Good Practices and Innovations in Public Governance 2003-2011

2008 Category 1: RWANDA
Africa
Rwanda
2008 Category 1 Winner
Ubudehe, Common Development Fund, Rwanda
Description
Putting people at the centre of decision-making about poverty alleviation through
the Ubudehe initiative in Rwanda.
Summary
Ubudehe is a socio-economic programme that empowers citizens at the community
level in Rwanda to plan, use public resources, and implement poverty reduction projects
like the construction of houses and roads.
The Problem
The 1994 genocide had shattered Rwanda to its core. The new government inherited
a country characterized by a high number of dislocated and traumatized citizens who
had lost trust in each other. The infrastructure, basic services and property had been
destroyed. Whole families and communities were divided. Livestock were killed and
crops had gone to waste. Hospitals and schools were ransacked or destroyed. Communal
health centres were ruined. Stock of health supplies and basic drugs had been
looted. Water supply lines were non-operational. Qualified staff had been killed or
fled the country including most teachers. An estimated 250,000 women were widowed,
at least 100,000 children were orphaned, lost, abducted or abandoned and an
estimated 300,000 children killed. Over 500,000 women were victims of rape and
violence. Over three million people had fled Rwanda and over One million people
were killed in the genocide. Poverty levels were at their highest. The public administration
was destroyed and faced with the challenge of rebuilding a nation comprising
of victims, survivors, returnees and perpetrators of genocide. Citizens were apathetic
and fearful of the State given their experience of the abusive powers the State had
exercised in perpetuating genocide. This was the background to the Ubudehe initiative
and indeed the whole country. Given such a context, the Ubudehe initiative
sought to address key challenges:
• How could citizen apathy towards government and towards their own problems
be reduced? How could citizens take charge of their own lives and participate in
the definition of their own problems by working hand in hand with others to
solve these problems? How could citizenship be increased and local governance
democratized even further? How do you introduce real participation that strengthens
each citizen’s power to act and therefore build active Rwandan citizens?
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