THE VISIONS AND AMBITIONS OF THE RWANDAN ELITE

African Affairs, 108/431, 289–309 doi: 10.1093/afraf/adp001

C© The Author [2009]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved

Advance Access Publication 3 February 2009

RE-ENGINEERING RURAL SOCIETY:THE VISIONS AND AMBITIONS OF THE

RWANDAN ELITE

AN ANSOMS

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the Rwandan elite’s visions and ambitions for a wide-ranging re-engineering of rural society. The post-1994 political elite hasfew links to rural society and the peasant way of life, and sees little room forsmall-scale peasant agriculture in Rwanda’s economic future. The articleshows how current Rwandan policy makers aim to realize three socialengineering ambitions: first, to transform the agricultural sector into aprofessionalized motor for economic growth, centred on competitive andcommercial farm units; second, to artificially upgrade rural life by inserting‘modern’ techniques and strategies into local realities, while hiding truepoverty and inequality; and, finally, to transform Rwanda into a target-driven society from the highest to the lowest level. The article points to the(potential) dangers, flaws, and shortcomings of this rural re-engineeringmission, and illustrates how the state as the engineer ‘hovers’ above thelocal without consulting those affected. It concludes that contemporarypolices are unlikely to be conducive to poverty reduction.

AFTER A DEVASTATING FOUR-YEAR CIVIL WAR and an apocalyptic genocidein 1994, Rwanda’s post-conflict reconstruction process certainly has its mer-its. The state was rebuilt at surprising speed, taking up responsibilities interms of service delivery in education, health, and infrastructure. Rwandais today cited as a country with relatively low levels of corruption, and,according to the World Bank’s Governance Indicators, both political stabil-ity and government effectiveness have improved from 2002 to 2007.1 Thegacaca courts, used to try those accused of acts of genocide, were initiallyseen as an inventive, locally embedded form of restorative justice that wouldallow for the peaceful resolution of discord. Economically, donors have in-vested massively in the reconstruction and development of the Rwandan

An Ansoms ([email protected]) is an assistant at the Institute of Development Policy andManagement, University of Antwerp. She recently completed a PhD thesis in economics,Faces of Rural Poverty in Contemporary Rwanda. The author thanks Catharine Newbury, FilipReyntjens, Bert Ingelaere, Alison Des Forges, Rita Abrahamsen and two anonymous refereesfor valuable comments and suggestions on the ideas and contents of this article.1. World Bank, ‘Worldwide Governance Indicators: 1996–2007’, <http://www.govindicators.org > (6 October 2008).

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economy.2 Indeed, recovery of the Rwandan economy has been exceptionaland, after a spectacular post-genocide economic boom, national income hascontinued to rise steadily.3

At the same time, criticism has mounted, pointing to the weak pointsof the reconstruction process. Political liberties have been constrained,4

the gacaca process has been far from a uniformly positive experience,5 andeconomic growth has not been accompanied by commensurate povertyreduction. While in percentage terms poverty decreased from 60.3 percentof the population in 2001 to 56.9 percent in 2006, in absolute terms itincreased from 4.82 to 5.38 million people (based on the national povertyline). Moreover, inequality increased, from a Gini coefficient of 0.47 in2001 to 0.51 in 2006.6 In rural areas, certainly, progress has been limitedand has remained concentrated in the hands of a small class of agriculturalentrepreneurs, while the majority of Rwandan peasants are confronted withincreasingly difficult living conditions.

Rwandan policy makers are aware that poverty is a mounting problem.A preliminary government report reviewing progress in living conditionsfrom 2001 to 2006 acknowledges that the reduction of poverty levels hasbeen uphill work ‘because growth over this period has been accompanied byincreasing inequality’.7 The government’s vision of how to achieve economic

2. S. Marysse et al., ‘The aid “darlings” and “orphans” of the Great Lakes region in Africa’,European Journal of Development Research 19, 3 (2007), pp. 433–58.3. A. Ansoms, ‘Resurrection after civil war and genocide: growth, poverty and inequality inpost-conflict Rwanda’, European Journal of Development Research 17, 3 (2005), pp. 495–508.4. F. Reyntjens, ‘Post-1994 politics in Rwanda: problematising “liberation” and “democrati-sation”‘, Third World Quarterly 27, 6 (2006), pp. 1103–17; F. Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda, ten yearson: from genocide to dictatorship’, African Affairs 103, 411 (2004), pp. 177–210.5. Ingelaere argues that the gacaca courts cannot be considered a straightforward successdue to the fact that, among other things, they suffer from ‘a too extensive social and legalengineering campaign’. B. Ingelaere, ‘The gacaca courts in Rwanda’ in L. Huyse and M.Salter (eds), Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict: Learning from Africanexperiences (International IDEA, Stockholm, 2008), p. 57; L. Waldorf, ‘Mass justice for massatrocity: rethinking local justice as transitional justice’, Temple Law Review 79, 1 (2006), pp.1–87.6. Government of Rwanda (GoR), ‘Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy2008–2012’ (Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Kigali, preliminary draft, June2007); GoR, ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper’ (National Poverty Reduction Programme,Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Kigali, 2002).7. GoR, ‘Preliminary Poverty Update Report’ (National Institute of Statistics, Rwanda,Kigali, 2006), p. 7. While Rwandan policy makers recognize the poverty problem and thefact that poverty in absolute terms did not decline, they are extremely sensitive to criticism.A recent UNDP report expressed strong concerns about Rwanda’s limited achievements interms of poverty reduction. This report was signed by Finance Minister Musoni, who was alsothe chairman of the steering committee overseeing the report’s formulation. However, twoweeks after the launch of the report, Musoni expressed public regret that he had not read thefinal edited version of the report, accusing the Swedish editor of adding unfounded and mis-leading interpretations of the figures. He stated that the government had blacklisted the editorand a Rwandan researcher involved in the report’s formulation. This incident indicates thesensitiveness of the Rwandan government to criticism on poverty and inequality-related pol-icy performance. See UNDP, ‘Turning Vision 2020 into reality: from recovery to sustainable

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progress and poverty reduction is set out in its ‘Vision 2020’ document,and has been further elaborated and operationalized in the first PovertyReduction Strategy Paper, implemented during 2002–5, and in the newEconomic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy, finalized in 2007and to be implemented between 2008 and 2012.8

The overall aim of the current government is to transform Rwanda from‘low’ to ‘medium’ human development, as defined by the UNDP’s HumanDevelopment Index. This is to be done through a radical modernization ofthe overall social structure, particularly by moving the agricultural sectoraway from subsistence and towards a more commercial and diversified econ-omy. In this radical vision of transformation, Rwandan policy makers canbe seen to conform to what Pound has defined as the engineering missionof law and policies.9 According to this view, social arrangements can be ma-nipulated and managed through conscious human control using law as aninstrument. As Ellerman describes it, ‘If we use the metaphor of the doersas trying to work their way through a maze, then the helpers [developmentagents] as social engineers see themselves as helicoptering over the maze,seeing the path to the goal, and supplying directions (knowledge) along withcarrots and sticks (incentives) to override the doers’ own motivation andpush the doers in the right direction.’10 In other words, the social engineers‘hover’ above the local, providing strategies and knowledge, laying claim tothe ‘whole picture’ without consulting those affected.

