Emerging growth beyond the BRICs.

• Author: Sweeney, Paul
• Position: GLOBAL GLANCE - Brazil, Russia, India and China

When international news is not dominated by civil wars, natural disasters and seemingly intractable financial and economic travails, the offsetting bright spot is usually the sustained economic prosperity of Brazil, Russia, India and China, commonly known as the BRIC countries

There are, however, a small crop of up-and-coming countries whose success stories remain largely unheralded. Among them are Rwanda and Peru. Against heavy odds and tragic histories, both countries are making positive economic strides--although socially and especially politically both countries have much work to do.

To be sure, daunting challenges remain. And it may be hard to reproduce the positive results on display here. But there are nonetheless lessons that many nations and peoples can learn from the hopeful signs exhibited by these two countries.

HEAVY ODDS NO DETERRENCE FOR RWAND

Rwanda, about the physical size of Maryland, is a landlocked, densely populated country in east-central Africa with 11 million people and a horrifying modern history. So much so that Rwanda would scarcely be familiar to most Americans if it had not been the scene of mass killings in 1994. Estimates are as high as 1 million Tutsis killed over a four-month period in the civil war that raged between thai tribe and the rival Hutus.

Since then, much has changed for the better. George Ayittey, a former American University professor, lauds President Paul Kagame as "a true liberator who saved the Tutsis from complete extermination" and oversaw a reconciliation process. But Ayittey remains harshly critical of Kagame's dietatorial methods. After 16 years in power, Kagame, who won a final seven-year term in a suspicious election victory, suppresses dissent while his political party has consolidated power over the state apparatus that dominates "security forces, the civil service and the judiciary," Ayittey notes.

But Callisto Madavo, a visiting professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and a former World Bank vice president for Africa, strikes a somewhat more measured tone, saying only: "Democracy is developing much more slowly than the economic side."

And it is in the economic sphere that Rwanda is winning kudos. According to a September 2011 report by David Nangle and his team of researchers at Renaissance Capital, a Moscow-based investment bank, Rwanda's economy has expanded by an average annual growth rate of roughly 8 percent since 2000, outperforming Sub-Sahara Africa's...