Paying to Stay Poor: How Western PR Firms, Lobbyists, Sports Clubs and Media Outlets Profit from Rwanda’s Image Economy
Introduction: An Ecosystem of Paid Influence
Rwanda is often presented internationally as a model of discipline, security, investment promotion and post-genocide recovery. That image has been carefully built, repeatedly amplified and professionally protected. Behind it sits a costly international network of sports sponsorships, lobbying contracts, public relations firms, legal consultancy, political access, favourable media relationships and diplomatic narrative management.
The moral problem is clear. Rwanda remains heavily dependent on foreign aid and external financing. According to World Bank-linked data, foreign aid received by Rwanda reached approximately 1.39 billion US dollars in 2023. UNDP’s 2025 Human Development Report gives Rwanda a Human Development Index value of 0.578 for 2023, placing it 159th out of 193 countries and territories. UNDP multidimensional poverty data estimates that 48.8 per cent of Rwandans are multidimensionally poor, with a further 22.7 per cent vulnerable to multidimensional poverty.
Yet across the same period, the Rwandan government has directed tens of millions of dollars into international image management. This includes sports sponsorship deals with major European football clubs, new branding deals in North American sport, monthly retainer fees paid to named lobbying and public relations firms in Washington DC, London and Toronto, the commissioning of a major US law firm to produce a 628-page political and legal report targeting France, and a long-documented paid editorial relationship with a leading French-language African affairs publication.
This investigation names the companies, the fees where documented, the individuals and the publications. It draws on investigative reporting by Forbidden Stories and its international consortium of journalists, FARA filings published by the US Department of Justice, reporting by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, openDemocracy, the Investigative Journalism Foundation of Canada, Global Witness, the Centre for Global Development, public parliamentary records in the United Kingdom, UNDP data and other published sources. The article relies on reported evidence, public records and documented sources.
The question this investigation asks is not merely financial. It is moral. When a government classified as not free by Freedom House spends public resources on Western image management while large numbers of its citizens remain poor, and when named Western companies accept that money with full knowledge of the public record, something has gone seriously and documentably wrong.
African lives are not worth less. African deaths are not normal. Western interests must never become a licence to kill African people.
Part One: The Sportswashing Machine — Arsenal, PSG, Bayern Munich and the North American Pivot
Since 2018, Rwanda has signed major international sports sponsorship deals under the Visit Rwanda brand. The first was with Arsenal in the English Premier League, followed by Paris Saint-Germain in France’s Ligue 1 and Bayern Munich in Germany’s Bundesliga. All three partnerships carried the Visit Rwanda logo or branding under arrangements linked to the Rwanda Development Board, a state agency of the Rwandan government.
Research published in African Studies Review in 2025 estimated the total cost of the Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich arrangements at approximately 161 million US dollars. Arsenal’s sleeve sponsorship, which ran from 2018 to the close of the 2025/26 season, was reported to be worth over 13 million US dollars per year to the club. Paris Saint-Germain’s deal has been valued at approximately 12.5 million US dollars annually. Bayern Munich’s five-year arrangement has been estimated at around 6 million US dollars per year.
Rwanda has since pivoted towards the North American market. In September 2025, the Rwanda Development Board announced that Visit Rwanda had become the exclusive jersey patch sponsor of the NBA’s LA Clippers, as well as an official sponsor and coffee sponsor of Intuit Dome. Visit Rwanda also entered a multi-year sponsorship agreement with the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park.
These deals are defended by Rwanda as tourism promotion. The argument is that global sport can attract visitors, investors and prestige. That argument must be examined, but it cannot be accepted without asking who pays, who benefits and who is made invisible.
The DRC government formally appealed to Arsenal, PSG and Bayern Munich in February 2025 to end their Visit Rwanda sponsorships in light of the humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo. Campaign group Gunners for Peace staged organised protests calling on Arsenal to reconsider. The clubs did not meaningfully engage with the moral substance of those concerns in public.