In the Rwandan context, the engineering mission appears in many dif-ferent domains. Reyntjens, for example, cites the rather picturesque, butnonetheless intrusive prohibition of the use of plastic bags, as well as theenforcement of massive consecration of marriages according to state law,and the implementation of an ambitious modernization policy.11 This mod-ernization exercise has been most apparent in Kigali, where skyscrapersand massive buildings have arisen with great rapidity, but, increasingly, theambition to re-engineer Rwanda also touches the rural setting. Ingelaere,in particular, points out the importance and dimensions of the social

human development’ (United Nations Development Programme, Rwanda, Kigali, 2007) and‘I didn’t read the UN report before launch – Musoni’, New Times, Kigali, 24 August 2007.8. See GoR, ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper’; GoR, ‘Economic Development and PovertyReduction Strategy’; GoR, ‘Vision 2020’, (Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Kigali,2000).9. R. Pound, Social Control through Law (Archon, Hamden, CT, 1968).10. D. Ellerman, Helping People Help Themselves: From the World Bank to an alternative phi-losophy of development assistance (University of Michigan Press, Michigan, MI, 2005), p. 9.Ellerman pleads for an alternative, decentralized social learning model in which local exper-iments and self-learning can flourish and peer-to-peer exchange through local networks isencouraged.11. F. Reyntjens, ‘Chronique politique du Rwanda 2005–2007’ in S. Marysse et al. (eds),L’Afrique des Grands Lacs Annuaire 2006–2007 (L’Harmattan, Paris, 2007), pp. 1–19.

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engineering aspect of the post-genocide Rwandan regime in multiple do-mains of rural life.12

Overall, the elite’s re-engineering mission within the rural setting is char-acterized by three main objectives. First, policy makers aim to transform theagricultural sector into a professionalized motor for economic growth, withlittle scope left for traditional smallholder agriculture. Second, policy mak-ers seek to upgrade rural life by inserting ‘modern’ techniques and strategiesinto local realities, while hiding the extent of poverty and inequality. Finally,they hope to transform Rwanda into a target-driven society from the highestto the lowest level. Taken together, these three social engineering ambitionsamount to a top-down developmentalist agenda with a central role for thestate as the engineer that shapes and reshapes the rural environment.

In this article, I first explore how political developments – with specialreference to 1994 – have brought to power a political elite whose identity(both ethnic and spatial) differs profoundly from that of the overall major-ity of the population. I also show how this elite differs from the pre-1994elite, both in terms of their profile and in terms of their attitudes and am-bitions for rural development. The main part of the article analyses howRwandan policy makers aim to realize their engineering ambitions for ruralsociety. I then draw some conclusions about the (potential) dangers, flaws,and shortcomings of the current re-engineering mission. To capture thediscourse of Rwandan policy makers, I draw on 26 interviews conductedbetween May and July 2007 with persons closely involved in poverty re-duction, agricultural, and land policies. The interviewees included high-and lower-ranking officials of the three ministries centrally engaged in ruraldevelopment: the EDPRS (Economic Development and Poverty ReductionStrategy) Department within the Ministry of Finance and Economic Plan-ning; the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources; and the Ministryof Land, Environment, Forests, Water, and Mines. Alongside secondarydata, these interviews provide a comprehensive picture of the present ruraldevelopment discourse within government circles.13

12. B. Ingelaere, ‘Political transition(s) and transitional justice – case study on Rwanda: aview from below’ (unpublished manuscript, 2006). This study, based on in-depth research ona particular hill, provides a detailed illustration of how the engineering ambition is instrumen-talized in actual policy.13. The majority of interviewees (17) worked for the Rwandan government. Interviews withdonors (4) and civil society representatives (5) reiterate some points made in the article,but cannot be considered representative of the entire donor community and civil society. Inaddition to the interviews, the author conducted research in six different rural localities in theSouthern Province on local people’s perceptions of their own poverty. Although the data fromthese qualitative focus group interviews (at least 12 per setting) is not core information in thisarticle, it is sometimes referred to when illustrating particular points.

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What is old, what is new? Characteristics of pre- and post-1994 elites

Rural development is not a purely technical issue. As Bebbington argues,‘Neither patterns of asset distribution nor institutional conditions in ruralareas are accidental. Indeed, they each derive from the broader relationshipsbetween politics, economy, and society that drive and undergird the overallpatterns of rural development.’14 The World Development Report of 2008similarly suggests that agricultural policy making results from a politicalbargaining process driven by the power dynamics between citizens andpoliticians.15 In other words, the elite–peasant relationship is crucial to anunderstanding of the political elite’s rural development discourse and policy.

The elite–peasant relationship in Rwanda is rooted within various lay-ers of identity, and although historical research has focused principally onethnicity, other factors such as regional background, kin, social class, occu-pation, and gender have profoundly influenced these identities. The relativeimportance of each factor has also been subject to change over time withinRwandan historiography.16 Many studies have elaborated extensively onethnic cleavages, focusing on the strong animosity between Hutu and Tutsi,and often expose very divergent and contradictory theories on the originsof ethnic differentiation.17 It is clear, however, that the Hutu–Tutsi riftevolved over time from a flexible social class indicator towards an increas-ingly institutionalized division. Belgian colonial policy also used ethnicityto accomplish its own political agenda. Just prior to independence in 1962,ethnic Tutsi dominance in the political centre was reversed, and for thefollowing 30 years a Hutu president ruled Rwanda. During this period,several episodes of inter-ethnic tension and violence led to significant Tutsiemigration.18

Geographic origin(s), along with ethnicity, equally underlie dispari-ties. The ruling Hutu elite, though often urban-based, retained impor-tant links with their rural areas of origin, and tried, unduly if not sur-prisingly, to advance their interests. The first Hutu president, GregoireKayibanda, favoured the central region. After a military coup in 1973, thenew president, Major-General Juvenal Habyarimana (a Hutu, native of the

14. A. Bebbington, with L. Dharmawan, E. Farmi, and S. Guggenheim (2006) ‘Local ca-pacity, village governance, and the political economy of rural development in Indonesia’, WorldDevelopment 34, 11 (2006), p. 1963.15. World Bank, Agriculture for Development (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007).16. D. Newbury and C. Newbury, ‘Bringing the peasants back in: agrarian themes in theconstruction and corrosion of statist historiography in Rwanda’, American Historical Review105, 3 (2001), pp. 832–77.17. For an overview, see D. de Lame, A Hill among a Thousand: Transformations and rupturesin rural Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin, 2003); Newbury and Newbury,‘Bringing the peasants back in’; J. Vansina, Le Rwanda Ancien: Le royaume nyiginya (Karthala,Paris, 2001).18. D. Newbury, ‘Returning refugees: four historical patterns of “coming home” to Rwanda’,Society for Comparative Study of Society and History 47, 2 (2005), pp. 252–85.

