Weaving peace in Rwanda Rwanda has the third highest percentage of women entrepreneurs of any country in Africa. Forty-one percent of businesses are run by women. Only Ghana, with 44%, and Cape Verde, at 43%, have more women active in business. Janet Nkubana ow did this come about? Part of the answer Much of this C O M P A N Y P R O F I L E His: through tragedy. Following the 1994 success is due to Business Name: Gahaya Links genocide 70% of Rwanda’s population was Gahaya Links, a Business Type: Handicrafts female. Even today, over a third of households Kigali-based Annual Turnover: US$300,000 Employee Number: 3,000 are headed by women. There is a brighter side to business run by Business Reach: Africa, USA the answer too: government reforms have helped the sisters Janet tremendously expand opportunities for women. Nkubana and Joy Rwanda was the first African country to enter Ndungutse. In 2007, the business produced the top-10 reformers’ list in the Doing Business 35,000 baskets with annual sales of project. This has opened more possibilities for US$300,000. From its beginnings just over a women to benefit from business activity. decade ago, with 27 weavers, it now employs 3,200 women from across Rwanda. The basket Here is one story. A basket weaving tradition weaving groups include both Hutu and Tutsi from the landlocked nation of Rwanda is now women, for whom working together helps heal making its way from the department store Macy’s old grievances. Hence the name: peace baskets. to American households, changing in the process Says Janet: “I have survivors, I have widows, I the lives of thousands of Rwandan women. In have women whose husbands are in prison. To 2005, American talk show icon Oprah Winfrey see them sitting under one roof weaving and promoted Rwanda’s “peace baskets” in her doing business together is a huge magazine, causing a surge in demand. Proceeds achievement…these women are now together, from the export of peace baskets to the US have earning an income. It is amazing.” impacted more than 18,000 Rwandan children, who have better schooling and health as a result. Despite Janet and Joy’s international success, trading across borders from land-locked Rwanda is still a major business challenge. Rwanda ranks RWANDA only 166 among the 178 economies in the Population 9.2 million Doing Business 2008 report on the Trading GNI per capita $250 across Borders indicator. It takes, on average, Doing Business global ranking 150/178 47 days to fulfill the necessary requirements for Doing Business trading across borders # exporting cargo. And a standard shipment costs ranking 166/178 nearly $3,000 in fees. DOING BUSINESS WOMEN IN AFRICA WEAVING PEACE IN RWANDA 7 Janet is now advising the Rwandan government A long family tradition meant that weaving was to simplify export processes and lower transport familiar territory for the sisters. “I grew up in a costs. Among the recommendations she would weaving home. My mother is a master weaver. like to see: She used to do all the bead work and basket • the extension of customs opening hours to weaving in the refugee camp {in Uganda},” says 10 p.m. as this would reduce the waiting time Janet. “Weaving was a second nature to me.” at borders for truck drivers arriving late. Indeed, basket weaving is an old tradition • Faster reimbursements of duties paid on raw among women in Rwanda. Unique to Rwanda, material imports. the basket—now known as the “peace basket”— • The creation of a joint border inspection post is on the national seal and currency. at the Ugandan border which would eliminate repeat inspections that currently take place. These pagoda-shaped baskets were historically • An advanced cargo information exchange and made as wedding gifts, and are hand-crafted cargo tracking system amongst the customs from enzyme-washed papyrus and banana leaf. authorities in East Africa. The traditional zigzag design tells an ancient story of friends walking together, visiting Starting out neighboring villages along the way. Janet Nkubana returned home from exile in The baskets were a hit, and she realized that there Uganda in November 1994. She was now was a bigger business opportunity. The sisters running a hotel in Rwanda’s capital Kigali and started with 27 women weavers and used a kept running into women hawking baskets in mixture of personal savings and funds from front of her hotel. At first, Janet tried to winning a World Bank business plan contest to convince them to move their business elsewhere buy raw materials for their craftswomen. The and not pester her clients. This didn’t work, as business was formally registered in 2004 and hotel guests