Good Practices and Innovations in Public Governance 2003-2011

Good Practices and InnovATIONS in Public Governance
Members of the Ministry of Local Government in charge of implementing the Ubudehe
initiative asked cell (village) residents in Butare to select two people as facilitators
for each village. 12 Master Trainers attached to the Ministry of Local Government
trained the selected village facilitators. Between February and June 2001, 1,823
facilitators were trained to embark on the pilot process. The facilitators were assigned
the task of helping local people to come together in a purposeful way and to
engage in solving a single problem of their choosing. Citizens were encouraged to
rely on their own ideas instead of always depending on government’s support to find
solutions to their problems. If necessary, however, residents at the village level could
consult government, NGOs, and donors for technical and financial advice.
During the meetings at the local level, the facilitator together with the other citizens
of the village had to engage in the following activities:
• Define social categories and their characteristics;
• Draw a Social Map of the village on the ground;
• Reproduce the hand-drawn map of the village on a cloth with all the social
categories;
• Indicate the number of people for every category;
• Define other categories according to their status, to what they do and own;
• Prioritize local problems;
• Define a concrete action to be taken to solve one problem of their own choosing;
• One poor household is selected in every village so that it may be helped with
some resources to pursue livelihood strategies; and
• Any other information that village residents need to provide is elaborated on a
visual tool.
In 2002, citizens in 681 Villages/Cellules in Butare completed detailed social maps
(in large cloths making visual validation possible – from individual household names,
social categories, infrastructure and service provision and other characteristics) analyzing
their poverty characteristics.
Once the people have assessed together their problems, they gather in a village council
meeting where they map out solutions for their problems. After coming to a common
understanding, they work out a project that best suits their needs, and financial support
is granted to them through the Ubudehe Unit at the Common Development Fund. A
bank account has been created for every Ubudehe initiative and this in turn has created
a network of resources flows, which can be the backbone of a microfinance system.
Ubudehe is embedded at the grassroot levels, and implemented at the village levels
precisely because this is where poverty lies. “One cannot tackle poverty from the top
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