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Table 1. Composition of the Presidency and the Government

Ethnicity RPF / non-RPF

Tutsi Tutsi (non)ex-refugee ex-refugee Hutu N.a. RPF Non-RPF N.a.

10/01/1998∗ 14 8 18 20 15 508/02/1999∗ 18 9 19 26 17 320/03/2000∗ 12 9 11 19 11 231/05/2001∗ 15 7 12 21 11 210/08/2002∗ 18 3 14 21 10 420/06/2003∗ 16 3 15 23 10 124/06/2004∗ 15 1 17 3 23 9 422/06/2005∗ 15 3 15 3 23 8 523/05/2006∗∗ 6 2 12 15 501/06/2007∗∗ 7 2 11 15 501/04/2008∗ 10 3 11 5∗∗∗ 17 5 7

∗ Ethnicity of president, ministers, secretary of state and secretary general (of all names avail-able); ∗∗ Ethnicity of president and ministers only. ∗∗∗ Four are tutsi.Source: F. Reyntjens and S. Marysse, Annuaires L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, 1998-1999, 1999-2000, 2000-2001, 2001-2002, 2002-2003, 2003-2004, 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007-2008, (L’Harmattan, Paris).

north-west province of Gisenyi), began to grossly favour the country’snorth.19 Similarly, Newbury and Newbury documented regional disparitiesin the distribution of government development funds during this period,while de Lame pointed to the importance of the Kigali political elite’s tieswith their specific hills of origin.20

The new Rwandan political elite differs from that of the preceding pe-riod, both in terms of ethnicity and in terms of its relationship to peasantsand the countryside. After the genocide in 1994, the Tutsi-based RwandanPatriotic Front (RPF) seized power, and the previously ruling (Hutu) elitedisappeared from the political power centre. Although the leaders of RPFtypically portray themselves as the main force behind the ‘liberation’ ofRwanda, post-1994 Rwanda has in fact been ruled by an elite whose iden-tity, in terms of ethnicity and origin, differs markedly from the majorityof the population. The rebel army was transformed into the RPF politicalparty, including both Tutsi and Hutu. For the top positions, however, ethnicbackground has come to play an important role. Table1 illustrates the ethnicbias in the composition of the presidency and the government. Although85 percent of the Rwandan population are Hutu, they occupy about 50 per-cent of presidential and government positions, an equal share to the Tutsi.

19. de Lame, A Hill among a Thousand.20. Ibid.; Newbury and Newbury, ‘Bringing the peasants back in’.

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The majority of the new Tutsi elite are ex-refugees, and most returned fromUganda (including President Kagame) and the Democratic Republic of theCongo after having lived outside Rwanda for decades, or even generations.Following the RPF’s military victory, the new elite installed themselves inthe capital. While this was partly for security reasons (the countryside wasstill unstable in the immediate post-1994 period), it also reflected the factthat a considerable number of the returnees had lost their ties with the ‘hillof origin’ and had little incentive to go to the rural areas.21

The over-representation of Tutsi ex-refugees in official posts and theirdetachment from the rural setting was frequently raised during interviews,especially by non-government interviewees. A representative of a Europeandonor country highlighted that the characteristics of the current elite ex-plain, to a considerable extent, their relation with the countryside:

Many of the government officials have never known the Rwandan countryside. Theycame from refugee camps, and when they took over power, they often left their parentsbehind in Umutara [a province in the north-east of Rwanda with many large cattlefarms]. Moreover, in the past, there was still a lot of insecurity in the countryside,so people preferred to live in the city of Kigali. That is where they are concentratednow, it explains why they have limited knowledge and understandings of how peasantslive.22

In addition to the ethnic and refugee dimensions that shape the identityof the current political elite, there is a clear language dimension. Before1994, the second language after Kinyarwanda was French. In the post-1994period, under the influence of the Ugandan diaspora, English is graduallybecoming the dominant language within governmental circles. This favoursthe promotional chances of former exiles. As a representative of civil societyput it,

The government really adopts a policy to exit the ‘Francophony’ and to enter the‘Anglophony’. . . . Within the government, we see the same trend. Those who speakFrench and have the right competences are not taken into consideration [when assign-ing someone to a post]; and when they are, they keep quiet because they do not wantto create any problems. It is nonetheless mostly the French-speaking who master therural setting.23

This interviewee referred to the fact that those with more experience inrural development are often Francophones who were present in Rwandabefore 1994. They have a longer and more in-depth experience with theproblems of the rural environment, and often have direct ties with thecountryside where their families still reside. Accordingly, they are morefamiliar with the logic of subsistence farming, but in the current context

21. On the conceptualization of the meaning of ‘coming home’ for Tutsi refugees, seeD. Newbury, ‘Returning refugees’.22. Interview, representative of a European donor country, May 2007, Kigali.23. Interview, civil society person working in the domain of human rights, May 2007, Kigali.

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their lack of English is a barrier to a government post. According to severalinterviewees, even if Francophones do learn English (as many now do), theirchances of promotion are still lower due to a lack of political connections.As one representative of a European donor country mentioned, this is notmerely an issue of English- versus French-speaking; ‘It is not that muchabout bilingualism; it is clear that people with Ugandan roots are favoured.The language issue is simply the consequence of the fact that more peoplefrom Uganda are pushed forward.’24

Overall, we can conclude that the characteristics of Rwanda’s currentpolitical elite contrast strongly with those of the majority of Rwandans.The former are mainly Tutsi, nearly always urban-based, and often bornand raised in a neighbouring country. The latter are mostly Hutu, ruralpeasants, and born and raised in Rwanda. Likewise, the identity of the newelite also differs from that of the pre-1994 era, when many were Hutu andstill had personal connections with the countryside, with their hill of origin.