were among the few people with proceeds from a property sale helped them open money to spend. Then one day an inspiration a showroom in Kigali. came: she set up a small shop in the hotel and would also take their baskets to sell at flea While women returning from exile were more markets when visiting her sister, Joy, who lived likely to have funds to purchase land, it was not in the United States. until 1999 that changes to Rwanda’s matrimonial and succession law gave women clear and equal property rights, including the right to inherit land. The law overrides traditional customs excluding women from land and property WOMEN IN RWANDA ownership. That Rwanda has the highest Female literacy rate 59.8% percentage of women parliamentarians in the Percent of women in formal labor force 51% world, at 45.3%, has resulted in laws promoting equal opportunity for women. Seats in parliament 45.3% # Gender Equity Index Ranking 3/154 8 WEAVING PEACE IN RWANDA DOING BUSINESS WOMEN IN AFRICA Going for growth: her participation in a New York trade show in obstacles and opportunities 2005.2 It was there that Janet made the link with Macy’s buyers and reconnected with Willa Shalit of In 2003, Marie Claire magazine published one Fair Winds Trading, Inc., a marketing and trade of the first stories about Rwanda’s peace baskets company importing African crafts, who had and even sold over 1,000 baskets through orders previously visited her in Rwanda. This event placed with the magazine. After that, the brought about a transformation of her business, photographer for that article, Willa Shalit, an established Fair Winds Trading as a partner, and artist and a producer of “The Vagina marked the birth of their joint venture Rwanda Monologues,” saw a chance to help the women Path to Peace. “Willa is now our exclusive importer expand their business making the sisal baskets, of baskets to the United States. This helps us focus which are used to carry wedding gifts. on production,” says Janet. “What struck me,” she told The first Macy’s order was the New York Times, “was widely covered by the that these women who’d media and Rwanda’s suffered so horribly— President, Paul who’d been raped, Kagame, inaugurated machete-hacked and the event at Macy’s watched their flagship store in children get killed New York. — had created this Following the object that was so opening, Macy’s set exquisite and up a window display elegant, with tiny, in its New York store even stitches.” The fact in 2005, and a feature that the weaving groups on the website. The included both Hutus and standard size is 12 by 7 Tutsis, heightened the appeal. inches and costs $75. One- “I thought, what an incredible third of the retail price of sold embodiment of reconciliation,” Ms. baskets goes to the weavers. Shalit said.1 Getting the baskets from the basket weavers to the There was a hitch. The baskets were beautifully Macy’s window display has not been easy. “We had woven, but thin and flimsy looking. They to go through a lot of redesign, a lot of trial and needed a redesign. Enter Gahaya Links. Its error,” says Janet. Working with Joy who is the weavers made firmer baskets using banana bark designer and oversees training to ensure quality and papyrus. These would sell well on the US control, Fair Winds Trading has helped develop the market. Needed - only a retailer. products to meet international standards. Initially, Gahaya Links had trouble meeting buyer demand, After a meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, but managed to build its capacity over time by Janet was linked with USAID, which sponsored hiring and training more and more women. DOING BUSINESS WOMEN IN AFRICA WEAVING PEACE IN RWANDA 9 benefit of their business. When Janet found out The Ease of Trading Across Borders that Rwanda had joined the African Growth and 200 Opportunity Act, which allows Rwanda’s crafts 150 duty-free entry into the U.S. market, she went to the US embassy to find out about it. Baskets woven 100 by the Gahaya Links weavers are now are the 50 number one export out of Rwanda under this Act. 0 Still, there are a number of challenges, which all exporters in Rwanda have to deal with. Shipping Source: Doing Business 2008. costs have been high and it usually takes a long In a building that used to be their mother’s house, time for the goods to reach the buyer. Janet and Joy have set up a large company site, Inadequate infrastructure, and the fact that the including a sleeping room for women trainees, a shipments have to pass through the poor port restaurant, a show room, and a packaging and services at Mombassa, Kenya, has meant that it storage facility.