Vision 2020: An analysis of policy implementation and agrarian change in rural Rwanda

200 Pages·2017·1.67 MB·English

by  Sterling Recker

University of Missouri, St. Louis
IRL @ UMSL
Dissertations UMSL Graduate Works
8-5-2014
Vision 2020: An analysis of policy implementation
and agrarian change in rural Rwanda
Sterling Recker
University of Missouri-St. Louis, [email protected]
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UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI - ST. LOUIS
Vision 2020: An analysis of policy implementation and agrarian change in rural Rwanda

By Sterling Recker
M.A. University of Missouri – St Louis, 2009
B.S. University of Central Missouri, 2003

A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Missouri-St. Louis In Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy In Political Science
July 1, 2014

Advisory Committee:
Jean-Germain Gros, PhD., (Chair)
Joyce Mushaben, Ph.D.
Ruth Iyob, Ph.D.
Kenny Thomas, Ph.D.

Copyright 2014
By Sterling D. Recker
All Rights Reserved
Abstract
In 2000, President Paul Kagame introduced a plan to alleviate poverty as well as to
maintain political control over the policy process through a decentralized bureaucracy. Since
adoption of Vision 2020 in 2000, Rwanda has been reforming its rural sector to commercialize
agriculture, reduce pressures on land, and move the country into middle income status by the
year 2020. In order to achieve the goals outlined in Vision 2020, the Government of Rwanda
(GoR) adopted a policy of administrative decentralization in 2001 to facilitate the transition from
subsistence to commercial agriculture. I am addressing two related questions: 1) How has
Vision 2020 been implemented in rural Rwanda? 2) Is administrative decentralization inhibiting
or facilitating implementation? I am studying the challenges of implementing Vision 2020
among a population that has a shared memory of civil war and genocide as well as a history of
conflict over land rights and use. Included in the analyses are discussions of the evolution of
land laws, changes in the agricultural economy, and administrative structures established to
facilitate development. The dissertation will focus on the policies of villagization and
agricultural commercialization to illustrate how 21st century agrarian policy is being
implemented in Rwanda.

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Acknowledgements

I want to thank my committee for the support and guidance each offered throughout the
process of researching and writing the dissertation. My chair, Jean-Germain Gros was
invaluable in focusing my research from a very broad, unwieldy project to one of specificity. He
also provided encouragement and advice that made the field research in a difficult country easier
than it otherwise would have been. Joyce Mushaben was indispensable in her editing of each
chapter and not hesitating to use her red pen to make suggestions, correct errors and add commas
where needed. Ruth Iyob’s advice regarding conducting research in Africa helped to ground my
expectations before I arrived in Rwanda, and our post-Rwanda discussions helped me process
what I had experienced. Kenny Thomas provided the foundation for my understanding of
political economy and how the economic conditions influence the political, and vice-versa; a
subject that is at the core of my research.
I have received a tremendous amount of academic and financial support from my first
day at UMSL through the Department of Political Science. This support helped me to maintain
my commitment to the PhD; a difficult task when faced with the academic and financial
pressures of graduate school. The office assistants, Lana Vierdag and Raphael Hopkins were the
glue that held everything together in ways I will never know or understand, but their assistance
in managing grad school life has been indispensable.
My mother and father, Alice Recker and Roy Recker and sister Jill have always been the
most significant sources of support from the first grade to the doctorate, and their own
accomplishments have been as inspiring as their love.
My colleagues Timothy Rich, Eric Royer, Sudarsan Kant, and Cynthia Palazzolo have
been in the same boat as I and have been great sources of encouragement. The conversations we
have had over the years have given me a better understanding of what I was doing and where I
was going. My friends in Rwanda, Steve Terrill, Felix Ndashimye, Robert Sebudandi, and
Valentin Uweyzimana provided insight into the culture and politics of Rwanda and helped orient
me during my first foray into academic field research. Additionally, I want to thank the
numerous Rwandans who I shared random encounters with and told me about their lives and
country, and for having the strength to move forward under the most difficult of circumstances.