Visions and attitudes towards the peasantry

A key question accordingly becomes whether this difference in identitytranslates into a different attitude towards the peasantry. At the level ofpolitical discourse, the contrast between past and present opinions about thepotential of the peasantry in the development of the economy is dramatic.The Habyarimana administration (1973–94) relentlessly championed theculture of an agrarian society. Verwimp shows how Habyarimana in hisspeeches often ‘glorified the peasantry and pictured himself as a peasant’.25

An intriguing example can be found in his speech on the 25th Anniversaryof the Republic of Rwanda in 1987:

If in the 25 years of our independence Rwanda has known a lot of success in itsstruggle for progress, if it has been able to take a number of important steps, it is inthe first place our farmers who made this happen. . . it is their total devotion to theirwork, every day. . . their fabulous capacity to adapt, their pragmatism, their genius,their profound knowledge of our eco-systems that allowed them to extract an amazingdegree of resources from their plots of land. . . .26

While the rhetorical language of the Habyarimana administration referredto the peasantry as the ‘Rwandan ideal’, this has profoundly changed underthe Kagame administration. The influential ‘Vision 2020’ document out-lines the main challenges and policy priorities of the Rwandan governmentup to 2020, and states in a strikingly different tone:

24. Interview, representative of a European donor country, May 2007, Kigali.25. P. Verwimp, ‘Peasant ideology and genocide in Rwanda under Habyarimana’ in P.Verwimp, Development and Genocide in Rwanda: Political economy analysis of peasants and powerunder the Habyarimana regime (KU Leuven, unpublished PhD thesis, 2003).26. Ibid., p. 16.

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Rwanda’s economic policies since independence are said to have targeted agricultureas the main engine of economic growth. However, the agricultural sector has contin-ued to perform poorly, with consistently declining productivity. It will be necessaryto formulate and implement realistic developmental policies that move beyond pastdelusions of viable subsistence-based agriculture.27

The Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation identifies as a main chal-lenge the ‘transformation of subsistence agriculture into commercial agri-culture with all its involvements in terms of institutional, social changes ofbehaviour and distribution of roles and responsibilities between differentstakeholders’.28 The land policy takes this even further, arguing that ‘theRwandan family farm unit is no longer viable. . . . The reorganization of theavailable space and technological innovations are necessary in order to en-sure food security for a steadily and rapidly increasing population.’29 AlisonDes Forges refers to this process as the government’s ambition to ‘winnowout the chaff’ in the agricultural sector.30

While there is clearly some awareness among current policy makers of themany institutional constraints that small-scale peasants face and that serveto keep them in subsistence agriculture, the solution to the poverty problemis often reduced to adopting a ‘good mentality’. In his inaugural speech in2000, for example, President Kagame referred to the many developmentchallenges facing Rwanda, and continued:

I do not believe that we should lose hope and surrender ourselves to lives of poverty.If we can utilize the resources that God has given us to good effect, we can eradicatepoverty. . . . We would like to urgently appeal to the Rwandese people to work. As theBible says, ‘he who does not work should not eat’.31

In subsequent years, President Kagame has frequently spoken of theburdens of the past, while emphasizing the responsibility of each citizen toovercome his/her own poverty. Similar sentiments were expressed by someinterviewees, referring to an ‘awareness problem’ among Rwandans. Oneofficial, for example, maintained that

[We have to convince the people] to change radically and to become part of a societythat can take care of itself, that can survive on its own, and that does not have tobeg. . . . One should not wait until one comes to help you as if you are a little baby. The

27. GoR, ‘Vision 2020’, p. 17.28. GoR, ‘Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation in Rwanda’ (Ministry of Agricul-ture and Animal Resources, Kigali, 2004), p. 33.29. GoR, ‘National Land Policy’ (Ministry of Lands Environment, Forests, Water, andMines, Kigali, 2004), p. 16.30. A. Des Forges, ‘Land in Rwanda: winnowing out the chaff ’ in F. Reyntjens and S.Marysse (eds), L’Afrique des Grands Lacs: Annuaire 2005–2006: Dix ans de transitions conflictuelles(L’Harmattan, Paris, 2006).31. ‘Address to the Nation by H. E. Paul Kagame on his inauguration as President ofthe Republic of Rwanda’, 22 April 2000, <www.gov.rw/government/president/speeches>(6 October 2008).

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head of state is angry with this spirit. Instead of depending upon others, one has to dothings on one’s own. . . . We really have to convince everyone to be with this nationalslogan that everyone has to go forward in life.32

The tone of this quote suggests an underlying assumption that povertyis, in fact, a state of mental dependence, somehow a deliberate choice.Getting out of poverty accordingly becomes a question of adopting theright strategy and ‘putting one’s mind to it’. Thus, a district official inSouthern Province highlighted the mentality of the people in the regionas one of the major explanations of the province’s limited performance inrelation to key indicators of well-being: ‘You talk to them and you thinkthey listen, but the people do nothing with the good advice you give them.They say “yes” because they are tired of you and your speeches, but theyare never convinced. . . . They are resistant, they are really difficult.’33 Byno means the general sentiment among the interviewees, this statement isnonetheless symptomatic of the current elite’s view that poverty is partlydue to the ‘wrong peasant mentality’. A further illustration is found in theStrategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation, which refers to the problem ofpeasants’ ignorance and resistance to adopting recommended productivity-enhancing measures that go beyond traditional subsistence farming.34 Assuch, peasants’ perceived lack of capacity to embrace ‘modernized’ farmingis at least partly attributed to a ‘lack of vision’, a view that totally disregardsthe institutional barriers they face.

These examples illustrate that there is indeed a difference in discoursebetween the pre- and post-1994 elites with regards to the potential of thepeasantry in overall national development. However, the picture deservesmore nuance. Despite its pro-peasant rhetoric, Habyarimana’s policies alsodisplayed at times a strong anti-rural bias. Verwimp has illustrated howHabyarimana’s regime failed to respond to early warnings after crop fail-ures in 1989.35 Similarly, Pottier has shown how agricultural officers inthe pre-1994 period, who functioned as brokers between the central stateand local peasants, often served as ‘imposers’ of state policies. He points tothe excessive formality of public meetings that gathered together Rwandancultivators and agronomists, and argues that this stood in the way of true di-alogue and that interaction boiled down ‘to a one-way, dogmatic delivery of

32. Interview, high-ranked Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Finance andEconomic Planning, June 2007, Kigali.33. Interview, Southern Province district official, June 2007, Gitarama.34. GoR, ‘Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation’, pp. 6–17.35. P. Verwimp, ‘Agricultural policy, crop failure and the “Ruriganiza” famine (1989) insouthern Rwanda: a prelude to genocide?’ (discussion paper, June 2002, Center for EconomicStudies, Leuven, 2002).

