St. Louis has found a promising new international partner for innovation-driven economic growth in a place that might have seemed highly unlikely just a year ago: the African country of Rwanda.
The economic case for connecting St. Louis to Africa is compelling, even if not top of mind for many. According to The Economist, Africa’s economic rise is poised to reshape global trade and investment dynamics. Rwanda’s strategic vision and its remarkable economic progress position it as a leader in this shift. The country boasts sustained gross domestic product growth, a young and expanding workforce, and significant improvements in education and technology adoption.
Rwanda has made astounding strides in reconciliation and rebuilding since the dark days and devastation of the 1994 genocide against its Tutsi population, and now serves as a model in resilience for more developed economies of the world. For St. Louis, Rwanda offers many lessons and eager partners — in business, education, health, agriculture, sports and more. While we are hopeful an official Sister City partnership (between St. Louis and the Rwandan capital of Kigali) will be formalized later this year, I expect the depth and breadth of this collaboration to exceed that of a traditional Sister City relationship.
This burgeoning relationship traces back to November 2023, when St. Louisan Arnold Donald — the former Monsanto executive and, more recently, CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines and chairman of the World Travel & Tourism Council — persuaded the Council to host its global summit in Kigali, marking the first time the event was held in Africa. Donald invited fellow St. Louisan Rodney Boyd, a lawyer and public affairs professional, to join him for the summit and meetings with senior Rwandan officials, exploring mutually beneficial ties between Rwanda and St. Louis.
Upon returning, Boyd brought three more into the circle of engaging with Rwanda. Tim Nowak of the World Trade Center St. Louis, which organizes trade delegations and supports the region’s Sister City relationships; Andwele Jolly, CEO of St. Louis Integrated Health Network, who had previously experienced Rwanda as an Eisenhower Fellow; and yours truly, representing BioSTL and the region’s innovation economy. Looking back, I feel immensely lucky to have been introduced to this richness of opportunities.
In March 2024, our group welcomed the CEO of the Rwanda Development Board, the Honorable Francis Gatare, to St. Louis. As we showcased the region’s strengths in agricultural innovation and health care, we St. Louisans were amazed by the numerous existing relationships with Rwandan partners. In one morning alone, three St. Louis-based institutions — Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Bayer Crop Science and Gates AgOne — each shared significant projects in Rwanda that reinforce St. Louis’ global leadership in agritech and food security.
In just one impactful example, hundreds of thousands of Rwanda’s farm households will soon grow disease-resistant cassava, a crucial subsistence crop and staple food, thanks to a Danforth Center-led project working with Rwanda since 2019.
In January, I visited Rwanda for the first time. Along with my St. Louis colleagues, we met dozens of young, ambitious entrepreneurs working on new startups and innovative ideas to solve challenges in human health and agriculture, the key pillars of St. Louis’ bioeconomy.
We witnessed the country’s impressive deployment of technology to strengthen rural health care. Its Society for Family Health, for example, operates a sophisticated system to monitor health centers across Rwanda from a centralized command center in Kigali. Drones deliver medicine to remote areas, sensors track refrigeration and equipment maintenance, and AI-driven diagnostics enhance decision-making.
Back home in St. Louis, BioSTL has for a decade brought global innovation from multiple continents to improve our region’s health care and agriculture. But never before from Africa.
The recent exchange with Rwanda gives me confidence that we are at the beginning of a beautiful, highly productive, long-lasting economic friendship.
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