It is on the peaceful shores of the Ébrié lagoon in Abidjan that Dr Monique Nsanzabaganwa granted us an exclusive interview, on the occasion of the publication of her book Seed. A meeting reflecting her work: clear-sighted, dense, and inhabited 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, addresses the major challenges facing the African continent, while outlining the contours of a possible future.
The title, Seed, alone summarizes the author’s project: sowing today the seeds of 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 she wishes for at a continental scale.
An Africa that belongs to itself
In our interview, conducted on the sidelines of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Annual Meetings, she calmly asserts: “African integration is not an option, it is a survival condition, which 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 realizes 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 win-win strategic partnerships in relevant segments of value chains.
She notably revisits the AfCFTA, this vast continental project that remains underutilized despite its structuring potential. While the protocols are in place, concrete progress is lagging, even as we enter the crucial acceleration decade. For Dr Monique Nsanzabaganwa, regional integration requires very practical mechanisms: free movement, customs interconnection, modern logistics, and coherent industrial policy. “A product does not circulate simply 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 mentions, 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, especially through a still fragmented capital market. “The role of finance is to bring supply and demand together. But viable projects, reliable data, and clear governance are also necessary,” she states.
It is precisely through an analysis of value chains that the missing links will be highlighted, thereby constituting de-risked investment opportunities, translated into viable projects – public or private – and corrective policy interventions at the ecosystem level. Thus, African financial institutions can collaborate in providing tailored financial and technical solutions, close to businesses of all sizes, including mostly informal small and medium entities.
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. And this requires a coordinated effort: from central banks and financial institutions to private investors, through technical ministries.
A coherent institutional framework
In this interview, the author of Seed also reflects on the need for an aligned African institutional ecosystem: the AU and its agencies such as AUDA-NEPAD, the AfCFTA Secretariat, the APRM, Africa CDC, AMA, and others; regional economic communities; as well as pan-African multilateral institutions such as the AfDB, Afreximbank, TDB, Africa Re, and other Africa Club members; commercial banks and the insurance industry; guarantee institutions and 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 also 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 AU delivery approaches by integrating AU operations on the ground, reconfiguring relevant institutional structures to highlight synergy opportunities and complementarities, with profitable programs likely to attract the channeling and utilization of development financing, including multilateral development banks, as well as other international financial institutions and development cooperation.
An Africa in constant construction
If the book takes root 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 an Africa rebuilding itself, believing in regional value chains, in industrialization based on local resources, in a youth connected to the world and rooted in its territories.
Ultimately, 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 discourse, to structure actions, and to build an Africa that no longer asks for permission to exist. Through this book, Monique Nsanzabaganwa does not seek to convince, but to awaken. An essential work for those who believe that the continent does not need to be saved, but simply organized.