The Visit Rwanda logo that appeared on Arsenal shirts each week was paid for by a government that Freedom House classifies as not free, that the UK Supreme Court in 2023 described as having a poor human rights record, and that UN expert reports have repeatedly linked to support for armed groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo responsible for mass displacement and documented atrocities.
The problem is not tourism promotion in itself. Governments promote tourism. The problem is the use of global sport to launder political reputation while poverty, repression and regional violence remain unresolved.
Part Two: The Washington DC Lobbying Network — Named Firms and Documented Fees
The most detailed documented record of Rwanda’s Western lobbying operation exists in the United States, where foreign agents are legally required to register with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA. These public filings reveal a sustained and expensive operation spanning more than two decades.
W2 Group Inc
According to FARA filings reported by Forbidden Stories as part of the Rwanda Classified project published in May 2024, W2 Group Inc was paid 50,000 US dollars per month by the Rwandan government. The purpose was described as countering negative perceptions of Rwanda, including criticism from organisations such as Human Rights Watch.
This was not ordinary tourism advertising. It was political reputation management, paid for by a state whose citizens continue to face serious poverty and limited political freedoms.
Michelle Martin
A further individual lobbyist, Michelle Martin, was retained, according to her FARA filing, to map transnational networks of Rwandan exiles and present findings and analysis at conferences on a global basis.
Rwanda later called Martin as a witness in its terrorism case against Paul Rusesabagina, the former manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines. In court, Martin presented emails from Rusesabagina’s foundation used to build the government’s case against him. Rusesabagina, who had sheltered approximately 1,200 Tutsis during the genocide, was convicted and sentenced to 25 years before being released in March 2023 after President Paul Kagame commuted his sentence, reportedly in the context of improving relations with the United States.
This illustrates how image management, exile monitoring and political prosecution can overlap in practice.
Yorktown Solutions
Global Witness reported in 2025 that the Rwanda Development Board signed a lobbying contract worth 80,000 US dollars per month with Yorktown Solutions, a Washington DC firm whose principals have documented connections to the Trump political network. The contract was filed under FARA.
Global Witness identified Rwanda as one of 17 least developed countries that signed lobbying contracts with US firms worth more than 21 million US dollars in fees collectively through to the end of 2025.
The contradiction is stark. A country dependent on external aid pays Western lobbying firms to influence the political environment of the same Western countries that finance its development.
Racepoint Group
Reporting by the Centre for Global Development, drawing on reporting by the Globe and Mail’s Africa bureau chief, documented that the Rwandan government contracted Racepoint Group at a monthly fee of over 50,000 US dollars.
The contract reportedly aimed to increase the volume of positive stories about Rwanda in Western media and counter criticism of the government’s human rights record. The effort reportedly generated more than 100 positive articles per month in publications including the New York Times and BBC, and increased online discussions of travel to Rwanda by 183 per cent.
This is how an image economy works. It does not need to silence every critic. It only needs to flood the public space with enough favourable stories to make criticism appear marginal, outdated or hostile.
Forbidden Stories, in its May 2024 Rwanda Classified investigation, identified more than a dozen US PR firms and lobbyists working for Rwanda across FARA filings in addition to those named above. The operation included the possible involvement of Israeli digital influence firm Team Jorge, previously exposed in a separate Forbidden Stories investigation in May 2023.
Part Three: The United Kingdom Lobby — Chelgate, BTP Advisers and Crestview Strategy
Chelgate Ltd
Chelgate Ltd is a UK reputation and relationship management firm. Consultants from Chelgate were caught on video, inadvertently exposed during a live Al Jazeera interview with Rwanda’s Justice Minister Johnston Busingye, coaching the minister on how to avoid questions about Rwanda’s rendition of Paul Rusesabagina from Dubai to Kigali in 2020.
Members of the US Congress, the European Parliament and human rights organisations had described that rendition as unlawful under international law. The Justice Minister himself confirmed in the interview that Rwanda had paid for the executive jet used in the operation.
