Rwanda: Rapid development leaves some trouble in its wake

[the_future_modernes]

Sunshine and Shadow in Rwanda's Rural Housing Programme

KIGALI, Apr 27, 2011 (IPS) - The gleam of new corrugated iron sheets shimmers through the blue-green haze that veils Rwanda's rural valleys and hillsides. It is a visible sign of Rwanda’s metamorphosis from a nation devastated by genocide seventeen years ago to the fastest modernising state on the continent.

But are the shiny roofs the jewels on Africa’s emerging bride, or the bling worn by a bully?

Most of the new houses are the result of a hugely ambitious plan to bring rural families, at present scattered across the countryside, together into villages called imidugudu, enabling the government to more easily provide electricity, water, schooling and security. But it is a smaller programme, the replacement of grass-thatched houses with more modern structures, which caught the attention of aid agencies when complaints emerged last year that the homes of the minority Batwa, former pygmy forest dwellers, were being destroyed by the government.

The issue is complex, encapsulating many of the tensions haunting Rwanda as well as the strides it is making towards prosperity.

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Realising grand plans

In Rwanda's system of government, the job of local leaders is to mobilise and co-ordinate local and national resources to implement programmes.

In the case of Bye-Bye Nyakatsi, central government earmarked 10 million dollars. This is complemented by the mobilisation of the army to distribute roof sheets and building material. Public works programmes aimed at employing youths provide further labour.

Then Rwanda’s intense traditional communal-work system, called umuganda, kicks in to help build the new houses. Everybody pitches in to supply labour and materials - officially on the last Saturday of every month, but often whenever someone has time to help a neighbour. Scroll and look to the right in the yellow box for rest of this article