Earthquake 8 : government policy

There was a local government meeting this week and rebuilding after the earthquake was among the subjects covered. There are fairly clear ideas about policy, although the practicality of them is still to be tested.

It is one of the features of Rwanda that houses are not gathered together in villages, but are spread across the countryside. People like to live on their land. Because of the population density, this means that outside the National Parks and the tea plantations, it is hard to get more than 100m away from a house. Recently, the government has been trying to gather people together and to live in “imidugadu”, groups of houses which have only a very little land around them. The expansion of our town, Kamembe, has been by the building of these villages at the outskirts. There are obvious advantages for the delivery of services such as electricity and water, although it must be said that this is still theory, as most of the houses are fairly basic and are without either of these.
So the government has decided that any rebuilding of houses will not be on the original sites, but in imidugadu. Furthermore, they have decided on a “standard” house, which will have a cement foundation and be to a standard design. I can see the sense in both ideas, but also the drawbacks. Firstly, the proposed sites have not yet been identified, so no rebuilding can be done; secondly it means that there will be a forced removal for those who have been affected by the quake and lastly it will significantly increase the costs. For the last few years, the Eglise Anglicane has been building “welfare” housing”, mostly for widows, for about £1000 for a house plus kitchen and WC. The government standard will cost at least twice as much and is therefore likely to create difficult choices, because it seems likely that the increased cost will limit number of houses available.
It still remains to be seen how this will work out in practice, of course : meanwhile the tremors have diminished, but not quite disappeared.