Beneath the veneer: decentralisation and post-conflict reconstruction in Rwanda

Abstract

In 2000, the Rwandan government began the phased introduction of a decentralisation programme throughout the country. The programme aimed at countering citizen’s exploitation and marginalisation – a principal driver of the 1994 genocide – through broad-based participation in local development planning. This article analyses the extent to which Rwanda’s evolving decentralisation process is meeting this aim. Tracking a shift in emphasis from local political participation to economic growth, it argues that increased technocratisation and centralised control combined with poor policy responsiveness and low levels of local government legitimacy are undermining post-conflict reconstruction.

Keywords:

• Decentralisation
• Rwanda
• development
• conflict
• reconstruction
• peacebuilding
• participation

Notes

1. See for example http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/article/2015-01-21/185174/, accessed February 9, 2016.

2. http://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-on-africa-2016, accessed February 10, 2016.

3. See Crisafulli and Redmond, Rwanda Inc.

4. Kagame has been heralded as a ‘visionary leader’ by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. In 2009, he was presented with the Clinton Global Citizen Award by former US President Bill Clinton and, that same year, both Time magazine and the Financial Times named him as one of the 50 most influential people of the new millennium. Several scholars have also highlighted the remarkable achievements of the Kagame regime – see Golooba-Mutedi, Collapse, War and Reconstruction in Rwanda; Ensign and Bertrand, Rwanda; Stansell, “The Aftermath and After”; and Clark, The Gacaca Courts.

5. See, for example, the IMF’s November 2015 Public Information Notice (PIN) https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2015/pr15494.htm, accessed February 9, 2016.

6. World Bank, Doing Business 2013, 37–41.

7. Government of Rwanda, Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy. Caution is advised in interpreting these statistics – see Ansoms et al., “Statistics Versus Livelihoods”.

8. See, for example, Booth and Golooba-Mutedi, “Developmental Patrimonialism?”; and Gaynor, “‘A nation in a hurry’”.

9. Ansoms, “Rwanda’s Post-genocide Economic Reconstruction”; Desrosiers and Thomson, “Rhetorical Legacies of Leadership”; Purdekova, “Even If I am Not Here, There are so Many Eyes: Surveillance and State Reach in Rwanda”; Reyntjens, “Rwanda, Ten Years On”; and Straus, The Order of Genocide. Other commentators highlight the high level of centralised control over the media, information and narratives on the Rwandan story more broadly (Beswick, “Managing Dissent in a Post-genocide Environment”; Ingelaere, “Do We Understand Life After Genocide?”; and Pottier, Re-imagining Rwanda).

10. Prunier, From Genocide to Continental War; Reyntjens, The Great African War; and UNSC, Letter dated 18th May 2012.

11. See “US slates Rwanda’s Paul Kagame Over Decision to Run for Third Term”, The Financial Times, January 3, 2016 (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ec7a58a-b20f-11e5-8358-9a82b43f6b2f.html#axzz3ztNjVNLp, accessed February 9, 2016) and “U.S., EU Reject Kagame’s Third Term Bid”, The Guardian, January 4, 2016 (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2016/01/u-s-eu-reject-kagames-third-term-bid/, accessed February 9, 2016).

12. Study tours to Rwanda of local government officials from neighbouring Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been organised and sponsored by international donors (author interviews Burundi, September 2011 and the DRC, January 2013).

13. Much of the literature focuses on the lack of local participation in planning and decision-making. Both the Rwandan IRDP, which talks of ‘ongoing centrist tendencies’ (La Participation Citoyenne: Un des Enjeux de la Democratisation au Rwanda, 27) and the Ministry for Local Government itself (MINALOC, Revised Decentralisation Policy, 18) highlight the low levels of local participation in planning. On specific aspects of the process, Hasselskog demonstrates how household performance targets are set by state actors (“Participation or what?”); Hasselskog and Schierenbeck show how local communal labour projects are determined by the state (“National Policy in Local Practice: The Case of Rwanda”) while Sabates-Wheeler et al. demonstrate centralised control over local poverty classifications (“Challenges of Measuring Graduation in Rwanda”). Chemouni’s broader study of the administrative, financial and political aspects of the process reveals strong centralising tendencies at all three levels (“Explaining the Design of the Rwandan Decentralisation”).

14. Beswick and Jackson, Conflict, Security and Development, 9.

15. See also Gaynor, “Poverty Amid Plenty”; Gaynor, “Challenges to Decentralisation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo”; Gaynor, “‘A nation in a hurry’”; and Gaynor, “Supporting Decentralisation in Fragile States”.

16. It was not possible to select for ethnic difference or to explore ethnic issues more broadly within the research as legislation introduced in 2008 now renders any discussion or mention of ethnicity a criminal offence (charges include ‘divisionism’, ‘negationism’ and ‘genocide ideology’ – see Waldorf, “Instrumentalising Genocide”). This would have provided a clear rationale for Rwandan authorities to deny the research visa which is now required of all foreign researchers and which proved extremely difficult to secure in this case.

