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Abstract
Although still predominantly rural, Rwanda is one of the world's fastest-urbanizing countries. This paper considers the Rwandan Patriotic Front's (RPF) approach to urban development in the context of intense pressure on land and a stated long-term agenda of moving towards a future that is ‘100% urban’. The RPF government has won plaudits for its transformation of Kigali, and its Land Tenure Regularisation programme is proceeding at a pace few anticipated. Its approach to the urban question remains, however, both highly controversial abroad and contested within the country. There is widespread acknowledgement that aspects of the government's urban agenda have been disadvantageous to the poor, but it is also unclear whether the implementation of this agenda is furthering or hindering their overarching drive for economic growth, structural transformation and political stability. In particular, the expropriation of urban land and the political–economic interests embedded in the real estate sector have critical impacts on Rwanda's development trajectory. Utilizing a ‘political settlements’ approach but introducing a spatial perspective focused on the transformation of Kigali, this paper explores the governance of land reform, urban planning, expropriation and property taxation, analyses how these illuminate the broader settlement in place, and considers the implications for Rwanda's future.
Funding
This paper is based on composite research over a number of years and was not directly funded by any one agency.
Notes
1. CitationUnited Nations Population Division (UNPD), World Urbanization Prospects.
2. CitationGoodfellow and Smith, “From Urban Catastrophe to ‘Model City’?”
3. CitationBooth and Golooba Mutebi, “Developmental Patrimonialism?”
4. CitationBeswick, “Managing Dissent in a Post-Genocide Environment.”
5. CitationPurdeková, “‘Even If I Am Not Here.’”
6. CitationAnsoms, “Re-Engineering Rural Society”; CitationIngelaere, “Peasants, Power and Ethnicity”; CitationNewbury, “High Modernism at the Ground Level.”
7. CitationKhan, “State Failure in Weak States”; CitationKhan, Political Settlements.
8. CitationDi John and Putzel, Political Settlements: Issues Paper.
9. CitationNorth, Institutions, Institutional Change; CitationNorth, “New Institutional Economics.”
10. CitationKhan, Political Settlements, p. 1.
11. CitationKhan, Political Settlements, p. 20.
12. CitationKhan, Political Settlements, p. 1.
13. CitationGray, “Industrial Policy and the Political Settlement,” p. 187.
14. CitationNorth et al., Violence and Social Orders.
15. CitationAcemoglu and Robinson, Role of Institutions in Growth and Development.
16. CitationSen, “Political Dynamics of Economic Growth.”
17. For a fuller discussion of this comparison, see ibid.
18. For some of the ways in which this is occurring in contemporary Africa (including in Kigali), see CitationWatson, “African Urban Fantasies.”
19. CitationHarvey, Social Justice and the City.
20. CitationCastells, City, Class and Power.
21. CitationLogan and Molotch, Urban Fortunes.
22. CitationZukin, Landscapes of Power.
23. CitationGraham and Marvin, Splintering Urbanism.
24. CitationMcLeod and Ward, “Spaces of Utopia and Dystopia.”
25. For example, CitationPotts, “Restoring Order?”; CitationDurand-Lasserve, “Market-Driven Evictions”; CitationWatson, “‘Planned City Sweeps the Poor Away’”; CitationOdendaal, “Reality Check.”
26. For a discussion of the dynamics of urban change after 1994, see CitationGoodfellow and Smith, “From Urban Catastrophe to ‘Model City’?”
27. UNPD, World Urbanization Prospects.
28. CitationGoodfellow, “Planning and Development Regulation”; CitationGoodfellow and Smith, “From Urban Catastrophe to ‘Model City’?”
29. Interview with a Singaporean planner, December 6, 2009.
30. Interview with a foreign consultant, December 11, 2009.
31. Interview with a presidential adviser, January 20, 2010.
32. Interview with Vincent Karega, then Minister of Infrastructure, September 9, 2009.
33. Interview with a Singaporean planner, December 6, 2009.
34. CitationNasr and Volait, Urbanism: Imported or Exported?; CitationWatson, “African Urban Fantasies.”
35. Interview with a foreign consultant, December 11, 2009.
36. CitationMabogunje, “Urban Planning and the Post-Colonial State”; CitationSilva, “Urban Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
37. For a detailed discussion, see CitationGoodfellow, “Planning and Development Regulation.”
38. Interview with an architect, August 28, 2013.
39. Interviews with foreign investors, 2009–12; interview with an architect, August 28, 2013.
40. This included both freehold and leasehold: those who held land under customary law (i.e., most rural landowners) were entitled to a documentary title in the form of a renewable lease for a term of 3–99 years, while those considered investors were granted freehold title.
