Keywords

1 Introduction

Rwanda is a landlock central-east Africa country located in the Great Lakes region with a fertile territory and an estimated population of more than 13 millions of which 82% is rural (World Bank 2021). Since the genocides against the Tutsi in 1994, the country has made remarkable improvements in all development areas (World Bank 2021). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations 2015) were integrated in the national development agenda through the strategic Vision 2050 document (Government of Rwanda 2015a, b) and the National Strategy for Transformation, (NST1), (Republic of Rwanda 2017), and later informed the sub-sectorial Urbanisation and Rural Settlement sector Strategic Plan for National Strategy for Transformation (Government of Rwanda 2018). A central goal of the development policies has been to reduce poverty by resettling at least 70% of the rural population in formal settlements and housing, and crucial to materialise this objective is the Integrated Development Programme (IDP) Model Village (Government of Rwanda 2009) launched in 2010. The research looks at this programme because of its wide-reaching potential for poverty eradication and urbanisation in Rwanda and takes a case study, Karama rural village, in the peri-urban area of the capital city Kigali as exemplifying the government strategy. The paper questions the degree of domestication of SDGs and seeks to uncover difficulties and barriers in the implementation of a range of relevant SDGs’ targets at local level. We apply a critical discourse approach (Alvesson and Kärreman 2000) to policy texts, and we contrast the institutional narrative about the domestication of SDGs with the findings from the thematic analysis of conversations and questionnaires distributed among residents in Karama. In the discussion we argue that the adoption of SDGs in Rwanda’s rural development and urbanisation strategy has yet to be articulated in full at local settlement level in order to deliver sustainable and resilient places for the rural population.

The paper first sets out the context for our research and adopt a critical discourse approach in analysing relevant policy documents seeking to understand how SDGs are embedded in the government discourse about rural development and urbanisation. This is followed by an empirical section that outlines the methods used for data collection and analysis in the case study of Karama and describes the key findings. Finally, the discussion brings together the latter with the critical discursive appraisal of policies and strategies and discusses their implications for future work.

2 Framing the Context: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Rwanda Rural Development and Urbanisation Strategy

The paper takes a critical discourse lens to frame SDGs and how these are embedded in Rwanda’s rural development and urbanisation strategy policies and programmes. Discourse refers not to “discussion”, rather to “a specific ensemble of ideas, concepts and categorizations that are produced, reproduced and transformed in a particular set of practices” (Hajer 1995:42). A critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach focuses on the “performative role of language” understanding that urban and housing policies and other government documents are bearers of wider economic and social values embedded as “sub-discourse” in the policies’ text (Jacobs 2021; Cummings et al. 2020; Jacobs 2006; Fairclough 2003; Hastings 1999). CDA has been used to analyse to what extent SDGs and the Agenda 2030 reflect contradictions deriving from hegemonic neo-liberal policies (Briant Carant 2017) and how techno-scientific economic discourse is dominant in the discussion about knowledge within SDGs (Cummings et al. 2018). A critical discourse approach to the Agenda 2030 also questioned SDGs coherence and their possibility of implementation (Spangenberg 2017).