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Table of Contents
Chapter One: Introduction 6
Framing the issue of land reform in Rwanda 8
Vision 2020: The six pillars 18
Defining rural poverty and Vision 2020 21
Research design and methodology 28
Outline of dissertation 35

Chapter two: Post-conflict reconstruction and conditions of resource and land scarcity 38
State-society relations and post-conflict public policy 41
Rwanda: The effects of high population density and limited land on public policy 47
Economic development in rural Africa 48
Villagization or forced resettlement? 52
Implementation under conditions of scarcity and poverty 53
Conclusion 59

Chapter three: Rural public policy under conditions of extreme poverty 61
Theorizing rural development in divided societies 62
Population issues in post-genocide Rwanda 65
Rural conditions and demographics 69
An economic profile of the rural poor 71
Rural poverty and sources of credit income 72
Rural living conditions and patterns of settlement 73
Financing public works projects under Vision 2020 82
Conclusion 83

Chapter four: Decentralizing Vision 2020 85
Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) 86
Vision 2020: Umurenge (VUP) 86
National Agricultural Policy (NAP) 89
Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture (SPAT) 91
Decentralization defined 92
Decentralization and accountability under Vision 2020 95
Imihigo contracts and local accountability 96
Administrative structure of Rwanda: 2006 – present 97
Accountability: District Mayors, Vice-Mayors, and District Secretaries 99
Accountability and elections: Imihigo and decentralization in practice 102
MINALOC community development policy 104
Villagization and decentralization 106
Conclusion 107

Chapter five: Operationalizing Vision 2020 109
Population distribution and policy analysis 111
The narrative of implementation 111
Rwanda land law vs land policy 113
National Land Policy (2004) and the Organic Land Law (2005) 115
MINALOC community development policy (2008) and SPAT I and II 117
Land reform and consolidation 118
Commercializing agriculture 122
PAP and RAP 123
Expropriation Law (2007) and Valuation Law (2007) 124
The impact of geography on implementation 126
Challenges to implementation: Miscommunication and misunderstandings 127
Mechanization and new technologies 129
Indicators of success and failure 132
Conclusion 133
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Chapter six: Kibungo case study 134
Ngoma district, Eastern Province 137
Kibungo Sector 139
The political economy in Ngoma district, Kibungo sector (2011) 143
Political and economic accountability 145
Results of implementation in Kibungo: 2000 – 2011 152
Challenges to implementation in Kibungo 156
The land question: Issus and disputes 158
Conclusion 159

Chapter seven: Summary of findings and future research 161
The politics of development in Rwanda: 2000 – 2013 164
Competing expectations of the state and the rural poor 166
New Wine in Old Bottles or Progressive Rural Development? 169
Summary of findings 173
Questions and considerations for future research 174

Tables
Table 1: Goals for Vision 2020 19
Table 2: Interview subjects 35
Table 3: Gender indicators 70
Table 4: Poverty between 2006 and 2011 73
Table 5: Economic activity, demographics and living conditions 74
Table 6: Rural development indicators 92
Table 7: Primary crops in the Eastern Province 119
Table 8: Health indicators 129
Table 9: Eastern Province: Indicators of poverty reduction (2000 – 2010) 154

Images
Image 1: An isolated village in Kibungo 127
Image 2: Kigali, Rwanda 140

Maps
Map 1: Eastern Province, Kibungo sector 135

Appendix 1: Questionnaires 176
Appendix 2: Request for research permit 184
Appendix 3: Assistant contract 185

Bibliography 187

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Abbreviations

AMS Agricultural Mechanization Strategy
BNR National Bank of Rwanda
BRD Bank for Rwandan Development
CDCs Community Development Councils
DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo
DFiD Department for International Development
DDP District Development Plans
EICV Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey
EDPRS Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GoR Government of Rwanda
INATEK Institute of Agriculture, Technology, and Education in Kibungo
IWMS Integrated Watershed Management System Project
LTR Land Tenure Regularization
LDC Less Developed Country
MFI Microfinance Institutions
MDG Millennium Development Goals
MINAGRI Ministry of Agriculture
MINECOFIN Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning
MINALOC Ministry of Local Government
NAP National Agricultural Policy
NIS National Institute of Statistics
PPA Participatory Poverty Assessment
PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
PAP Project Affected Persons
RADA Rwandan Agricultural Development Authority
RAP Resettlement Action Plans
REMA Rwanda Environment Management Authority
RISD Rwandan Initiative for Sustainable Development
RPF Rwanda Patriotic Front
SACCO Savings and Credit Cooperative
SPAT Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture
UN United Nations
UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund
USAID United States Agency for International Development
VUP Vision 2020: Umurenge
WFP World Food Program