17. Burnet, Genocide Lives in Us; Holmes, Women and War in Rwanda; and King, “From Data Problems to Data Points”.

18. Led by Paul Kagame, the RPA invaded in 1990 leading to a civil war. Once victorious, the RPA became known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and remains the ruling party to date.

19. Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story; Ensign and Bertrand, Rwanda; Pottier, Re-imagining Rwanda; Reyntjens, The Great African War; Straus, The Order of Genocide; and Uvin, Aiding Violence.

20. Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story; Reyntjens, “Rwanda, Ten Years On”; and Uvin, Aiding Violence.

21. Hintjens, “Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda”; and Storey, “Structural Adjustment, State Power and Genocide”.

22. Reyntjens, “Chiefs and Burgomasters in Rwanda”; and Ingelaere, “The Ruler’s Drum and the People’s Shout”.

23. Quoted in Uvin, Aiding Violence, 130.

24. Human Rights Watch, “Genocide in Rwanda”; Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs en Crise; Uvin, Aiding Violence; Ingelaere “Do We Understand Life After Genocide?”; and Prunier, From Genocide to Continental War.

25. Hayman, “Funding Fraud?”

26. Uvin, Aiding Violence, 42.

27. Hintjens, “Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda”; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis; and Uvin, Aiding Violence.

28. Longman, “Rwanda”.

29. Carment, “Assessing State Failure”; Ottoway, “Rebuilding State Institutions”; and Paris, At War’s End.

30. Engelbert and Tull, “Post-conflict Reconstruction in Africa”, Richmond, Peace in International Relations; and World Bank, Conflict, Security and Development.

31. Stewart, Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict; and World Bank, Conflict, Security and Development.

32. Crook, “Decentralisation and Poverty Reduction in Africa”; and Devas and Delay, “Local Democracy and the Challenges of Decentralising the State”.

33. Brinkerhoff, Governance in Post-Conflict Societies; Cammack et al., Donors and the ‘Fragile States’; and World Bank, Conflict, Security and Development.

34. See for example Chanie’s study of the Ethiopian process where he concludes that decentralisation remains unsuccessful due to ongoing political clientelism, “Clientelism and Ethiopia’s Post-1991 Decentralisation”; Crawford’s work in Ghana which finds decentralisation effective in consolidating the power of national state, “‘Making democracy a reality’? The Politics of Decentralisation and the Limits to Local Democracy in Ghana”; and more general large-N studies which find a lower success in decentralisation initiatives in post-conflict contexts than elsewhere, Lake and Rothchild, “Territorial Decentralisation and Civil War Settlements”; and Siegle and O’Mahoney, “Assessing the Merits of Decentralisation”.

35. Republic of Rwanda, National Decentralisation Policy, 4.

36. Ibid., 8.

37. Interview state representative, 12/02/2013.

38. Republic of Rwanda, Law No. 29/2005 of 31/12/2005.

39. Ingelaere, “The Ruler’s Drum and the People’s Shout”.

40. Newbury, “High Modernism at the Ground Level”.

41. Interviews state representative, 12/02/2013 and national NGO 06/03/2013.

42. MINALOC, Revised Decentralisation Policy, 8.

43. Ibid., 8, emphasis in original.

44. Ibid., 8, emphasis in original.

45. Ibid., 8–9, emphasis in original.

46. Republic of Rwanda, Revised Community Development Policy, 11.

47. Ibid., 16.

48. MINALOC, Ubudehe to Fight Poverty, 1.

49. Shah, “Participatory Numbers, Community Decision-making,” 53.

50. The VUP programme funded by DfID targets low income households and provides cash transfers (direct and in return for work) and micro-credit facilities.

51. Lemarchand, Burundi and Rwanda; and Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis.

52. Interview with representative of international development agency, Kigali, February 13, 2013.

53. See Government of Rwanda, Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy.

54. Interviews with Sector Executive Secretary, Site D, February 16, 2013 and Sector Executive Secretary, Site F, February 24, 2013.

55. The principal function of the Sector Etat Civile officer is to ‘regularise’ or legalise common law marriages. Targets of 100% regularisation are included the imihigos of sectors visited.

56. Burnet, “Gender Balance and the Meanings of Women”; and Debusscher and Ansoms, “Gender Equality Policies in Rwanda”.

57. Desrosiers and Thomson, “Rhetorical Legacies of leadership”; and IRDP, Peace in Rwanda as Perceived by Rwandans, 83–4.

58. See the “Africa Power and Politics Project” (www.institutions-africa.org); and Gaynor, “‘A nation in a hurry’” for more on these trends.