President Kagame meets with members of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) in 2013
It is time to stop singing the usual ‘ugly’ narrative about Africa as the only corrupt place, President Paul Kagame insists.
Kagame told global prominent business leaders to stop looking at corruption as a solely African issue.
“Corruption is not an African problem, it exists everywhere and we must deal with it wherever it comes from,” he said while addressing thousands of participants at the YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) in Toronto, Canada on Friday evening.
YPO is the world’s premier peer network with over 23,000 business leaders from more than 130 countries around the world.
It generates $6 trillion and employs more than 15 million people from their respective countries.
It has a global mission of: Better Leaders through Education and Idea Exchange.
President Kagame is honorary member of YPO.
The organization recognized his good leadership by giving him a Best Lifetime Leadership Award in 2011.
Rwanda is one of the most intolerant nations to corruption, compared to its fellow African countries.
The corruption Perception Index that was published this month by Transparency International ranked Rwanda on 4th position among countries with low corruption in Africa.
Rwanda is also the least corrupt country in East Africa. Since 2012, the 30 member YPO Rwanda also called Rwanda Action Forum (RAF) introduced a new group, “Doing Business in Rwanda Network”.
The two organisations focuses on attracting foreign direct investment into the country in agriculture, ICT, education among others.
They mainly target investors from other YPO members, who include company CEOs from Australia, Scotland, South Africa, India, Israel, Czech Republic and USA, where the organisation was founded back in 1950.
Retired General Romeo Dallaire, a Canadian senator and author of Shaking Hand with the Devil, is also a key speaker at the ongoing YPO conference.
Dallaire was commander of the United Nations for Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) during the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.