Chelgate’s relationship with the Kagame administration was further linked to former UK Conservative Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell through UK parliamentary records. Those records show that Chelgate paid 2,000 pounds to fund Mitchell’s travel to Rwanda in 2012 as part of his Project Umubano, at a time when Mitchell held ministerial responsibility for UK aid to Rwanda.
The issue is not simply that a firm advised a government. The issue is that a UK reputation firm helped a minister manage questions about an operation involving the forced transfer of a government critic.
BTP Advisers
BTP Advisers was secretly recorded as part of an undercover investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism published in 2011. The firm’s founder and CEO, Mark Pursey, was recorded stating that BTP had created an internet attack site for the Rwandan government to counter what he described as those who over-criticised Rwanda’s conduct during the genocide period.
A 2009 report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative had concluded that Rwanda’s PR machinery had succeeded in hiding what it described as the exclusionary and repressive nature of the regime. BTP Advisers’ own website has listed the Kagame administration among its government clients.
This shows how Western consultancy can move from communication into political combat. Critics are not simply answered. They are targeted, reframed and delegitimised.
Crestview Strategy
Crestview Strategy is a Canadian public affairs firm with a London office. Reporting by openDemocracy in January 2024 documented that former Chelgate employee Harry Burns joined Crestview Strategy in August 2022 and continued to act as a spokesperson for the Rwandan government in the United Kingdom. This included responding on behalf of the government to media inquiries about allegations concerning housing for asylum seekers in Kigali under the UK-Rwanda asylum deal.
The Investigative Journalism Foundation of Canada reported in July 2025 that Crestview Strategy had opened an office in Kigali, promoting tourism and investment for Rwandan state agencies for approximately one year, before quietly removing all references to its Kigali operations from its website in spring 2025. The removal followed Canada’s suspension of export permits and cancellation of government-to-government business with Rwanda in light of Rwanda’s documented role in eastern Congo.
The pattern is familiar. When Rwanda is useful, Western firms promote it. When the political cost rises, the relationship becomes quieter.
Part Four: The Levy Firestone Muse Report — A Law Firm as Diplomatic Instrument
In April 2021, the Rwandan government published a 628-page report on France’s role in the 1994 genocide, commissioned from Washington DC law firm Levy Firestone Muse and authored by attorney Robert Muse. The report was published weeks after the French government’s own Duclert Commission report, named after historian Vincent Duclert, was submitted to President Emmanuel Macron in March 2021.
The Duclert Commission, comprising 15 historians given unprecedented access to French state archives, concluded that France bore overwhelming responsibilities for the genocide through its sustained support for the Habyarimana regime, but found no evidence of direct French complicity in the killings.
The Muse Report went further. It concluded that the French government bore significant responsibility for enabling a foreseeable genocide, stating that France was neither blind nor unconscious about the foreseeable genocide. This directly challenged the Duclert Commission’s characterisation of French blindness.
The Muse Report drew on millions of pages of documents and more than 250 witness interviews. It found, as the Duclert Report had, that French officials or personnel did not directly participate in the killings. Its conclusions on French foreknowledge and political responsibility were, however, substantially stronger than those of the French historians.
The simultaneous publication of both reports formed part of a wider diplomatic process. The two reports helped create conditions for the normalisation of French-Rwandan relations, culminating in Macron’s visit to Kigali in May 2021, the first by a serving French president since relations had deteriorated. They also helped move the diplomatic conversation away from French judicial investigations that had targeted figures close to Kagame, including the long-running inquiry into the shooting down of President Juvénal Habyarimana’s plane on 6 April 1994, which triggered the genocide.
Levy Firestone Muse was therefore not merely providing legal research. In practice, the firm’s work operated as a diplomatic instrument of Rwandan foreign policy, paid for by a government whose population remains deeply affected by poverty, inequality and limited political freedoms.
Part Five: France — Jeune Afrique and the Paid Editorial Relationship
In France, the most documented and specifically evidenced case of the Rwandan government directing resources towards a media organisation involves Jeune Afrique, the Paris-based publication founded by Tunisian-French publisher Béchir Ben Yahmed and one of the most influential French-language publications covering African affairs.
