PROJECTED IMPACT OF THE INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (IDP) MODEL VILLAGES ON POVERTY REDUCTION IN RWANDA

Francisca Mujawase and Didas Kayitare

The government of Rwanda is committed towards achieving economic growth acceleration and rapid poverty reduction and reduced inequalities as overarching long term goals formulated in the long term strategy vision2020 and the medium term development goals the national strategy for transformation (NST1). National policies have been formulated and enforced to achieve development targets that reach permanent solutions to improve the lives of Rwandans. Despite remarkable success on high growth rate and rapid poverty reduction, the country still faces several challenges and one of it is settlement issues among both urban and rural population.The GoR in its strategic plan UHSHD under rural settlement actions aims at ensuring 70% of rural population settled in integrated viable settlements. The target will be achieved through re-allocation of  households in scattered settlements and those living in high risk zones to new IDP model villages.

Situation Analysis

According to EICV5 the proportion of the population that is multidimensional poor and deprived in 2/5 (40%) of weighted indicators declined since 2010/11. However, we observe that Rwanda still face development challenges on important dimensions categorized under 14 indicators. Under housing dimension, the reported indicator with the highest MPI is cooking fuel. It was revealed that 29% of households in Rwandan use non-improved cooking fuel. This indicator is followed by 27.9% of households deprived of floor materials. It is observed that only 8% of people in Rwanda lack access to electricity which shows GoR's efforts to provide electricity in both rural and urban areas. On health and hygiene matters, 17% of the population lack access to health insurance while only 7% take long distances to the nearest health facility. 22% of the population doesn’t have access clean drinking water while 9% lack sanitation facilities. School attendance is one of the lowest deprivations were only 6% of the population doesn’t attend school however 20.5% of the population attend only few years of schooling (primary).  Further, data shows that 14.8% of the population lack assets for communication while 12.5% work only in subsistence agriculture. Poverty disparities between rural and urban are significant and vary by province, the southern province of Rwanda being affected more. However, the highest drop in poverty is recognized in rural areas where by poverty decline by 17 points from 49.2% in 2013/14 to 32.1% in 2016/17. The MPI was found to be 10 times among the poorest than the rich population in Rwanda. Data also shows that MPI increases by wealth Ubudehe categories. It is important to note that MPI declined by 10% points among the poor population from 0.071 in 2010/11 to 0.299 in 2016/17.  However, data reported on MPI in Rwanda is isn't dis-aggregated by gender limiting analysis on the disparities and vulnerabilities among households headed by female or those headed by females. 

Solutions

The above figures reflects the urgent need to invest in programmes that impacts and transforms the lives of the population especially the most deprived. IDP is the most appropriate solution to the poorest population in rural Rwanda. In 2009, the GoR introduced the (IDPs) as a lasting settlement solution for people in rural areas by ensuring transformation of their daily lives in all aspects. Shelter is a basic need among the rural population given the fact that close to 30% of the population in Rwanda lack floor materials. IDPs provides integrated services in the same village ranging from Education developments and ICT, Health and Hygiene, Infrastructure and Resource management. Other social and economic aspects enjoyed are nearest sector and cell administration offices, marketplaces, smart schools and a model pre-primary within the village. Transport services and financial services are among other services introduced on the IDP model village.  This type of model presents multiple benefits because success in one sector impacts on the success of the other sectors as well.

Key Results

IDPs led to increased access to public services including education services from pre-primary to secondary education, health services including antenatal care, family health and planning, hygiene education, nutrition, access to clean water and sanitation facilities. The programme enhanced land consolidation and efficient utilization of land and enhanced farming practices and access to improved seeds. The IDPs promotes unionization in cooperatives which facilitates easy access to financial services and bargaining power on their produce including buying farm equipments. In addition, the programme contributes to increased social cohesion for households living together have common interest and this impacts on the journey of unity and reconciliation among Rwandans. IDPS presents direct impact on environment protection with the introduction on modern ways of farming. The art of the model village itself is environmentally friendly. It promotes green village and water harvesting, green houses and use of renewable energy. Direct jobs are created on construction sites of model villages while indirect jobs on potential new established businesses in the area are projected to as income generating activities for mostly the youth and women. Increase in the number of hours spent by women on productive and payable jobs is projected since model villages use improved cooking methods. Schools are also closer to community this gives women opportunities to engage in other productive and payable jobs that may impact on livelihoods on the family. With easy to access public services, the share of burden on household unpaid care work is reduced on women.

Long terms Impact

The GoR consider IDPs as a significant contributor towards achieving poverty reduction among the poorest population in Rwanda by improving standards of living. Long term results projected include improved health and hygiene, increased school attendance and love for school among young children, increased agricultural and livestock productivty which results affect increase  in household income. Access to clean water and improved diets are among other projected results. Performance of the pilot model villages in Rwanda reported amount of positive impact on the lives of the rural population as part of GoR's Imihigo. Programme scale-up will directly impact on Rwanda's achievement of its NST1 goals and the SDG goals. The policy design of the programme is explicit but one may ask the role of citizen participation and contribution towards the development of IDPs and how prepared they are in taking advantages of the services available to them to graduate out of poverty.