Agrarian class relations in Rwanda: a labour-centred perspective

Illien, Patrick; Niño, Helena Pérez; Bieri, Sabin

doi:10.1080/03066150.2021.1923008

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 35 publications

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“…In Nyamasheke, the mean operational holding of the entire sample (excluding households with no farming land) is 0.29 ha, and many households remain marginal farmers dependent on at least occasional wage employment, as captured in Bernstein's (2010) notion of 'classes of labour'. As a result, programmes with the goal to increase the productivity of smallholder farmers, especially by raising coffee yields, might not reach many of the poorest directly (the poorest face important entry barriers to coffee farming in Rwanda and as a result many do not grow coffee themselves, see Illien, Niño, and Bieri 2021). Rather, the extent to which interventions can improve the quality and quantity of wage employment is likely to make a bigger difference in the life of the poorest.…”

Section: Production and The Centrality Of Rural Labour Marketsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring non-monetary poverty in the coffee heartlands of Laos and Rwanda: comparing MPI and EDI frameworks

Illien

Birachi

Douangphachanh

et al. 2022

Journal of Development Effectiveness

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Poverty reduction is a key objective of development interventions. Evaluating the effectiveness of policies and programmes thus requires practical, reliable and contextrelevant measures of poverty. This article is the first to compare the newly presented Extreme Deprivation Index (EDI) framework with the increasingly used global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) framework. Locally adapted versions of both nonmonetary poverty measures were calculated for each household using an original survey in Rwanda's main coffee-producing region (a high deprivation context) and another in Laos' main coffee-producing region (a relatively low deprivation context). We highlight the crucial role of rural labour markets for many of the poorest and discuss the implications of our findings for policy design and evaluation. We find that, despite limited overlap, in both contexts each index identifies households that are consistently worse off on multiple key markers of poverty and can therefore be considered valid measures. In addition, our analysis shows that known key markers of poverty can predict adjusted global MPI status better than EDI status in Laos, whereas the EDI framework performs best in Rwanda. We conclude that the EDI framework provides a quick and reliable way to identify households with very low standards of living in high deprivation contexts. It is particularly useful for programmes with limited resources operating in comparatively poor rural settings.

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Section: Production and The Centrality Of Rural Labour Marketsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring non-monetary poverty in the coffee heartlands of Laos and Rwanda: comparing MPI and EDI frameworks

Illien

Birachi

Douangphachanh

et al. 2022

Journal of Development Effectiveness

Self Cite

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Coffee, climate, community: A holistic examination of specialty coffee supply chains in Rwanda

van Kollenburg,

van Weert

2024

Sustainable Development

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Rwanda has been a notable player in sustainable development in the last decades, particularly in light of its agricultural practices. This paper offers a multifaceted viewpoint on the challenges faced by Rwanda's specialty coffee sector. Our holistic approach to studying the situation and possibilities included fieldwork, site visits, informal interviews with various stakeholders, from farmers to governmental officials, and an extensive literature study to support our findings. We highlight the challenges of optimizing the domestic supply chain and the effects of such developments on rural livelihoods. Poverty and lacking resources require a nuanced view toward sustainability, as ecological and economic sustainability do not align. The paper presents how certification programs can function as indicators of sustainability and stresses the need for policy evaluations. We also discuss the unique challenges faced by smallholder farmers in Rwanda and how corporate interests may interfere with long‐term sustainable development. As Rwanda continues to develop, this paper argues that the resilience and ingenuity of its people are crucial in the ongoing development of sustainable agricultural systems.

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Window dressing inequalities and constructing women farmers as problematic—gender in Rwanda’s agriculture policy

2022

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Rwanda is often depicted as a success story by policy makers when it comes to issues of gender. In this paper, we show how the problem of gendered inequality in agriculture nevertheless is both marginalized and instrumentalized in Rwanda’s agriculture policy. Our in-depth analysis of 12 national policies is informed by Bacchi’s What’s the problem represented to be? approach. It attests that gendered inequality is largely left unproblematized as well as reduced to a problem of women’s low agricultural productivity. The policy focuses on framing the symptoms and effects of gendered inequality and turns gender mainstreaming into an instrument for national economic growth. We argue that by insufficiently addressing the socio-political underlying causes of gendered inequality, Rwanda’s agriculture policy risks reproducing and exacerbating inequalities by reinforcing dominant gender relations and constructing women farmers as problematic and men as normative farmers. We call for the policy to approach gendered inequality in alternative ways. Drawing on perspectives in feminist political ecology, we discuss how such alternatives could allow policy to more profoundly challenge underlying structural constraints such as unequal gender relations of power, gender norms, and gender divisions of work. This would shift policy’s problematizing lens from economic growth to social justice, and from women’s shortcomings and disadvantages in agriculture to the practices and relations that perpetuate inequality. In the long term, this could lead to transformed gender norms and power relations, and a more just and equal future beyond what the dominant agricultural development discourse currently permits.

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Agrarian class relations in Rwanda: a labour-centred perspective

Cited by 9 publications

References 35 publications

Measuring non-monetary poverty in the coffee heartlands of Laos and Rwanda: comparing MPI and EDI frameworks

Measuring non-monetary poverty in the coffee heartlands of Laos and Rwanda: comparing MPI and EDI frameworks

Coffee, climate, community: A holistic examination of specialty coffee supply chains in Rwanda

Window dressing inequalities and constructing women farmers as problematic—gender in Rwanda’s agriculture policy

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