Rwanda has been strongly dependent on international aid donors (Keijzer et al. 2020) and therefore an early adopter in strategies and policies of the United Nations Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) and since 2015 of the SDGs embedded in the Vision 2050 document (Government of Rwanda 2015a, b). The IDP Model Village (Government of Rwanda 2009) launched in 2010 remains a crucial tool to materialise the ambitious goal to reduce poverty by resettling the rural population, who currently live in dispersed settlements in formal settlements and more dense housing. This document explicit references the achievement of MDGs as main target embedded in the Vision 2020 (Government of Rwanda 2000), and the Economic Development Poverty Reduction Strategy, EDPRS 2008–2012 (Government of Rwanda 2007). It highlights the opportunities of a programme of rural urbanisation and development in reducing population growth, birth related deaths contributing to poverty reduction and takes the World Bank monetary measure of poverty as benchmark (World Bank 1992). In the more recent Urbanisation and Rural settlement Strategic Plan for National Strategy for Transformation (Government of Rwanda 2018) it is mentioned that “all of the 17 Goals relate to the Urbanisation and Rural Settlement Sector due to their cross-sectoral nature” with the suggestion that all of them contribute to the achievement of SDG 11: sustainable cities and communities. Yet, there is no explanation how SDGs can be articulated through specific plans and programmes, and they are then only further referred in the description of performance indicators. Outcome 3 of the document “Liveable, well-serviced, connected, compact, green and productive urban and rural settlements with a cultural identity” refers to rural settlement being designed according to place-making criteria to achieve villages which reflect a culturally sensitive approach to mixed-use and inclusive environment that can foster residents’ quality of life. An aspiration that embraces the concerns of sustainable urban design and place-making although it is not immune to the challenges of moving from theory to practice (Carmona 2009).

The recent Voluntary National Review (VNR) report (Government of Rwanda 2019) provides an analysis of seven SDGs (2, 4, 8, 10, 13, 16 and 17) plus additional information on other four goals (1, 3, 5 and 9). It emphasises the role SDGs have in setting government targets in the national strategy for transformation (Government of Rwanda 2016). The VNR report describes the process of ownership of the SDGs mainly in relation to levels of the public administration. Within this framework, the process of domestication of the SDGs and their implementation in sectorial strategies and plans is reported to be supported by the coordination of different levels of the public administration and by means of so called “home-grown” solutions. These tap in pre-colonial traditions of local governance which are not exempt from contradictions in terms of citizens participation and overall model of development (Hasselskog 2018). The VNR report mentions the National Housing policy and the green urbanisation and green rural areas as contributing factors to SDG 13 climate change action (Government of Rwanda 2019:54), as well as improvements made in roads to connect population living in rural areas to markets and major cities (Government of Rwanda, 2019:83) as part of the response to promote sustainable industrialisation, SDG 9. In describing progress and challenges in relation to SDG 1: No Poverty, the report mentions a range of sectorial indicators which are strongly related to the IDP programme, including reference to fostering a “climate-smart agriculture” which reflects a techno-scientific approach that not necessarily address other issues of inequality linked to food production (Taylor 2018).

The following section outlines the IDP model village policy development, more in detail and the tensions that arise between rural and urban development discourses.

3 The IDP Programme and the Model Villages

The IDP Model Village (Government of Rwanda 2009) seeks in governmental discourse an integrated approach to land use and human settlements that aims at fostering social cohesion and reduces poverty and inequality as initially outlined in the Rwanda EDPRS II (Government of Rwanda 2013). It was launched following the partial failure of previous attempts to solve housing shortages in countering the scattered urbanisation of rural areas, encouraging better land use practices to release fertile land for agriculture and farming (Government of Rwanda 2009; Ansoms 2009; Van Leeuwen 2001; Hilhorst and Leeuwen 2000). Rural settlements were revised under the IDP to ensure greater access to economic opportunities and services, and it was established that at least a model village was to be built by 2019 in each of the 30 country districts.Footnote 1 Since 2010 the roll out of the IDP programme, normally led by the local governments and financially and technically supported by several international organisations with varied emphasis and success on local communities’ involvement (Mazimpaka and Irechukwu 2022), has delivered over 130 villages in the four provinces and in Kigali,Footnote 2 the capital city. The programme is structured around 11 strategic pillars ranging from land productivity, infrastructure development and social protection among othersFootnote 3 which remain aligned with the SDGs referred in higher level policies. To identify vulnerable households to be relocated, local authorities rely on a socio-economic vulnerability ranking led by the community through the ubudehe—a “home-grown” initiative (National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda 2015), which contrary to the government narrative in some cases it has not been perceived as community-led (Hasselskog 2018).

