as official. Prometheus.II (talk) 14:14, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I've found an AFP factcheck article about the law to make Swahili an official language. It seems that it was indeed duly added to the list. I'll include this citation in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prometheus.II (talk • contribs) 14:19, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The demographics for Rwanda in the infobox are currently the 1994 stats. Call it a hunch, but I think the population demographics may have been somewhat altered in 1994 in Rwanda. In need of some updating. Volvlogia (talk) 17:29, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• @Volvlogia: which stats are you referring to in particular? The population figures in the Infobox are the 2012 census total as well as a 2019 estimate.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:31, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is new data from the NISR from the 2022 population census. The population is now at 13,246,394. There's more data in the key figures PDF linked. ^[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vixalien (talk • contribs) 07:42, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, just a suggestion, many country articles have sections or subsections for 'science and technology', this could be a section on this article as well.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 11:52, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@John Cummings: yes, that sounds like a good plan. If you have an ideas for what should go into it, feel free to put them in the article or mention them here. As an aside, I'm probably due a revisit of this article soon to tidy it up back to FA standards, as it's now six years since the last review. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 12:14, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Amakuru, thanks, the UNESCO Science Report may be a good place ot start and can copied from directly using these instructions. John Cummings (talk) 12:30, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Repubulique du Rwanda. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 November 13#Repubulique du Rwanda until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Sun8908 _Talk 09:29, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Rwanda Product Exports (2019).svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:20, 23 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The "10th largest city" actually links to a city in Tanzania.  The only thing I could find in Rwanda named Nzega is a hill with no buildings on it, and unnamed villages nearby.  I tried to remove it, but it was replaced with an auto-generated placeholder, so I reverted. The cited source is an Excel spreadsheet listing five cities, only four of which are in the article, with populations not resembling what the article states. I hope someone can fix that table; I don't know how. 伟思礼 (talk) 00:27, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the massive amount of work that has gone into the article and attempting to keep it up to date, but I just don't see how it meets the FA criteria currently. At least one section has an "update" banner, and large parts of the article are stuck 5-10 years ago (understandable given that the FAC was in 2012 and the last FAR in 2015). Additionally, I think the article's sourcing needs improvement, I am listing sources that I don't think should be used in an FA (some are tagged ^{[better source needed]} in the article):

• Spartacus International Gay Guide (cited for lgbt rights in the country)
• Xinhua News Agency
• The New Times—not a high quality RS given the press censorship in Rwanda
• PR Newswire and Tech Times, marked unreliable as a result of RSN discussions.

Overall, my sense is that the article relies too much on news/press sources and official statistics, without enough independent scholarship/analysis to figure out which of these number are accurate, informative, and important and to put them in appropriate context. A related issue is the "he said, she said" approach rather than focusing on verifiable facts that independent RS agree on.

Additionally, a number of important facts about Rwanda are not mentioned in this article, for example the role of foreign aid in Rwanda's government budget and economic growth, Rwanda's role in DRC civil war and illegal mining in DRC, etc. despite being significant parts of the Rwandan economy. (t · c) buidhe 03:03, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Buidhe: sorry I didn't see this notice... I don't think massive updates should be required in principle as it's a summary level country article and most of the points are quite general and unchanging. Obviously this has suffered degradation through general poor quality editing, as many articles do, so some going through with a finetooth comb will be required to bring it back to the level of quality seen in 2015 (unfortunately with many things to do in life I haven't been able to do this through the years). On sourcing, the new times is a national newspaper in the country and should be fine for statements of fact about Uncontroversial matters. If it's used for things about the government that's another matter of course. Rwanda's role in the DRC sad was considered in previous FACs to be out of scope for inclusion in what is a high level summary of the country's history rather than in depth. We could see about adding a sentence or two on this and any other very significant recent developments. I won't be able to fit this in this month, but hope to have some more time in December. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 21:52, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I did some research recently to improve the page but my changes were cancelled because I have a COI (I work at UNESCO). I'm reposting them here because I think they're interesting additions, concerning the actions of the international community. The mention of biosphere reserves seems necessary. About the journalist, I could put it in a sub article, but he was a very important journalist. It would be very kind of someone to read them and give me their opinion.

"World Biosphere reserve

In 2020, Gishwati-Mukura National Park was designated a World Biosphere Reserve.

According to Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO, in the Rwandan reserves, "species conservation succeeds when local communities are placed at the heart of the conservation strategy. Measures to protect biodiversity must go hand in hand with measures that meet the needs of these local communities".^[1] In Rwanda, the cost of a visit to see the gorillas is $1,500 per person. Under Rwandan law, 10% of these revenues must be returned to the community, which represents around 10 million euros invested in the construction of schools, roads and drinking water supplies. In 1980, there were just 250 mountain gorillas; today there are 1,063, 80% of them in Rwanda.^[2]"

"Media and communications

John Williams Ntwali - investigative journalist and editor-in-chief of The Chronicles newspaper - died in suspicious circumstances in January 2023. According to the NGO Human Rights Watch, "John Williams Ntwali played a crucial role for many victims of human rights violations in Rwanda, and was often the only journalist who dared to report on issues of political persecution and repression ".^[3] UNESCO Director Audrey Azoulay called on the authorities "to initiate a full and transparent investigation".^[4]"

E.poul (talk) 14:25, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Any information that would be due here would be inherently due in the sub article. Have you added the information elsewhere in the meantime? I note that even the Gishwati Forest article doesn't mention the World Biosphere Reserve designation. CMD (talk) 01:15, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The side box gives Population as 14,300,291 (est.), Area as 26,338 km2 and Density as 470/km2. However, 14,300,291 / 26,338 = 543/km2; at least one of the three numbers must be incorrect.

NB: There is also an inconsistency with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density 78.209.204.207 (talk) 20:10, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 in the list of top 10 cities by population Nzega links to a city by the same name in Tanzania. Nzega Rwanda is fairly sparsely documented online and doesn't have a Wikipedia page, but the current link should be removed. 166.48.84.22 (talk) 14:53, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This section is in need of an update. It speaks as if 2017 is the future. 70.106.255.152 (talk) 23:45, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]