Jeune Afrique and the Reported 350,000 Euro Communication Contract
Documents described as communication contracts, reported publicly and cited in French-language media criticism, revealed that the Rwandan government under Paul Kagame paid Jeune Afrique approximately 350,000 euros in 2004 for favourable editorial coverage.
The documents reportedly covered around fifteen African countries within France’s sphere of influence whose governments paid the publication for articles written in their favour. Rwanda’s payment placed it second in the reported list after the Comoros and ahead of Togo, Mauritania, Equatorial Guinea, Algeria and Morocco.
The publication has been sardonically referred to in some French media circles as Jeune à Fric, a play on its name meaning “Young Money”, because of these reported practices.
The issue is not whether African governments should communicate with media outlets. The issue is whether paid communication arrangements blur the line between journalism, access, public relations and political protection.
François Soudan and Annual Access Journalism
François Soudan has been editorial director of Jeune Afrique since 2007 and a contributor since 1977. Since 2002, he has conducted annual exclusive interviews with President Kagame, a practice critics within and outside Rwanda’s diaspora have characterised as institutionalised access journalism in the service of the regime.
Soudan co-authored a book of interviews with Kagame, published by Enigma Books in 2015, in which reviewers and critics noted admiration or complaisance towards the Rwandan president. Critics and Rwandan opposition figures have publicly described Soudan as a lobbyist for the Kagame government operating within a media title.
Soudan’s personal circumstances have drawn additional scrutiny. He is married to Arlette Soudan-Nonault, a minister in the government of Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, another authoritarian head of state in the region. This raises wider questions about editorial independence, political proximity and African coverage shaped by elite access.
Critics documented a specific instance in January 2014 when Soudan travelled to Rwanda and published an article in Jeune Afrique following the killing of RPF dissident Colonel Patrick Karegeya, who was found dead in a Johannesburg hotel on New Year’s Eve 2013. Critics described the article as assisting the Rwandan government’s management of reputational fallout from that killing.
Kagame’s public response to the killing, made at a church service in Kigali, was widely reported as a warning that those who betray Rwanda should not expect to live peacefully. Jeune Afrique’s coverage did not meaningfully challenge the political framing offered by the Rwandan state.
As recently as April 2026, Soudan conducted an exclusive interview with Kagame in Kigali, published across Jeune Afrique and its English-language sister outlet The Africa Report, in which Kagame described US sanctions on Rwanda as insults hurled at Rwanda. Critics noted that the interview did not seriously interrogate Rwanda’s documented role in eastern Congo, the displacement of Congolese civilians or the human rights record underpinning the sanctions.
When a publication with a reported history of paid communication contracts continues to produce privileged access interviews with the same political leadership, the public is entitled to ask whether journalism has become part of the image economy.
Part Six: France — Civil Society, Accountability Work and the Risk of Instrumentalisation
The French civil society landscape on Rwanda is more complex than in the UK or United States and requires careful distinction.
Several French organisations conduct genuinely independent accountability work on France’s responsibility for the genocide and on the presence of genocide suspects on French soil. These include Survie, the Collectif des Parties Civiles pour le Rwanda and Ibuka France. Their legal and advocacy work is grounded in documented history and the universal jurisdiction principle in French law. Their work should not be misrepresented as evidence of direction by, or funding from, Kigali.
However, critics of the Kagame administration in France, including members of Rwanda’s diaspora and opposition, have documented a pattern in which the accusation of genocide denial or revisionism is deployed to silence debate about crimes committed by the RPF during and after 1994, French judicial proceedings targeting figures close to Kagame, and Rwanda’s ongoing military role in eastern Congo.
Critics writing on this question, including testimony published by La Tribune franco-rwandaise, describe a pattern in which public meetings, conferences and academic events that raise questions not endorsed by pro-RPF organisations face disruption and pre-emptive labelling as negationist before they take place.