Bolstered by the comparative success of the socio-economic progress achieved in the last two decades, the IDP Model Villages have been increasingly promoted by the government as a crucial infrastructure to enhance the modernisation of the primary sector, and at the same time also as a vehicle to achieve social transformation and economic development through education and new job opportunities, although not without criticism due to sometimes limitation of choices and unequal impact on well-being for the poorest in society (Ansoms and Cioffo 2016; Dawson 2018; Hamblin et al. 2021). The pace at which the programme has been rolled out and the inherent tension between these two objectives has been resulting in challenges and problems evidencing in some cases the mismatch between government expectations and the reality on the ground, particularly in relation to the involvement of the residents, the running of the infrastructure, lack of water and electricity and cases of malnutrition (Mazimpaka and Irechukwu 2022; Ntirenganya 2022; Ngabonziza 2019). The tension between rural and urban ways of life and the frictions that may arise between them, and the physical and spatial organisation of the model villages can perhaps be more evident in the peri-urban area around of the fast-growing capital Kigali where 70% of the population is still considered rural.Footnote 4 Karama an IDP model village built in 2019 in Nyaruguru, one of the three districts of Kigali offers an opportunity to explore some of the contradictions between the discourse about the domestication of SDGs at national policy level and their local application as evidenced by everyday life practices of use in a local community.

4 Materials and Methods

Karama IDP model Village case study

Karama, is occupied by 240 households/1000 residents relocated from high-risk zones in the peri-urban area of Kigali city. It is situated on the western slopes of mount Kigali 1852 m high) and about 10 km from Kigali’s city centre (Fig. 11.1). 240 apartments are distributed in six multi-storey lineal blocks (Fig. 11.2), offering a range of 1 and 2 bedrooms apartments varying from 46 to 64 m2. Additional amenities and support services include green houses, poultry farm, water and wastewater station, ECD school and a primary and secondary school. Karama is taken as a place based “exemplifying” case study (Bryman 2012) and primary method of investigation as it can “capture the circumstances and conditions of an everyday or common place situation” (Yin 2018) providing details and richness (Flyvberg 2011) which suits an anthropological approach to housing research (Bosmans et al. 2022; Stender 2017).

Fig. 11.1
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Source Authors (2022), adapted from GoogleEarth

Karama Model village location in the peri-urban area of Kigali.

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Fig. 11.2
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Urban structure of Karama housing blocks

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4.1 Field Work, Sample, Data Collection and Analysis

Site visits were organised between March 2021 and August 2022, in which University of Rwanda undergraduate architecture students were engaged as research field assistants. A sample of 100 households was randomly selected consisting of 30 from each of the 3 blocks in Karama and 10–15 from each of the floors in the 3 storey bocks. A post-occupancy survey questionnaire was used to screen participants socio-economic characteristics (Table 11.1) to contextualise their responses, and as a structured guide for the interviews. The range of questions was based on a previous round of unstructured interviews (n = 10) with local residents. Out of the 100 total respondents, 65% were female and 35% were male, different from Rwanda population (50.8% female) that may reflect higher degree of women’s vulnerability. Notes from interviews and responses to the questionnaire were analysed following a “thematic analysis” approach (Braun and Clarke 2012; Bryman 2012; Nowell et al. 2017) to arrange data into main strands of meaning or interest. An analytical framework was then developed around clusters of themes.

Table 11.1 Distribution of households’ age group, sex, marital status, education level and main source of household income (n = 100)
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5 Results

The study identified five main themes, namely location, spatial layout, basic services, public space and economic gains. They span from the tangible/architectural/technical dimensions, (location, spatial layout, and house design) to the intangible/socio-cultural and economic dimensions (basic services, public space and economic gains), as illustrated in Fig. 11.3. The range of subthemes with a selection of relevant quotes is described in Table 11.2.

Fig. 11.3
figure 3

Source Authors (2023)

Tangible and intangible dimensions of housing.

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Table 11.2 Themes, sub-themes and participant quotes
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5.1 Housing and Location

Rwanda’s hilly topography and geological composition poses a serious and increasing environmentally and threat such as flooding and mud slides and associated loss of fertile soil (Nsengiyumva et al. 2018). The village is seen to have brought an economic value to the area, in which the cost of land has tripled and new modern construction projects are ongoing (Fig. 11.4).