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textbook instructions’.36 According to Newbury and Newbury, agriculturalofficers were chosen on the basis of their educational profile rather thanactual experience. They conclude that, ‘not only does “state agriculture”become a coercive field, but much local knowledge (e.g. local variations ofcrops, soils, pests, labour practices, etc.) is lost, in the name of standardizingand “rationalizing” agriculture’.37 Indeed, the disparity between rural andurban settings deteriorated during the Habyarimana period, and by 1990,about one out of six people in urban areas lived below the national povertyline, while in rural areas this applied to over 50 percent of the population.38

In short, a top-down, state-centred governance structure is not new toRwanda; nor are the rural–urban gap, the anti-rural bias in policy making,and the state–society cleavage specific to the post-1994 period. Instead theyappear to be structural features of elite–peasant relationships in Rwanda,and beyond.39 That said, the argument of this article is that the currentvision and ambition of the Rwandan elite to socially engineer rural societygoes further than these previous attempts at reform, and that the potentialimplications are more problematic given that policy makers see no role forsmall-scale peasants. The social engineering ambitions of the Rwandan eliteare analysed in more detail below.

What place for small-scale peasants and the unskilled labour force?

Overall, Rwandan policy makers see very little role for small-scale peas-ants in economic development, despite the fact that small family farmsmake up over 90 percent of all production units, with an average of lessthan one hectare in size.40 Instead, policy makers favour drastic transfor-mation of the economic structure of Rwanda, where peasant agricultureplays a minor role. According to a donor representative, during the EDPRSdiscussions, there was even considerable debate over whether agriculturaldevelopment should still be a core issue; ‘There has been quite a battleon this issue. . . . However, a degree of realism returned, certainly for theplans in the short and medium term.’41 The question remains what type ofagricultural transformation should be aimed for. A considerable number ofthe interviewed policy makers supported investing in rapid modernizationand professionalization of the agricultural sector, with a strong focus on

36. J. Pottier, ‘Intolerable environments: towards a cultural reading of agrarian practice andpolicy in Rwanda’ in J. Parkin and L. Croll (eds), Bush Base: Forest farm (Routledge, London,1992), p. 151.37. Newbury and Newbury, ‘Bringing the peasants back in’, p. 856.38. UNDP, ‘Turning Vision 2020 into reality’.39. See M. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism(Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1996).40. GoR, ‘Strategic Plan for Agricultural Transformation’, p. 10.41. Interview, representative of a European donor country, May 2007, Kigali.

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maximum productivity and output growth. As I have analysed elsewhere,the government’s focus on professionalization and modernization favourscompetitive and commercial farmers, and this disregard for equitable wealthdistribution threatens further to enfeeble small-scale farmers.42 In fact, thestructure of subsistence peasants’ farms often prohibits the necessary risktaking that would allow them to invest in new high-potential productionsystems.43 In the words of one human rights activist,

How will a peasant exploit his land in a ‘professional’ manner with the little he has andwithout the support of the government? In fact, they need training, specifically orientedtowards the exploitation of small surfaces, because this is the reality of agriculture inRwanda.44

Most government officials interviewed, however, linked the profession-alization and commercialization of the primary sector to the necessity forlarger farm units. Some see this happening by consolidating current farmsthrough collective ownership, as expressed by this high-ranked governmentofficial of the Ministry of Land:

We will not take someone’s land. The consolidation objective has the aim to inten-sify productivity; this is not equal to taking away land from people. When Minagri[Ministry of Agriculture] is talking about large farms, they do not mean that thesefarms would belong to one person. . . . Households will consolidate in terms of landuse, not in terms of land ownership.45

However, a high-ranked government official in the Ministry of Agriculturestated:

They say that agriculture is the productive sector, but it isn’t in Rwanda. . . . In fact,we should stop calling it the productive sector; it is at this point the survival sector.At this point, most people are not earning because the pieces of land they have accessto are too small. . . . We have to get more people off the land, as we cannot continue asystem with small pieces of land. . . . When people get off the land, there will be moreland in the hands of fewer people, which will allow a better planning of the system.46

Government officials regularly referred to the aim and need to set in mo-tion a ‘green revolution’ within the agricultural sector, but most saw no rolefor smallholders in this process. By comparison, the recent World Develop-ment Report stresses the importance of smallholders in a green revolutionfor sub-Saharan Africa. The report recognizes that modern agricultural

42. A. Ansoms, ‘Striving for growth, bypassing the poor? A critical review of Rwanda’s ruralsector policies’, Journal of Modern African Studies 46, 1 (2008), pp. 1–32.43. For more general literature on the topic, see F. Ellis, Peasant Economics: Farm householdsin agrarian development (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988).44. Interview, civil society person working in the domain of human rights, May 2007, Kigali.45. Interview, high-ranked Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Land, Envi-ronment, Forests, Water, and Mines, July 2007, Kigali.46. Interview, high-ranked Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Agricultureand Animal Resources, June 2007, Kigali.

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evolution can undermine smallholder farming, but points to the potentialof policy instruments to enhance smallholders’ competitiveness.47 Ratherthan increasing the competitiveness of peasants, one of the principal goalsof ‘Vision 2020’ is to decrease the population dependent upon agriculturalactivities from 85 to 50 percent, that is, a decrease of 35 percent by the year2020. This goal was frequently mentioned by the interviewees, and whileit is clear that a decrease of the population dependent on agriculture mightbe necessary due to resource constraints, none of the interviewed policymakers had a clear vision of the employment alternatives available to theexpected ‘surplus’ population about to enter the economy as off-farm wagelabourers. As a representative of an international donor organization re-marked, ‘employment in other sectors will appear, but the question remainsat what pace, what scale – and what support this will get?’48

Some government officials had a rather fanciful view of the potentialfor off-farm employment: ‘We will build factories that work twenty-fourhours. And this is not only in Kigali, but also in other centres of economicinterest.’49 The first Rwandan PRSP even explores the opportunity ‘to leap-frog the stage of industrialization and transform her [Rwanda’s] subsistenceeconomy into a service-sector driven, high value-added information- andknowledge-based economy that can compete on the global market’.50 Mostinterviewees were more realistic with regard to the immense challenge of ab-sorbing the growing labour force within the off-farm sector. A high-rankingofficial in the Ministry of Agriculture pleaded for fewer people in agri-culture, while highlighting the importance of developing smaller-scale in-dustries and services.51 Several interviewees mentioned the importance ofadequate training, arguing that ‘People cultivate because they did not havethe chance to be educated. We have to give the people training. They shouldnot leave the agricultural sector without alternatives.’52

Next to the need for a skilled labour force there is also a need for localdemand for the goods and services produced by the non-farm sector. At thepresent time, the limited purchasing power of subsistence farmers meansthat there are already unemployed carpenters and masons in the country-side. In the words of a human rights activist, ‘if you walk in the hills, and

47. World Bank, Agriculture for Development.48. Interview, employee of an international donor organization, July 2007, Kigali.49. Interview, Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Finance and EconomicPlanning, June 2007, Kigali.50. GoR, ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper’.51. Interview, high-ranked Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Agricultureand Animal Resources, June 2007, Kigali.52. Ibid.