This conflation of legitimate genocide accountability with the suppression of inquiry into RPF crimes and Kagame’s governance record is itself part of Rwanda’s narrative management in France. It does not always require direct payment. It works through moral occupation. The genocide becomes the terrain on which contemporary scrutiny is restricted.
The result is damaging for truth. France must be held accountable for its role before and during the 1994 genocide. Genocide denial must be opposed. Suspects must face justice. But none of this should be used to prevent scrutiny of RPF abuses, repression in Rwanda or Rwanda’s role in eastern Congo.
Part Seven: Political Advocates — Tony Blair, Cherie Blair and the Presidential Advisory Council
Tony Blair and the Africa Governance Initiative
Tony Blair has served as a personal adviser to President Kagame since the mid-2000s. His charity, the Africa Governance Initiative, later rebranded as the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, has embedded staff within Rwandan government departments to provide governance advisory support.
Kagame has described Blair as a visionary. Blair has used his media platform to argue against Western governments withdrawing aid from Rwanda over its role in the DRC conflict, stating publicly in a BBC interview that withdrawing aid would punish the people of Rwanda without solving the conflict.
That argument deserves scrutiny. If aid cuts punish ordinary people, then what should be said about a government that spends large sums on lobbying, sponsorship and image management while relying on external finance for development? Why should Western taxpayers subsidise development while Western firms are paid to protect the image of the government receiving that aid?
Cherie Booth QC
Cherie Booth, also known as Cherie Blair, served as lead defence counsel for Rwandan intelligence chief General Emmanuel Karake when he was arrested in London in 2015 on a Spanish extradition warrant relating to alleged crimes against humanity. General Karake successfully fought extradition.
The Rwandan government’s ability to retain one of the UK’s most prominent lawyers, married to a former prime minister who simultaneously served as a personal adviser to Kagame, illustrated the depth of political and legal access Kigali had secured in Britain.
There is no claim here that legal representation is improper in itself. Every accused person is entitled to legal representation. The public-interest concern is the concentration of access, influence and reputation protection around one government, especially when that government faces serious allegations of repression and regional destabilisation.
The Presidential Advisory Council
Rwanda maintains a formal Presidential Advisory Council through which Western political and business figures are cultivated as advisers, supporters and informal advocates.
Rwandan opposition figures, including Theogene Rudasingwa, a former close associate of Kagame who later became a critic, have described this council as a key mechanism through which the regime maintains Western credibility and shields itself from accountability. US figures including former President Bill Clinton and evangelical leader Rick Warren have been cited by critics as prominent public defenders of Kagame accessed in part through this wider network.
This is how soft power becomes political protection. Rwanda’s image is not maintained by one firm or one deal. It is maintained through a dense ecosystem of lobbyists, advisers, lawyers, journalists, consultants, sports clubs and political personalities.
Part Eight: What This Costs Rwandan People
The cumulative documented expenditure across the three major European football club sponsorships alone has been estimated at approximately 161 million US dollars. The monthly fees paid to documented US lobbying firms include 80,000 US dollars per month to Yorktown Solutions, 50,000 US dollars per month to W2 Group Inc and over 50,000 US dollars per month to Racepoint Group. The Levy Firestone Muse report commission added a substantial legal cost. The reported 350,000 euro payment to Jeune Afrique in 2004 represents one documented example within a wider relationship of influence, access and favourable coverage.
These figures exist alongside a national budget that remains dependent on external resources, including grants and loans. They exist alongside an HDI score of 0.578 and an Inequality-Adjusted HDI that reflects the unevenness of development. They exist alongside UNDP data showing that nearly half the population is multidimensionally poor and that many more are vulnerable to falling into poverty.
The Rwandan government argues that sports sponsorship generates tourism returns and that image investment builds the political capital necessary to attract foreign direct investment. Its defenders may also argue that Rwanda has achieved post-genocide stability, infrastructure development, public order and economic progress that many countries admire.
This investigation does not deny that governments use public diplomacy. It does not deny that tourism promotion can bring benefits. It does not deny that Rwanda has experienced development gains in some areas since 1994.
