Promising developments? Children, youth and post-genocide reconstruction under the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)

Abstract

Children and youth, in whom visions of national development are invested, are central to post-conflict state-building efforts. In the case of Rwanda, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has initiated an ambitious programme of state re-engineering that seeks to transform Rwanda into a knowledge-based economy and thereby achieve middle-income status by 2020. Success or failure of this imagined future is largely contingent on the 65% of the population under age 25. Through cross-analysis of three research studies, this paper explores how RPF policies have converged with the lives of children and youth, so as to get a pulse on the post-genocide micro-social environment and thereby examine the effectiveness of the RPF's governance. This approach provides key insights into these dynamics by assessing how the RPF's policies related to children's rights, school-based education and transitions to adulthood have affected the lives, expectations and aspirations of young people. It is argued that the RPF's commitment to rapid reconstruction and development, such as universal access to education, has resulted in promising developments for young people, and has generated high aspirations for the future. However, the purposive imposition of the government's goals is predicated on a specific vision of a promised future that is often at odds with young people's daily realities. This dynamic risks generating a new sense of exclusion and foreclosing opportunity for many young people. Thus, as the RPF moves forward with its Vision 2020 goals, it must do so with a nuanced and astute assessment of how these policies interact with young people's experiences and shape expectations. While young people largely subscribe to the RPF's visionary approach to development, where it contradicts their daily realities, young people's responses weigh heavily on the possibility of the vision of either the RPF – or young people – being fully realized.

Keywords:

• Rwanda
• children
• youth
• children's rights
• education
• youth transitions
• post-conflict reconstruction
• development
• Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)

Acknowledgements

We wish to offer our sincere appreciation to all research participants and research assistants for their generous input into our studies.

Funding

Kirrily Pells' research was funded by the School of Advanced Study, University of London; the Central Research Fund, University of London; and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Funding for Kirsten Pontalti's research was generously provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Timothy Williams' research was supported through a University Research Studentship at University of Bath.

Notes

1. Burman, Developments: Child, Image, Nation; Cheney, Pillars of the Nation.

2. Kagame, speech at UNICEF Children's Champion Dinner.

3. Farmer et al., “Reduced Premature Mortality”; Ministry of Education, 2012 Education Statistics Yearbook.

4. Robson et al., “Conceptualizing Agency,” 135.

5. Clark and Kaufman, After Genocide; Ingelaere, “Living the Transition.”

6. Pells, “Building a ‘Rwanda Fit for Children’”; Pells, “'Keep Going Despite Everything.’”

7. Williams, At What Cost?

8. Yin, Case Study Research.

9. National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) et al., Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS).

10. Crivello et al., “How Can Children Tell Us?”

11. Cheney, Pillars of the Nation, 43.

12. Ansoms, “Rwanda's Post-Genocide Economic Reconstruction,” 242.

13. Kagame, Speech at the Youth Connekt Dialogue.

14. Pells, “Building a ‘Rwanda Fit for Children.’”

15. Kagame, speech at the Youth Connekt Dialogue.

16. Prunier, Africa's World War.

17. Sledsens, Explosion Demographique au Rwanda, p. 8. Similarly today, 45% of the population is aged 15 or younger; NISR et al., Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS).

18. Rwanda Population and Housing Census (1978). http://www.statistics.gov.rw/survey/general-population-and-housing-census. Accessed January 20, 2014.

19. Codere, Biography of an African Society; and youth transitions study data.

20. Musabyimana, Sexualité, Rites et Moeurs Sexuels.

21. Codere, Biography of an African Society.

22. De Lame, Hill Among a Thousand; Gravel, Remera: Community in Eastern Ruanda.

23. In 1985, 68% of seven year olds and 55% of children aged 7–14 were enrolled in primary school; Hoben, “School, Work and Equity,” 34.

24. Des Forges, Leave None to Tell.

25. Human Rights Watch, Lasting Wounds.

26. Rwanda had already ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1991, but since 1999 the government has also ratified the UNCRC optional protocols and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

27. Wood, “Social Processes of Civil War”; Lubkemann, Culture in Chaos.

28. Stambach, “African Education, Culture, and Modernity,” 290–291.

29. Kagame, speech at the Youth Connekt Dialogue.

30. Pells, “Building a ‘Rwanda Fit for Children,’” 81. The government's message of self-reliance is also iterated in the intore slogan used for its student ingando (Itorero) programme.

31. Kagame, speech at the Youth Connekt Dialogue.

32. World Bank, Rwanda Education Country Status Report

33. World Bank, Rwanda Education Country Status Report

34. Williams, At What Cost?

35. UNICEF estimates that 27% of boys and 30% of girls are engaged in labour. Here child labour is defined as children aged 5–11 who work for at least 1 hour of economic activity or at least 28 hours of household chores, or 12–14-year-olds who work for at least 14 hours of economic activity or at least 28 hours of household chores; UNICEF, State of the World's Children, 134–135.

36. Bushayija, “Mariage Coutumier au Ruanda and Youth Transitions Study Data.”

37. Civil marriage is free but requires an interfamily dowry agreement; culturally, this necessitates family ceremonies. Data from youth transitions study revealed that the least expensive marriage today is £350 per family, almost a year's labour for many.

38. Sommers, Stuck.

39. Government of Rwanda, Economic Development and Poverty Strategy; Government of Rwanda, Rwanda Vision 2020.

40. Olson, Rise and Decline of Nations.

41. Samuelson and Freedman, “Language Policy, Multilingual Education.”

42. Ministry of Education, Nine Years Basic Education Implementation.

43. Tabaro, “5,800 Demoted from Advanced Level.”

44. In 2011, 11% of enrolled pupils dropped out during primary school and 13% during lower secondary school; Ministry of Education, 2012 Education Statistics Yearbook, 12, 21.

45. EICV3 Education dataset. http://www.statistics.gov.rw/survey/integrated-household-living-conditions-survey-eicv. Accessed January 20, 2014.

46. Stunted growth from chronic malnutrition has an impact on children's cognitive function; Le, Effect of Early-Age Stunting. The prevalence of children with stunted growth is 47% in rural areas and 27% in urban areas; NISR et al., Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS), 141.

47. Burman, Developments: Child, Image, Nation, 13.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: Kirrily Pells' research was funded by the School of Advanced Study, University of London; the Central Research Fund, University of London; and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Funding for Kirsten Pontalti's research was generously provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Timothy Williams' research was supported through a University Research Studentship at University of Bath.