On the peaceful shores of the Ebrié lagoon in Abidjan, Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa granted us an exclusive interview on the occasion of the publication of her book Seed. A meeting that reflects her work: lucid, dense, and driven by a quiet conviction. In this essay with biographical undertones, the former Vice President of the African Union Commission, who has also served as a minister in Rwanda and as the former Deputy Governor of its central bank, reflects on the major challenges facing the African continent while outlining the contours of a possible future.
The title, Seed, encapsulates the author’s project: sowing the seeds today for an autonomous, supportive, and prosperous African future. Informed by her personal and institutional journey, the book oscillates between intimate narrative and strategic analysis. While she humbly denies it, Monique Nsanzabaganwa has undoubtedly been a key figure in the reconstruction of post-genocide Rwanda, a country she describes as “rising from its ashes” thanks to a culture of ownership, accountability, and inclusion. A triptych that she wishes to see on a continental scale.
An Africa that belongs to itself
In our interview conducted on the sidelines of the African Development Bank Annual Meetings, she calmly asserts: “African integration is not an option, it is a survival condition that must absolutely go through industrial development based on value chains and regional supply chains oriented towards strategic economic hubs.” Through her experience at the AU Commission, she understands how the continent’s ambitions, notably Agenda 2063, are hindered by implementation obstacles, institutional inconsistencies, and bureaucratic silos. Her plea is clear: Africa must take control of its destiny, stop relying on external aid, and organize convergence among its multiple economic, political, and social actors to build strategic win-win partnerships in relevant value chain segments.
She notably discusses the AfCFTA, this vast continental project that remains underutilized despite its structuring potential. While the protocols are in place, concrete progress lags even as we enter the decade of acceleration. For Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa, regional integration involves very practical mechanisms: free movement, customs interconnection, modern logistics, and coherent industrial policy. “A product does not simply circulate because a treaty has been signed. It circulates because there is a truck, a road, a scanner, a cross-border payment system, and common standards,” she summarizes.
A voice for endogenous finance
The Rwandan economist also pushes for a deep reflection on the continent’s financial resources. She discusses, with supporting figures, the $3 trillion in assets of African pension funds, capital flight, insufficient taxation, and the inefficiency of intermediation between local savings and investment needs, notably through a still fragmented capital market. “The role of finance is to bring together supply and demand. But it requires bankable projects, reliable data, and clear governance,” she says. It is precisely through an analysis of value chains that the missing links will be highlighted, thus identifying derisked investment opportunities translated into bankable public or private projects and corrective policy interventions at the ecosystem level. This way, African financial institutions can collaborate in providing tailored financial and technical solutions, close to businesses of all sizes, including the predominantly informal small and medium enterprises.
Through concrete examples, such as unprocessed cotton or raw exported bananas, she denounces the African paradox of an abundance of raw materials and a lack of local value addition. For her, everything needs to be transformed in every sense of the term. This implies a coordinated effort from central banks and financial institutions to private investors, technical ministries, and beyond.
A coherent institutional framework
In this interview, the author of Seed also emphasizes the need for an aligned African institutional ecosystem: the AU and its agencies like AUDA-NEPAD, the AfCFTA Secretariat, the APRM, Africa CDC, AMA, and others, the regional economic communities, as well as Pan-African multilateral institutions such as the AfDB, AFREXIMBANK, TDB, Africa-Re, and other members of the Africa Club, commercial banks, insurance industry, guarantee institutions, entrepreneurial development services, and of course, the private sector. For Dr. Nsanzabaganwa, these actors should not compete but act complementarily, each in their role, serving the same vision. “We have plans, frameworks, strategies. What is lacking is coherence in their implementation,” she reminds.
It is this same concern that, almost on the eve of the end of her term at the AU, motivated her to commission a study by an African expert, Dr. Papa Demba Thiam, to propose a methodology for such a paradigm shift. The methodology covers the strategic correction of service delivery approaches by integrating AU operations on the ground, reconfiguring relevant institutional structures to highlight synergies and complementarities, with profitable programs that can attract and utilize development financing, including multilateral development banks and other international financial institutions and development cooperation.
A constantly evolving Africa
While the book is rooted in the pains of the past – notably the genocide of the Tutsis, which she mentions with poignant restraint – it is resolutely focused on the future. It is the perspective of a woman of the field, attached to a self-rebuilding Africa, who believes in regional value chains, industrialization based on local resources, a youth connected to the world and rooted in its territories.
In conclusion, Seed is neither an ideological manifesto nor a heroic narrative. It is a lesson in commitment, delivered without fanfare but with rare intellectual rigor. A call to move beyond rhetoric, structure actions, and build an Africa that no longer needs permission to exist. Through this book, Monique Nsanzabaganwa is not trying to convince, but to awaken. An essential work for those who believe that the continent does not need to be saved, but simply organized.
Adama Wade