The question is different. Who controls the benefits? Who bears the costs? Who is allowed to speak? Who is silenced? And why should a government that suppresses political opposition, restricts media freedom and faces credible allegations over violence beyond its borders be celebrated internationally through paid Western channels while ordinary Rwandans remain poor?
When Western firms accept Kagame’s money, they are not neutral commercial actors. They become participants in an international image economy that helps preserve a polished external story while poverty, fear and exclusion remain lived realities for many Rwandans.
Part Nine: Challenges, Opportunities and Lived Experiences
The central challenge for Rwandans is not simply poverty. It is poverty under a political system where criticism is risky, dissent is treated as betrayal and international reputation is protected more aggressively than public accountability.
For ordinary citizens, this means that lived experience can disappear behind public relations. A rural family struggling with food prices, land pressure, poor housing or lack of meaningful income is unlikely to see itself in glossy Visit Rwanda campaigns. A young person without political freedom is unlikely to recognise their life in Western speeches praising governance efficiency. A survivor of repression or exile may watch Western lobbyists defend the same system that made them afraid to speak.
The opportunity is that the image economy can be challenged with evidence. FARA filings can be examined. Sponsorship contracts can be scrutinised. Public records can be compared with poverty data. Media relationships can be questioned. Sports fans can ask their clubs whether their shirts are being used to normalise repression. Western taxpayers can ask why aid-recipient governments are paying Western lobbyists while asking for development assistance.
There is also an opportunity for a different African media practice. African accountability journalism must refuse the idea that Western media, Western governments and Western firms have the final authority to define African reality. Rwandans, Congolese people, exiles, survivors, campaigners and ordinary citizens must be heard beyond state branding and elite access journalism.
Part Ten: Why Evidence Matters in This Investigation
Africa Realities Media is an accountability journalism platform. This investigation names companies, cites fees and attributes conduct only where those claims have been reported by credible investigative journalism organisations, documented in public filings, recorded in parliamentary records or supported by official data. We have not made claims that go beyond what has been publicly reported.
Where claims are contested, we note that. The Rwandan government has argued that its PR and lobbying expenditure is legitimate commercial activity designed to promote tourism and attract investment. Western companies named in this investigation have generally described their relationships with Rwanda as commercial arrangements separate from politics. Those positions are noted. They do not alter the factual record of who was paid, how much was reported and for what purpose.
We have not claimed that French civil society organisations such as Survie, Ibuka France or the CPCR are funded by or directed by the Rwandan government. We have noted that the narrative space around genocide accountability has been instrumentalised by Kigali’s image operation in ways that complicate scrutiny of RPF crimes and contemporary repression. That distinction matters.
Africa Realities Media welcomes responses from any named company, organisation or individual and will update this article where substantive clarification, correction or additional evidence is provided.
Africa Realities Media will continue to investigate this network as further documentation becomes available. Readers with knowledge of additional contracts, firms or financial relationships are invited to contact us securely.
Future Trends and Outlook
Rwanda’s image economy is unlikely to disappear. It is more likely to change direction. As scrutiny grows in Europe, Rwanda has already expanded its sports branding into North America through the LA Clippers and LA Rams. This suggests a shift from European football-focused reputation management towards a broader global sports and entertainment strategy.
The future may also involve more digital influence, more discreet consultancy arrangements and more indirect partnerships through tourism, investment promotion, security co-operation and migration policy. Western governments may criticise Rwanda publicly while continuing to work with Kigali privately on regional security, minerals, migration or geopolitical access.
For campaigners, journalists and citizens, this means the next phase of accountability must follow the money across borders. It must connect aid, lobbying, sport, media, law, diplomacy and conflict. It must also centre the lived experiences of ordinary Rwandans and Congolese people, not only the voices of governments, firms and international experts.
The question for the future is whether Western democracies will continue to host, profit from and legitimise image operations funded by aid-dependent governments, or whether they will introduce stronger transparency requirements for lobbying, public relations, sports sponsorship and media influence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is FARA and why does it matter for this investigation?
