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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
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Results for urban areas (rwanda)
3 results foundAuthor: Sommers, Marc Title: Fearing Africa's Young Men: The Case of Rwanda Summary: Do the concentrated numbers of male youths in urban Rwanda threaten social stability? The World Bank investigates this theory, examining the concept that large concentrations of male youths are disconnected from their cultures and prone to violence due to the ‘youth bulge’. However, interviews with urban male youths in Rwanda indicate that they are constrained by limited opportunities rather than menaces to society. The situation confronting most Rwandan youth and most of their counterparts in Africa remains alarming - a largely silent emergency. The ‘youth bulge’ theory suggests that a heavy concentration of male youths in urban areas leads to situations of violence, uprisings, revolutions and even terrorism. The prevalence of this theory in post-conflict literature has led African policymakers to attempt to avoid the urban ‘youth bulge’ by targeting aid to rural areas. For example, policymakers in Liberia have directed post-war reintegration strategies towards rural areas even though agriculture does not appeal to urban youth. In pre-genocide Rwanda, anti-urbanisation policy severely limited the educational and employment opportunities available to male youth. Forced immobility meant that while young men had few rural opportunities, they were not allowed to migrate to find better employment. The education system allowed few students into secondary school and provided poor or impractical vocational training. It is likely that the high numbers of male youth participants in the violence in Rwanda is attributable to limited opportunities resulting from faulty anti-urbanisation policy. Instead of eliminating the threat of the urban ‘youth bulge’, these policies created a life of entrapment and frustration that translated into desperation and violence during the genocide. •Young men had far less land than their fathers and were often unable to support a wife or a family. •The educational and legal system prevented young men from access to education and inheriting land, which forced them into low-paid, temporary jobs. •The government vocational education system targeted towards rural youth was ineffectual. Not only was the community required to pay many of the costs and choose appropriate courses, but also forced immobility meant that graduates could not find jobs in an already saturated workforce. •The hopelessness resulting from the lack of opportunities made Rwandan youth susceptible to genocide instigators whose recruitment strategy mixed coercion and promises of material gain. Given that Rwandan youth today face similar patterns of limited education and employment opportunities, there is a threat that the violence could reappear. Policymakers must learn from the past in order to create effective programmes for the current youth generation. •The ‘youth bulge’ theory unnecessarily labels young men as essentially dangerous. Youth may have excellent reasons to be frustrated and faulty policies based on the ‘youth bulge’ assumption may only fuel their discontent. •Policymakers need to accept and support the decisions of youth not to reintegrate into traditional society. This means providing positive engagement and support to them whether in urban or rural areas. •Young women are often ignored in post-conflict policy. All of Africa’s youth needs to be engaged and supported through appropriate, proactive, empowering, and inclusive measures. Details: Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2006. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: Social Development Papers: Conflict Prevention & Reconstruction, Paper No. 32: Accessed November 11, 2011 at: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2006/02/13/000090341_20060213142651/Rendered/PDF/351490RW0Young0men0WP3201PUBLIC1.pdf Year: 2006 Country: Rwanda URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2006/02/13/000090341_20060213142651/Rendered/PDF/351490RW0Young0men0WP3201PUBLIC1.pdf Shelf Number: 123310 Keywords: Juvenile OffendersUrban Areas (Rwanda)Violent CrimeYouth ViolenceYouthful Offenders |
Author: Kartas, Moncel Title: Urban Resilience in Situations of Chronic Violence: Case Study of Kigali, Rwanda Summary: The question guiding the Kigali case study is how formal and informal institutions interact in the process of urban adaptation to external and internal shocks and stress factors. For instance, if state institutions are failing to provide acceptable levels of services, do informal groups rise in prominence (numbers, resources, visibility, or physical activity)? If such informal institutions do become more salient, how does the state then react to them? By defining urban resilience as an ongoing process of coping and adaptation of territorially bounded units (characterised as a city’s formal as well as informal social, political, and economic institutions and its members and affiliates) to exogenous and endogenous stress, the present study distinguishes between what could be called “negative” and “positive” resilience. The main emphasis of this case study has been placed on the security dimension of resilience. The main argument is that it is not the formal or informal nature of institutions which matter for the production of positive or negative effects, but rather that the strategic orientation underlying their organisation, and the social dynamics in which they operate, influence their ultimate effect on violence and perceived insecurity. In other words, even if the same measures are introduced in urban and rural areas, in an urban space they develop their own urbanspecific resilience mechanisms. Overall, the research team noticed the stark absence of available data sets related to urban parameters such as infrastructure, security, health, housing, and education. Moreover, Rwandan official showed great reluctance in sharing information, datasets, reports and studies with the research team, even when it was stated that the project was being conducted for USAID. Surprisingly, even within and between various government and city-level administrations, there appears