09.03.2020

An Ansoms et René Claude Niyonkuru introduiront le débat sur "Terres perdues - terres retrouvées au Rwanda rural? Le futur du secteur agraire et du développement rural"

E-CA – CRE-AC organise sa 67ième Rotonde Policy Talk le lundi 9 mars 2020.

This presentation will reflect on how different discourses on land reform -centred on rights, conflictuality or efficiency- have played a role in the reorganisation of Rwanda's rural economy. Since 2007-2008, Rwandan authorities embarked upon an ambitious project to reorganise the entire agrarian sector. Instead of counting on subsistence-based family farming, the Rwandan government elaborated a Green Revolution strategy, aiming to promote productive farming through the modernisation and professionalization of the entire agrarian sector. This involved the creation of a centrally-organised land registration system, a Crop Intensification Policy and a system of performance contracts. Professor Ansoms will reflect on how the various land governance discourses were mobilised by authorities at all levels, and how they culminated in a concrete reconfiguration of the rural landscape. She will also point to how other actors involved (civil society, farmer organisations, private sector), and in particular smallholder farmers have navigated and continue to navigate within Rwanda's agrarian and land reforms. Interestingly, the space for criticism towards the 'modernising' orientation of the reforms is opening up. Forms of contestation by smallholder farmers, civil society actors, and opinion makers, are being picked up by Rwandan policy makers, and ten years after the introduction of the New Green Revolution, this is resulting in a (partial) calling into question of certain policy guidelines. However, what does this mean for Rwanda's socio-economic future? And for the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the coming years?