The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires companies and individuals lobbying in the United States on behalf of foreign governments to register with the Department of Justice and disclose the fees they receive. These public filings provide the documented basis for naming US firms and individuals that have worked for the Rwandan government, including W2 Group Inc, Yorktown Solutions, Racepoint Group and Michelle Martin.
How was the reported 350,000 euro Jeune Afrique payment discovered?
Documents described as communication contracts, covering around fifteen African countries and their payments to Jeune Afrique, were reported publicly in French-language media. The documents showed the Rwandan government as having paid approximately 350,000 euros in 2004. Jeune Afrique has not publicly confirmed or denied those specific figures in the sources reviewed for this article.
What was the purpose of the Levy Firestone Muse report?
The Rwandan government commissioned Washington DC law firm Levy Firestone Muse to produce a 628-page report on France’s role in the 1994 genocide. It was published in April 2021, weeks after the French Duclert Commission report. The report contributed to Rwanda’s diplomatic positioning towards France and formed part of the wider normalisation of French-Rwandan relations.
Did Arsenal know about Rwanda’s human rights record?
By the time the Visit Rwanda sponsorship continued into the mid-2020s, Rwanda’s human rights record had been widely documented by international organisations, courts, journalists and campaigners. The UK Supreme Court in November 2023 referred to Rwanda’s poor human rights record in its judgment on the UK-Rwanda asylum plan. The DRC government later called on Arsenal, PSG and Bayern Munich to end Visit Rwanda sponsorships because of the conflict in eastern Congo.
Why does this investigation focus on Western companies?
This investigation focuses on Western companies because they provide the tools, access and legitimacy through which Rwanda’s image is promoted internationally. The issue is not only what the Rwandan government does. It is also what Western firms, clubs, lawyers, media outlets and political figures agree to do for payment, access or influence.
Is tourism promotion wrong?
Tourism promotion is not wrong in itself. The issue is whether tourism branding is being used to distract from poverty, repression and alleged regional destabilisation. When tourism promotion becomes political reputation management, it must be scrutinised.
What can readers do?
Readers can support independent African accountability journalism. They can contact elected representatives to raise questions about whether Western lobbying regulations adequately cover fees paid by aid-recipient governments. They can engage with campaign groups monitoring sports club sponsorship relationships. They can also share this investigation so that the public conversation is not controlled only by governments, lobbyists and paid media relationships.
Conclusion
The network documented in this investigation is not a conspiracy. It is a market. Western PR firms, lobbying companies, law firms, media publications, sports clubs and political advisers have each made a commercial or personal calculation that working with the Kagame administration is acceptable, profitable or strategically useful.
Some have done so despite a public record of political repression, pressure on critics abroad and military intervention in a neighbouring country that has displaced millions of Congolese people.
The Rwandan people, many of whom live in poverty or vulnerability, are not the clients of this market. They are its cost. The fees paid to Western intermediaries are drawn from a national resource base that remains dependent on external aid and loans from the same Western world that hosts the firms being paid to manage Rwanda’s image.
Africa Realities Media names these companies, fees and individuals because silence about them is itself a political act. When a media outlet publishes privileged interviews against the background of reported paid communication contracts, when a UK PR firm coaches a minister facing questions about a rendition, when a US law firm produces a diplomatic report for an aid-dependent government, and when global sports clubs wear the brand of a government accused of supporting violence beyond its borders, the transaction is complete.
The people left out of that transaction are ordinary Rwandans and the victims of regional violence whose suffering is hidden behind polished branding.
References
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Meta Title: Paying to Stay Poor: Western PR Firms, Lobbyists, Sports Clubs and Media Outlets Profit from Rwanda’s Image Economy
Meta Description: An Africa Realities Media investigation naming Chelgate, BTP Advisers, Crestview Strategy, W2 Group Inc, Yorktown Solutions, Racepoint Group, Levy Firestone Muse, Jeune Afrique and major sports sponsorships as documented parts of Rwanda’s Western image economy while poverty and repression remain serious concerns.
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