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Dealing with Licenses
This chapter primarily addresses the environment for licensing construction projects in Rwanda. In general, it concludes that Rwanda is forging a promising balance between the need for economic development and the long-term preservation of its environment and other key interests such as public safety. In fact, concerns about land use are of greater importance in Rwanda than in many neighboring countries, given the country’s extraordinary population density, the extremely limited amount of available land, and the environmental degradation that has already taken place. Industries that have been pegged as key to the country’s future – tourism and agro-processing among them – clearly depend on sound environmental management, which, in turn, may result in more stringent business licensing requirements.
This chapter also looks at attitudes toward and dynamics affecting the regulation of business generally. Again, to a significant extent, it appears that Rwanda is beginning to apply the best practices of licensing regimes in other business-friendly countries, but has not yet avoided certain of the pitfalls of the licensing function. Ultimately, as one donor observes, “it still takes two years” to open a small hotel in Rwanda. Although blatant corruption among government inspectors and other officials is not widely regarded to be a problem, there is some indication that "preferred” business initiatives get regulated more favorably than others. This is an issue that bears continued scrutiny.
As reflected in the graph at the beginning of this chapter, the BizCLIR indicator scores suggest that the area of Dealing with Licenses is beginning to reflect an interest in reform. A legal framework on which companies may begin to make plans is taking shape, and institutions – particularly the environmental agency and the Private Sector Federation – are becoming increasingly adept at navigating the challenges before them. The social dynamics underlying Dealing with Licenses are particularly promising – there is not a great deal of perceived corruption – although concerns with connections and conflict of interest remain.
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