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even in the city, you see people outside of the agricultural sector who havenothing to do’.53 An independent consultant similarly reflected:

We should not dream. Where will we put all these people? If we would find somethingthat could employ 40 to 60 percent of the population, at that moment we could counton a trickle-down effect. But with a range of activities that can give revenue to 2 to5 percent of the population, we will never be able to create a trickle-down effect ofwhich the benefits will reach the other 85 percent.54

The danger is that by focusing on output maximization and concentratingon highly productive farm units, the rural policies of the Rwandan govern-ment may do little to alleviate poverty, and may in fact aggravate destitutionamong some groups. If the population dependent on agriculture is to bereduced from 85 to 50 percent, the question of alternative livelihoods forthis group becomes crucial. At present, there are few signs that off-farmemployment and economic opportunities will be readily available on sucha scale, nor does past experience suggest that any economic growth effectswould trickle down quickly enough to assist the remaining population.55

An artificial upgrade of rural life

A second ambition of the Rwandan elite is to upgrade rural life by in-serting ‘modern’ techniques and strategies into local realities, while hidingthe extent of poverty and inequality. Ingelaere, for example, refers to a sys-tem of fines, imposing certain ‘measures improving general wellbeing’.56

In my own interviews officials often stated that ‘we have to teach farmers,we have to show farmers, we have to bring farmers in contact with mod-ern techniques’ while referring to poverty as ‘at least partially a problem ofmentality’. The most striking expression of this social engineering ambitionis the government’s villagization policy. Though this policy was originallydesigned to resettle Tutsi refugee households in compound villages, it hasalso been more widely adopted as a measure to increase the efficiency ofland use.

The overall results of the policy have been disappointing. Accordingto Human Rights Watch,57 people have been obliged to destroy their

53. Interview, civil society person working in the domain of human rights, May 2007, Kigali.54. Interview, Rwandan consultant working for the Ministry of Agriculture and AnimalResources, July 2007, Kigali.55. Ansoms, ‘Striving for growth, bypassing the poor?’56. B. Ingelaere, ‘Living the transition: a bottom-up perspective on Rwanda’s political transi-tion’ (Discussion Paper 2007.06, Institute of Development Policy and Management, Antwerp,2007). Ingelaere analyses the upgrade of rural life and the mechanisms to achieve this (per-formance contracts and fines) through a detailed description of one hill in central Rwanda.Ingelaere, Political Transition(s) and Transitional Justice, pp. 29–91. These findings informedthe fieldwork undertaken by the author in rural Rwanda in 2007.57. Human Rights Watch, ‘Uprooting the rural poor in Rwanda’ (Human Rights Watch,New York, NY, 2001).

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homesteads – traditionally scattered on the hills – to live in compact vil-lages (imidugudu). Many households are now worse off, both in terms ofhousing quality and land possession. The policy has also failed to decreasepressure on available land holdings, and in many cases has even createdor deepened land conflicts.58 Despite these negative experiences, the pol-icy has not been annulled. On the contrary, it plays an important role ina new wave of ‘anti-poverty’ measures. A high-ranked government officialadvanced villagization as a way to stimulate activities in the off-farm sector,adding that

making people live communally in a village, could increase trade and exchange whichis more difficult if people live scattered on the hills. It will also facilitate access toschool infrastructure, health centres, etc. . . . The interaction between people is veryimportant, and this is not optimal when people live scattered on the hills.59

Another government official raised this as a crucial issue in the environ-mental debate,

A big exercise will be to design the land use master plan. At this point, people cultivateeverywhere and live everywhere. But the goal is to determine in great detail the purposeof each plot of land. We will plan for imidugudu, grouping people around centres withinfrastructure. This will allow us to recover the land that is best for agriculture. It willallow us to cultivate large land surfaces with specific crops, and most importantly toimplement anti-erosive measures on those surfaces.60

The continuing relevance of the villagization policy (since the adminis-trative reforms of 2005) is manifest in the terminology that refers to thelowest administrative units. The term umudugudu (plural: imidugudu) wasoriginally reserved for ‘villages’ created by the villagization policy, but theterm is now separate from this policy and has replaced the more neu-tral term cellule, previously used for this administrative level. In drafts ofDistrict Development Programmes (set up by the district officials in mid-2007) there are references to the ambition to go forward with the villagiza-tion policy as the ‘liberation of space will enable the recuperation of arableland and an intensive industrial exploitation of the areas, the regrouping ofthe population in cooperatives active in production, transformation, distri-bution, savings and credit’.61

Another way in which Rwandan policy makers seek to upgrade the ruralsetting is through environmental policies that ban polluting activities. While

58. See also J. Pottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda: Conflict, survival and disinformation in the latetwentieth century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002); S. van Hoyweghen, ‘Theurgency of land and agrarian reform in Rwanda’, African Affairs 98, 392 (1999), pp. 353–72.59. Interview, high-ranked Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Land, Envi-ronment, Forests, Water, and Mines, July 2007, Kigali.60. Interview, Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Finance and EconomicPlanning, June 2007, Kigali.61. District of Kamonyi, ‘Plan de developpement de district 2008–2012, draft, July 2007’(unpublished document).