41. CitationDepartment for International Development (DFID), Phase 1 of the National Land Tenure Reform Programme, p. 26.
42. Interview with a land official, December 3, 2009.
43. CitationMinistry of Environment and Lands, Procedures Manual for Expropriation in the Public Interest.
44. Interview with a government adviser, February 14, 2010.
45. Interview with a former district mayor, March 15, 2009.
46. Interviews with investors, 2009–11; private communication with an investor, 2012–13.
47. Interview with a land official, December 3, 2009.
48. Interview with land officials, December 3, 2009.
49. Interview with a domestic investor, February 2, 2010.
50. Interview with an Rwanda Development Board official, December 8, 2009.
51. Documents obtained from local officials, 2009–10.
52. Interview with a land official, December 3, 2009.
53. This was subsequently reduced to 80,000 by scaling down infrastructure investments; interview with a domestic investor, February 2, 2010.
54. Interview with a former city official, December 10, 2009; interview with a foreign consultant, December 11, 2009.
55. For a discussion, see CitationGoodfellow, “State Effectiveness and the Politics.”
56. CitationBooth and Golooba Mutebi, “Developmental Patrimonialism?”; CitationGokgur, Rwanda's Ruling-Party Owned Enterprises.
57. CitationDepartment for International Development (DFID), Supplementary Aide Memoire; CitationFjeldstad and Moore, “Revenue Authorities and Public Authority.”
58. Interview with taxation adviser B, December 1, 2009.
59. Interview with a decentralization official, November 23, 2009.
60. Interview with a government decentralization official, February 4, 2010; interview with a local research organization, February 8, 2010.
61. Interview with donor representatives, February 3, 2010.
62. For a detailed discussion of this comparison, and of taxation in Kigali more generally, see CitationGoodfellow, “State Effectiveness and the Politics,” ch. 7.
63. Interview with a land official, December 9, 2011.
64. Interview with donor representatives, Kigali, February 3, 2010.
65. Interview with a government decentralization official, February 4, 2010.
66. Interview with a government decentralization official, February 4, 2010.
67. Interview with taxation adviser A, November 26, 2009.
68. Interview with taxation adviser A, November 26, 2009.
69. Interview with donor representatives, Kigali, February 3, 2010.
70. Interviews with various donor representatives and foreign advisers, Kigali, November 2009–February 2010.
71. Interview with taxation adviser B, December 1, 2009.
72. Interview with taxation adviser B, December 1, 2009.
73. CitationRepublic of Rwanda, “Performance Analysis of Rental Income.”
74. Interview with taxation advisers, November 26, 2009 and December 1, 2009.
75. CitationDFID, Phase 1 of the National Land Tenure Reform Programme, p. 15.
76. Interview with a Kigali City official, February 5, 2010.
77. Interview with taxation adviser A, November 26, 2009.
78. Interview with taxation adviser B, December 1, 2009.
79. Interview with a government official, February 2, 2010.
80. Interview with a former Rwandan Patriotic Army soldier, February 8, 2010.
81. CitationReyntjens, “Rwanda, Ten Years On”; CitationPurdeková, “‘Even If I Am Not Here.’”
82. For a discussion, see CitationGoodfellow, “Planning and Development Regulation.”
83. For a discussion of this history, see, for example, CitationStraus, Order of Genocide.
84. For example, CitationPurdeková, “‘Even If I Am Not Here.’”
85. Interview with a former district mayor, December 15, 2009; interview with an architect, August 28, 2013.
86. Documents obtained from various government and advisory sources.
87. Interview with an infrastructure official, December 6, 2011.
88. Why exactly the government is determined to maintain a political settlement through institutional congruence, and how it frequently manages to do so when most states cannot easily achieved this, are important questions for which there is no space to go into here. For a discussion, see CitationGoodfellow, “State Effectiveness and the Politics.”
89. Interview with an architect, August 28, 2013.