Ubudehe

Ubudehe was more structurally resurrected as a programme in the modern Rwandan consciousness in 2001 when Rwanda was trying to rebuild itself following the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group. It was envisioned as a way to bring people together to solve their own problems and repackaged as a platform for strongly encouraging collective action toward poverty eradication, focusing on the Umudugudu (village) level.

Ubudehe aims to balance governance from the top-down approach with a bottom-up or grassroots-based approach by strengthening “democratic processes and governance, starting from the people’s aspirations, ability and traditions” (IFAD,2013). Participating villages across Rwanda come together over four to seven days at a convenient time, such as after farming activities, to complete the Ubudehe process. This process takes place at the beginning of the financial year. The ubudehe process is organized through the decentralised levels of public administration and local leaders, through those levels, act as facilitators. They are supported by volunteers in the communities, who take the role of recording data and take part in distribution of gifts, food etc.

Through ubudehe local communities are involved in creating their own social maps, visual representations and collection of data measuring local poverty. The main objective of this exercise is to assist community members in (i) classifying the level and type of poverty that exists in their community and reach a common understanding of this classification, (ii) define their development priorities, (iii) come together to discuss and decide upon the most effective and efficient ways to achieve poverty reduction and their development priorities, and (iv) help communities establish ways of funding their development priorities.

Ubudehe allows communities to determine the nature and levels of poverty they experience through a categorisation and social mapping system. There are currently four categories (classified as 1, 2, 3 and 4), ranging from those most in need, including the elderly and the weak/ill to those who are able to support themselves and/or assist others.

As part of the programme, a community is provided with a bank account and financing to undertake priority actions. These could include purchasing livestock, building related to the provision of clean water and sanitation, classrooms, agricultural terraces and health centres. Through other Ubudehe related programs, communities can also benefit from cash, from the government, for undertaking public work. In addition, community members can also bring together their own money into an account in order to support other vulnerable communities in the lower categories. Cooperatives and community-based organisations in Rwanda, have long been at the basis of community development and poverty alleviation, also play an important role here. By pooling communities’ resources together, cooperatives support self-reliance, where through a common activity, community members come together for self-help, to increase savings, and improve their development.

Ubudehe occurs at the umudugudu (village) and household levels through similar processes. The Ubudehe approach is cascaded from village level to households – thus also identifying particular households in need of support as well as households with higher economic status that can support others (for instance to pay health insurance, get food and milk for children or even support in farming or contributing time to building a house.

The ubudehe categorization results have been widely used even beyond the specific ubudehe initiative, informing how other government programs select their beneficiaries. These programs include the Mutual Health Insurance program, the Student Financing Agency for Rwanda (SFAR) education sponsorships, Vision 2020 Umurenge Programme – which includes cash transfers, public works and microcredit initiatives, and the Girinka program- also known as One Cow per Poor Family – a social protection strategy where people who own cows give at least one cow to a neighbour that does not have it. Through these programs, vulnerable communities have been enabled to access more resources, which means greater capacity to pay for food expenses, schooling and for health expenses, and to build/develop assets.  The collective process has also strengthened intra-community bonds of friendship and solidarity.

In 2006−2007, 9,000 communities undertook projects through Ubudehe, and in 2007−2008, that number gradually increased to 15,000. By 2012, around 55,000 collective actions were being led by communities, with assistance from 30,000 Ubudehe Facilitators. In 2008, Ubudehe gained international recognition as a highly successful development programme, receiving the UN Public Service Award to Rwanda for ‘Better Management: Better Public Service’.

Contributors: Christelle Karekezi, Cyrille Turatsinze