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defendable in principle, the way in which such policies are imposed is aston-ishing. For example, the Rwandan government has banned the traditionalbrick-baking activity, and the self-made ovens that required quite a lot ofwood are no longer allowed to operate. In numerous local settings, this hashad a huge impact on living conditions, particularly for the non-agriculturallabour force. In addition, the price of bricks, as well as tiles, has increaseddramatically as a result of this policy. The government has now re-allowedbrick-baking, but only with modern ovens, significantly increasing the costof production. As a result, hardly any of the local entrepreneurs have thenecessary means; they are surpassed by external actors who are much lessembedded within the local context.62

Social engineering ambitions can also be seen in the attempt to changerural life by introducing certain social obligations or prohibitions. In 2006,Twizeyimana mentioned the obligation to wear shoes, to be clean, usemosquito nets, adhere to the health insurance guidelines, wear school uni-forms, construct toilets, make compost pits, and dry dishes on a tableinstead of on the grass.63 In the six field research settings visited by theauthor in June–August 2007, local inhabitants mentioned an obligation to‘walk with shoes’. Initially this policy was only enforced in urban settings,but increasingly it has become common in rural areas. In several locations,people were not allowed to attend public meetings or gatherings (go to themarket, for example) without wearing shoes or flip-flops. Several peoplereported that when arriving at the market without shoes, their food moneywas taken from them forcibly by the local authorities to buy them shoes.A similar but less enforced policy is for people to wear ‘decent clothes’. Inseveral of the imidugudu, respondents also complained about the obligationto build stables for their livestock, and the prohibition on grazing cattleoutside the homestead. In order to comply with this policy, farmers needsufficient space for a stable and for grazing, something that only better-offfarmers can afford. An unintended effect of this modernization policy maybe the disappearance of a solidarity mechanism through which better-offhouseholds lend a cow to somewhat poorer households, who then occupythemselves with raising and guarding the cow.

Taken together, these policies seem to be primarily concerned with the ap-pearance of poverty, rather than alleviating the actual experience of poverty.It is, in other words, an ‘imposed modernity’ that seems to result in nothingmore than the cosmetic upgrading of rural life while hiding the true extent

62. A. Ansoms, ‘Rural poverty in Rwanda: views from below’, reworked version of paperpresented at the African Studies Association 50th Annual Meeting ‘21st Century Africa:Evolving Conceptions of Human Rights’ (New York, 2007).63. A. B. Twizeyimana, ‘Rwanda: La proprete a marche forcee’, Infosud Belgique 29 June2006, <www.infosud-belgique.info/article.php3?id_article=258> (6 October 2008).

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of poverty. In contemporary Rwanda, it seems to have become ‘prohibitedby official policy’ to be poor.

Social engineering through performance targets

Finally, the engineering ambitions take a very concrete form in the policymakers’ eager race towards performance targets at all levels. In terms ofmanagement, the definition of targets may not be a bad idea. However, therisk is that in striving to reach predefined targets, policies are enforced with-out an eye to local implications. In other words, blind policy enforcementin the name of targets can produce perverse effects in local settings. As aninternational donor representative cautioned, ‘indeed there is a danger infocusing too much on targets and not on the process. The results are im-portant, but as important are the processes through which the results areachieved.’64 Ironically, however, the donor community strongly encouragestarget-driven development. Clear criteria provide donors with the necessarymonitoring and evaluation tools to assess aid effectiveness. What is oftenomitted in Rwanda is a careful assessment of the impact of these targets onactual poverty reduction, which is more difficult to measure and to evaluate.

Target-drivenness takes very concrete forms within agricultural produc-tion, often with a detrimental impact on poverty reduction. For example,I came across an umudugudu in the Southern Province where the district’sagronomist had set firm targets with respect to coffee plantation. If caughtuprooting coffee trees, local peasants had to pay 100 Rwandan francs pertree destroyed; and if they could not pay, they stated that they would beimprisoned until the fine was paid. There are other records of peasants be-ing obliged by local authorities to adopt specific production techniques. In2006, officials urged peasants in the Eastern Province to plant their crops ‘inrows’ and adopt monocropping. In the autumn of 2006, local administra-tors in certain districts pulled out crops when peasants had not followedthe guidelines (they had planted beans in between banana trees).65 InSeptember 2006, the mayor in charge of Muhanga (in the SouthernProvince) urged the population to replace their banana trees with othercash crops, flowers or pineapples. After a critical broadcast by the BBC,the recommendations were suspended.66 In early January 2007, the Gov-ernor of the Eastern Province, Mr Mutsindashyaka, imposed a ban onsweet potatoes. His decision was later revoked by the Minister of State forAgriculture.67 In one of our own interviews with a district official (Southern

64. Interview, representative of an international donor organization, July 2007, Kigali.65. Reyntjens, ‘Chronique politique du Rwanda 2005–2007’.66. M. F. Cros, ‘Rwanda. Developpement: de gre ou de force?’, La Libre Belgique, 5 October2006.67. ‘No ban on sweet potatoes’, New Times, Kigali, 26 January 2007.

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Province), he maintained that specialization will be a major goal in the ruraldevelopment strategy of his district. He added that the people fear the riskbut, ‘they are obliged to obey: either they invest in this technique, or theywill have to leave their land and work for someone who is willing to invest’.68

The issue of monocropping is controversial for several reasons. Authorshave long pointed to mixed cropping patterns as a strategy of both riskminimization and profit maximization in particular contexts.69 Indeed, theextreme variety in soil types – even within the same locality – and in cli-matic conditions makes it difficult for local administrators in Rwanda toassign the ‘right’ crops to administratively defined regions. Rwanda’s his-tory of policy-imposed cultivation underlines this; both the Belgian colonialadministrators and the Habyarimana government practised ‘forced culti-vation’ with little success.70 Given this history, the current scale of cropplanning, the blind belief in technical solutions, and the degree of forceused during the implementation are again major reasons for concern. Thedanger is that pre-defined targets are allowed to override such concerns, tothe detriment of small-scale farmers.

The risk of a stampede to meet targets is equally high with the newEconomic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) frame-work. The sector ‘logframes’ mention very detailed targets, some of whichare extremely ambitious. By July 2007, these targets were already (partly)communicated to the district offices, who had to consider them when de-signing their District Development Plans.71 In addition, the district mayorshave signed a performance contract (imihigo) with President Kagame, spec-ifying the key targets that individual districts are to attain within one year,in line with the government’s national priorities.72 This makes the districtthe central unit in the decentralization policy, and the core level for nationalpolicies and targets to be re-stated in local plans.73

In principle, making local authorities responsible for the implementationof national policies could improve the process of translating national targetsinto the local context, making them more democratic and adapting themto the needs of the population. However, there are some major constraints.First, at the most important local administrative levels (district, sector and

68. Interview, Southern Province district official, May 2007, Gitarama.69. See, for example, H. Ruthenberg, Farming Systems in the Tropics (Clarendon Press,Oxford, 1971); C. C. Webster and P. N. Wilson, Agriculture in the Tropics (Longman, London,1966).70. J. Pottier, ‘Intolerable environments’; Newbury and Newbury, ‘Bringing the peasantsback in’.71. Interview, high-ranked Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Finance andEconomic Planning, June 2007, Kigali.72. For the ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ interpretation of the imihigo concept, see B. Ingelaere,‘Living the transition’.73. Interview, Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Local Government, May2007, Kigali.

