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] Follow this and additional works at: https://irl.umsl.edu/dissertation Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Recker, Sterling, "Vision 2020: An analysis of policy implementation and agrarian change in rural Rwanda" (2014). Dissertations. 224. https://irl.umsl.edu/dissertation/224 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the UMSL Graduate Works at IRL @ UMSL. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of IRL @ UMSL. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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. 1 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. 2 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 3 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 4 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