Fig. 11.4
figure 4

Source Authors (2022)

Construction of a modern housing project adjacent to Karama ongoing.

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Considering that Karama residents were relocated from environmental high risk zones and vulnerable locations across Kigali city, the perceptions shared by participants can be related to their expectations of better quality of housing (PQ1b). They see new housing much safer and appreciate the better quality livelihoods and expect that it will lead to a further increased protection of their economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets. Interestingly, this positions housing as a prerequisite for inclusive, equitable, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and communities.

In Karama, the residents are under no direct environmental threat and were keen by contrast to highlight the fond memories of funeral services held for friends and relatives who succumbed to the vulnerability to environmental disasters such as landslides (PQ1b). In the trade–off, they have lost the possibility to commute to their previous places of work and are unable to find a fitting job within or near Karama due to the lack of affordable public transport.

5.2 Housing and Spatial Layout

Most participants expressed their appreciation for better homes but shared concerns about the low quality partition materials with poor acoustic qualities that minimised privacy levels between living rooms—often converted in bedrooms at night to separate boys from girls—and among bedrooms. (PQ2c). Comparing the houses they lived in before they were relocated to Karama, some participants felt that their former informal setting gave them more flexibility. They would dry beans on the walls after harvest, make a fireplace at any place of choice and sub-divide the space in rooms more easily. The separation of interior and exterior spaces in Karama multi-storey building is felt as too rigid, not allowing for cooking and laundry happening in the shared backyard as before, and certainly less so in the apartments on upper floors (Fig. 11.5).

Fig. 11.5
figure 5

Source Authors (2022)

Challenges of vertical housing in Karama.

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5.3 Housing and Basic Services

For Karama residents, the piped water supplied by the national Water and Sanitation Corporation (WASAC) seems to be expensive, varying between 340 and 877 Rwf/M3 depending on consumption, and they prefer to fetch water from the public water tap at 100 Frw per 20l (323rwf/M3).Footnote 5 The notion of “expensive water” (PQ4a) impacts also on sanitation as resident may feel that actions such as flushing toilets is consuming water and wasting money.

Additionally, most residents depend on charcoal and firewood as the main source of energy for cooking. This practice is not formally accepted by government due to environmental policies, so residents try to do so discreetly (PQ4b).

Education has also been affected as residents find nearby schools too expensive for their children, based on their household incomes (PQ4c).

5.4 Housing and Public Space

In Karama, any space outside home is potentially useful as meeting or gathering places and hence qualifies as public space although car parking, even without cars is allocated over 50% of the open space. Residents complain that no provision for playgrounds is made (PQ3b), despite its potential for social cohesion and well-being (Kawachi and Berkman 2000). Yet, the absence of demarcated boundaries around the village makes it accessible for children from the adjacent areas, who come in freely to play and as it was observed, gather along stairways hallways.

Sharing social spaces can also feel like home outside home setting in sense of ownership and stewardship (Cattell et al. 2008; Brain 2019) and this in Karama often happens as illustrated in Figs. 11.6 and 11.7 in relation to domestic activities frequently led by women. Yet the designation of the national space (PQ3a) between blocks for kitchen gardens (Fig. 11.5) and their difficult access were reported having a significant negative impact on households everyday life and in stark contrast with their previous informal setting.

Fig. 11.6
figure 6

Source Authors (2022)

Residents drying their crops on the lawn in Karama.

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Fig. 11.7
figure 7

Source Authors (2022)

Residents sourcing water from a shared public water tap.