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cellule), the main decision-making power lies with an administrative person(the executive secretary) who is appointed by the central administration,and thus not elected by the population. In other words, this person is notdirectly accountable to the local population, which he/she is supposed torepresent, but to the national government. The person’s position depends,to a great degree, upon compliance with and implementation of nationalpriorities, regardless of the burden on the local population.74 As a humanrights spokesperson stated,

Free expression is currently a utopia. Laws are implemented in an authoritarian wayand the population cannot say ‘no’ to the authorities. In fact, the current leaders receivetheir instructions and have to implement. I do not believe in the district responsibles;they are commissioners of the RPF. They are the link between the RPF and thepopulation, not chosen but imposed. And they receive good salaries for it. They arenot at all close to the population; often they are not even from the region they rule.The local population had to accept, but it created tensions. This is not a stable basefor peace. And the same goes for the sector and cellule level. The executive secretaryis appointed by the RPF. The person responsible for security is often an ex-militaryperson. And the [elected] coordinator, say the conseiller in the previous system, is notpaid. Only the people appointed are paid. At the lowest level of the imidugudu, localauthorities do not really have a decision capacity; their role is more symbolic.75

As an illustration, a district official in Southern Province mentioned thathe had been ‘sent’ to the district when the Ministry of Agriculture wasreorganized. He was clearly not satisfied with his new position outside ofKigali, having to go out to work and return every day. He explained, ‘I donot like to look at poor people and deal with them. In fact, when I worked inthe ministry, I did not have to look at the poor. That was the level of policiesand decisions. It is now in this new function that I am directly confrontedwith the poor.’76

It is clear then, that target setting has not brought the administrationcloser to the local population. The central administration, as well as thelocal peasants, regard local authorities as purely an implementing body fornational strategies, without sufficient influence to translate or reinterpretthese strategies so as to make them suitable for the local setting. Whenasking peasants about their opinion on specific policies, we got reactionslike ‘one cannot discuss with the state’; ‘one cannot refuse the law that isgiven by the state’; ‘a peasant cannot neglect the ideas of the state’ and‘generally, the peasant is always in favour of the authorities’ [being withoutany choice in the matter]. Going into more detail, someone mentioned,‘our own umudugudu coordinator has no power; and as for the executive

74. On the topic of local governance and (the chain of) accountability, including a schematicrepresentation of the local governance structure, see Ingelaere, ‘Living the transition’.75. Interview, civil society person working in the domain of human rights, May 2007, Kigali.76. Interview, Southern Province district official, May 2007, Gitarama.

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secretary (at the sector level), he might say that we are being disobedienttowards the government if we protest’.

These remarks strongly suggest that the peasants interviewed by no meanssaw the local authorities as their representatives. The central role of the lo-cal administration in implementing national policy is also highlighted bycentral government officials. As an interviewee of the PRSP coordinationcommittee (within the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning) ex-plained, ‘The ministries will play a monitoring role, while the biggest partwill happen at the district level. . . . The districts will be evaluated basedon the key indicators. If they do not meet them, they need to explain thereasons. It is of course not a crime. But the national priorities have to beimplemented at the local level.’77 This view was reinforced by a Ministry ofAgriculture consultant, who commented that ‘while targets at the nationallevel were already considered to be ambitious, the targets at the local districtlevel are set even higher than the national targets’ in the framework of theagricultural strategy.78

Indeed, in the preliminary drafts of some district development plans, wefound extremely detailed references to crop production targets, to the per-centage of soil that should be terraced, to the percentage of householdsthat should be living in imidugudu. Such rigid targets seem to ignore whatpopular support there is (if any) for planning targets at the local level. Thelack of grassroots participation and bottom-up reflection upon the useful-ness and adequacy of targets will become all the more problematic giventhe government’s current ambition to expand the ‘performance contracts’(imihigo) down to the household level.79

Conclusion: implications for rural policy

The Rwandan case illustrates how rural development policies are not apurely technical issue, but one closely related to the position of elites andtheir relationship(s) with the peasantry. The current Rwandan elite is mostlyTutsi, urban-based and often born outside Rwanda, while the Rwandanpeasantry is mostly Hutu, rural-based and born in the country. The physical,ethnic, and mental gap between their worlds profoundly shapes the chancesfor successful rural development.

The social engineering ambitions of the Rwandan government officialsreveal a very top-down developmentalist agenda without much room for

77. Interview, high-ranked Rwandan government official from the Ministry of Finance andEconomic Planning, May 2007, Kigali.78. Interview, foreign consultant working for the Ministry of Land, Environment, Forests,Water, and Mines, May 2007, Kigali.79. ‘Performance contracts to be signed at household level’, New Times, Kigali, 19 November2007.

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grassroots participation or for bottom-up feedback. Instead, the elite ap-proaches law and policy as tools for ‘shaping’ society, and often neglects toconsider the institutional and environmental conditions in which the newlaw(s) will operate. In addition, decentralization has not increased the voiceof the rural poor in policy making. On the contrary, it has allowed the cen-tre to extend its influence to the local level in a very authoritarian way. Insuch a context, target-based assessments to evaluate national policies arepotentially dangerous monitoring and evaluation tools.

The elite believes in a rapid modernization and professionalization ofthe agricultural sector, and strongly rejects subsistence-based agriculture,although it remains the way of life for the majority of the rural population.The elite pleads for larger farm units and consolidation of land holdings,objectives that are to be achieved either by grouping farms in a type ofcollective ownership, or by transferring land into the hands of fewer people.Their goal is to reduce the proportion of the population that depends uponagricultural activities. There is, on the other hand, no clear public vision ofwhat alternatives will be available to those who leave agriculture.

The image of a countryside consisting of amalgamated large-scale farmsis not likely to be conducive to poverty reduction – at least in the immediatefuture. Moreover, there still is considerable unexplored productive potentialin the population of small-scale farmers. Not only could they play an impor-tant role in growth strategies, but growth created through their hands wouldbe more broad-based, and would more easily trickle down to the remainderof rural society. The main constraint for rural development is therefore notthe lack of potential of small-scale farmers. It is the lack of political willamong the Rwandan elite to orient rural policies directly towards the ruralpoor.

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Documents

THE VISIONS AND AMBITIONS OF THE RWANDAN ELITE