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Chapter One: Introduction

“Rwanda’s Vision 2020 document.....describes the basic development objectives of the country over the
long term. It is the key socio-economic policy document on which all national and sectoral policies and
strategies are based and on the basis of which the allocation of resources between the various sectors is
made” (Strategic Plan for the Transformation of Agriculture in Rwanda, 2009)

Land scarcity and food insecurity have been persistent problems in Rwanda, and were
exacerbated after the 1994 genocide that claimed the lives of one million people in one hundred
days. These historical and contemporary conditions have provided the foundation of policy
development and implementation with a focused goal to alleviate poverty and increase the
incomes of the majority of people who live in extreme poverty. Vision 2020 is a twenty year
plan that outlines specific development goals aimed at reducing poverty and guiding Rwanda’s
economic development between 2000 and 2020. While the program itself has been recognized
as a model for national development, the implementation of key policies has thus far not led to
the type of growth that will ensure middle income status by 2020. I investigate the
implementation of two key policies, villagization and agricultural commercialization, to evaluate
whether or not administrative and political institutions are hindering the ambitious goals of
Vision 2020.
I frame the analysis using the work of Michel Foucault and James Scott as the
government of Rwanda (GoR) is applying the principles of biopower and is making its
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population legible by developing public policy based on two factors: 1) the GoR views society
through a lens of post-genocide development and as one divided between victims and killers and
2) the GoR is using a combination of administrative and political institutions to control the
biological necessities of life, including the control of where people may live and what they may
plant. All of this is steeped in the language of global poverty reduction, with specific references
to the 2000 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), making policies such as forced
resettlement more amenable to international goals of rural development while, domestically,
depriving the rural poor of basic rights such as where they may live and what they may plant on
their land.
I am shifting the focus away from ethnicity to a more policy-oriented analysis of politics
and development in twenty-first century Rwanda. While ethnicity played a significant role in the
1994 genocide, current policy development and implementation allows for a deeper
understanding of what is driving and hindering development today. Rwanda is often identified
as an example of a rare success story in African development due to Vision 2020 and the
commitment to development by the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) regime led by President
Paul Kagame. Recent economic successes, such as attracting foreign investment and having
transparent financial institutions, have led many such as the World Bank and western
governments to laud Rwanda as a case to be replicated by other post-conflict governments.
However, as will be argued, recent achievements overshadow the political conditions that define
the country under Kagame and the RPF. The political institutions in Rwanda do not allow for
criticism of policies, making the implementation of Vision 2020 more of a compulsory process
rather than a participatory one, counter to what has been argued by the RPF in justifying
resettlement and commercialization.
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Framing the Issue of Land Reform in Rwanda
Many of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) have large rural populations,
influencing the ways in which governments frame development strategies. The governments in
these countries have pursued a variety of means in implementing economic and political reforms
designed to alleviate poverty while maintaining political authority among rural populations.
These reforms are often guided by the rationale of politically repressive regimes concerned
primarily with retaining their control of government and citizenry alike. Oftentimes the goals of
the state differ from those of the rural poor leading to a discrepancy in how the rural poor
perceive the reforms when compared to the raison d’état. This difference in understanding of
rural development may affect determinations of success and failure of these reforms between the
rural population and the urban political elites. These issues become especially pertinent when
present within the context of an ethnically divided, post-conflict country such as Rwanda.
In recent years governments have adopted strategies in line with free-market approaches
to modernization. The commercialization of agriculture, resettlement of significant portions of
the rural poor, and decentralization of political authority are policies that have been promoted in
many African countries during periods of economic development. Historically such reforms
have led to political conflict and crises due to underdeveloped administrative institutions and
inefficient planning (Bunker 1987; Rondinelli 1979).
Intensive agricultural commercialization and formal land tenure based on legal
definitions of ownership and use were first introduced in Africa by the colonial powers as means
to extract resources from the people and the environment, to implement taxation, and maintain
social control over the indigenous populations (Berry 1992: 327). Through the colonial practice
of commercializing agriculture and natural resources, the foreign powers were able to subdue
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