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Housing and economic gains

There are both direct and indirect economic benefits that come with housing that are affected by spatial layout and location. Before the relocation to Karama, most residents’ everyday life revolved around informality, ranging from vending activities to growing food for self-subsistence (PQ5a), opportunities hard to access in Karama. Residents reported that income generation has been affected by the relocation and similar to other cases (Nikuze et al. 2022) has led to loss of employment or economic occupation for some residents without bringing the benefits of accessing central Kigali opportunities. Residents feel that the formal rural productive model established in Karama does not benefit all households (PQ5a) as compared to their previous subsistence farming, and it is seen as a further disruption to residents’ socio-economic development. Living on the ground floor gives advantages for kitchen gardening, the “akarima kigikoni”, and easier connection to backyards, “mugikari”, used for cooking and laundry, creating unequal opportunities among new residents to keep alive traditional activities and to support their health and well-being. In addition, the green houses that were functional at the time of relocation to Karama do not function anymore (PQ5c) due to lack of affordability for water to be used in irrigation during the dry season. This relates to the notion of “expensive water” for the residents as discussed earlier.

6 Discussion and Conclusion

6.1 From Sustainable Development Goals to Sustainable Communities

Housing is crosscutting and strongly links to social, economic and environmental sustainability dimensions (Golubchikov and Badyina 2012) and as such can contribute directly or indirectly to the implementation of most of the SDGs and be a platform for household resilience. The critical approach to Rwanda government policies and programmes has revealed that the domestication of SDGs is considered central to the rural development and urbanisation strategy. The IDP Model Villages programme 11 pillars albeit pre-date remain aligned with the SDGs and place local authorities in Rwanda in the role of active players in middling between global policy agenda and community action (Malonza and Ortega 2020). The results from this research point to challenges that the magnitude of change suggested by the government narrative through the SDGs faces at the scale of implementation.

In the case study Karama residents are relocated to formal settings with improved services with higher costs that residents are often unable to afford. Before the relocation to Karama, most residents’ everyday life revolved around informality, ranging from vending activities to growing food for self-subsistence. The new housing scheme and the cultural norms the spatial and material structure impose on residents are often alien to their everyday practices. Income generation has been also affected by the geographical relocation of people from their usual “work” be it formal or informal. Some Karama residents feel at loss; they now live very close to the city centre; however, they feel more separated from the economic opportunities that are otherwise attached to a city. Considering that over 70% of informal settlements residents in Kigali work within 2 km from where they live (Hitayezu et al. 2018), the issue of public transport becomes even more critical.

The calls to action for a consistent monitoring and evaluation of SDG compliance in countries, has often seen a growing inspiration for local governments and communities to join the conversation. In this perspective, we argue that housing in itself ought to be transformative. When people live in adequate homes, they enjoy better health (Haines et al. 2013) and tend to have better chances to improve their human capital and seize the opportunities available in urban contexts (Kumar 2021) although relocation can be counterproductive as well (Picarelli 2019). In general, adequate housing has been recognised as a positive factor for poverty reduction (Adarkwa and Oppong 2007), as it holds potential for employment generation, better service provision and hence economic development. Adequate housing should be socially acceptable (Choguill 2007) and needs to provide among others, water, sanitation, physical safety and comfort, energy for cooking, heating, lighting and food storage and refuse disposal, be affordable and well located, that is should not compromise occupants’ employment opportunities and access to universal services such as health care and schools (UN-Habitat 2014).

In conclusion, the adoption in Karama of a “hybrid” model, combining multi-storied housing typology proper of a denser urban environment has clearly moved away from the official narrative that describes rural settlements as characterised by “low number of houses which in general do not rise high” (Government of Rwanda 2009). The combination on site of facilities to sustain rural activities beyond subsistence seems to have achieved in some cases the opposite result suggesting the alienation from the spaces of everyday life (Aalbers and Gibb 2014). The friction between informal ways of life and the new housing and public spaces, the limitation to income generation opportunities and the lack of affordable services, are limiting the possibility for SDGs to become meaningful objectives for residents’ everyday life and the potential benefits of the relocation. A question remains to be answered to avoid what Fairclough (2013, p.247) has described as a shortcoming “in the construal of world change”, that is a discourse of change which remains at high policy level. How can model villages and more specifically their spatial and material infrastructure, support the full domestication of the SDGs at local and community levels in Rwanda?