to be little capacity and/or willingness to share documents and data. Ultimately, and as no previous work exists on urban violence in the city of Kigali, the research strategy had to be adapted accordingly. The focus was moved to: • localising where and what data exists; • understanding the broad urban dynamics in Kigali and the main urbanisation policies; and • identifying instances of urban resilience in the different sectors discussed by conceptual framework of the project (security, infrastructure, basic service delivery, etc.). To this end, the research has focused on qualitative approaches based on open interviews and narrative conversations. Furthermore, the team used basic participant observation techniques and a thorough visual exploration of the city and its different neighbourhoods using photographic support. The present report is thus able to provide an interpretation and illustrations of urban resilience in Kigali, but not a systematic survey supported by GIS data. The report is divided into five sections. The first provides a descriptive account of Kigali’s main stress factor, namely its demographic explosion, against the backdrop of its topography. It also gives a schematic picture of the city’s neighbourhoods and the scope of informal and formal settlement. The second section introduces the Kigali City Master Plan (KCMP) to familiarise the reader with the macro-policies of the authorities towards urbanisation. It also highlights how the city has shown signs of resilience through the adaptation of its population and institutions to wide-spread expropriation, eviction and resettlement schemes. The third section focuses on the evolution of informal security institutions and their interaction with formal institutions, notably with the security sector reform efforts undertaken by the government and their link to the government’s decentralisation and community-based development policy. The fourth section seeks to relate instances of informal coping strategies with phenomena of urban resilience through a number of illustrations in the fields of public utilities (electricity, sanitation, and waste management), microfinance, and transportation. A final section then briefly reflects on the links between urbanisation and development in present-day Rwanda. Details: Cambridge, MA: Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012. 39p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 10, 2012 at: http://graduateinstitute.ch/webdav/site/ccdp/shared/5917/Kigali_URCV.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Rwanda URL: http://graduateinstitute.ch/webdav/site/ccdp/shared/5917/Kigali_URCV.pdf Shelf Number: 127203 Keywords: Urban Areas (Rwanda)Urban CrimeViolenceViolent Crime |
Author: Kartas, Moncef Title: Urban Resilience in Situations of Chronic Violence: Case Study of Kigali, Rwanda Summary: With support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), URCV researchers have produced a series of publications that include a report that summarizes the research findings and recommendations, a toolkit that focuses on the practical implications of our findings, in-depth case studies of seven cities facing diverse violence challenges, a working paper, and policy briefs (forthcoming). The question guiding the Kigali case study is how formal and informal institutions interact in the process of urban adaptation to external and internal shocks and stress factors. For instance, if state institutions are failing to provide acceptable levels of services, do informal groups rise in prominence (numbers, resources, visibility, or physical activity)? If such informal institutions do become more salient, how does the state then react to them? By defining urban resilience as an ongoing process of coping and adaptation of territorially bounded units (characterised as a city’s formal as well as informal social, political, and economic institutions and its members and affiliates) to exogenous and endogenous stress, the present study distinguishes between what could be called “negative” and “positive” resilience. The main emphasis of this case study has been placed on the security dimension of resilience. The main argument is that it is not the formal or informal nature of institutions which matter for the production of positive or negative effects, but rather that the strategic orientation underlying their organisation, and the social dynamics in which they operate, influence their ultimate effect on violence and perceived insecurity. In other words, even if the same measures are introduced in urban and rural areas, in an urban space they develop their own urbanspecific resilience mechanisms. The report is divided into five sections. The first provides a descriptive account of Kigali’s main stress factor, namely its demographic explosion, against the backdrop of its topography. It also gives a schematic picture of the city’s neighbourhoods and the scope of informal and formal settlement. The second section introduces the Kigali City Master Plan (KCMP) to familiarise the reader with the macro-policies of the authorities towards urbanisation. It also highlights how the city has shown signs of resilience through the adaptation of its population and institutions to wide-spread expropriation, eviction and resettlement schemes. The third section focuses on the evolution of informal security institutions and their interaction with formal institutions, notably with the security sector reform efforts undertaken by the government and their link to the government’s decentralisation and community-based development policy. The fourth section seeks to relate instances of informal coping strategies with phenomena of urban resilience through a number of illustrations in the fields of public utilities (electricity, sanitation, and waste management), microfinance, and transportation. A final section then briefly reflects on the links between urbanisation and development in present-day Rwanda. Details: Cambridge, MA: Urban Resilience in Chronic Violence, MIT. 2012. 39p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 16, 2012 at http://urcvproject.org/uploads/Kigali_URCV.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Rwanda URL: http://urcvproject.org/uploads/Kigali_URCV.pdf Shelf Number: 127219 Keywords: Urban Areas (Rwanda)Violence |