President Paul Kagame, yesterday, saluted the people of Rwanda for their resilience over the past two decades, as the fourth Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey (EICV4) was launched, showing significant decrease in poverty levels.

The report, compiled by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) and its partners, shows that some 660,000 Rwandans have been lifted out of poverty over the last three years with poverty levels reducing by 5.8 per cent, essentially raising hopes that Rwanda could succeed in eradicating extreme poverty by the year 2020.

EICV4 was launched by President Kagame, flanked by officials from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning as well as various international development partners.

Kagame explained that the positive changes in improving people’s lives were a result of implementing policies based on evidence about the country’s needs for economic transformation.

"Policy-making based on evidence is earning us the results we need, as Rwanda continues on its journey towards socio-economic transformation. Today’s survey results confirm what we see around us, and the stories we hear, directly from Rwandans of all walks of life, in visits around the country. You hear messages of hope, not desperation. There are many problems to deal with but there is an opening into the future with this hope,” Kagame said.

Much as the Head of State welcomed the findings on poverty reduction, he called on top officials to step up efforts toward ending malnutrition.

"Malnutrition is self inflicted. We have to make sure we eradicate it because we have the tools to do that. We can’t afford to see a big part of our population stunted when we have the means to prevent it.”

Pointing to youth unemployment as an additional challenge that must be addressed, Kagame urged young Rwandans to be open minded to vocational training and called on leaders to invest and encourage youth to acquire skills that will lead to employment.

"We have to pay attention to our youth and the opportunity provided by the demographic we have should be realised.”

Facing challenges ahead

President Kagame saluted the resilience of Rwandans in the last 20 years and encouraged all to face the challenges ahead.

"My reaction to these statistics is determination, rather than satisfaction. I think it must be the same for all of you. The only fitting response to remaining challenges is to get back to work and figure out how to significantly speed up progress, towards the Rwanda we want and indeed deserve. The main value of the progress recorded to date, besides the positive effects on individual lives, is to demonstrate that we have what it takes to bring about the transformation of our country and our region. But we must stick to the course, and never take anything for granted.”

Findings that 660,000 Rwandans got out of poverty in the last three years follow another development in 2011 where a million Rwandans were lifted out of poverty between 2006 and 2011 as a result of a 12 per cent poverty reduction over five years, from 56.7 per cent  in 2006 to 44.9 per cent in 2011.

Researchers at the NISR have found that more Rwandans are now employed as a result of new business establishments set up in the country, there has been an increase in food crop production contributing to food security and more Rwandans have access to electricity and own mobile phones.

"We see systematic improvements at macro level for the whole country since 2001 to 2014 and in some aspects like fertility drop, ownership of mobile phones and a number of new businesses’ faster improvements in rural areas and among the poorest quintiles of the population,” said Yusuf Murangwa, the director-general of  NISR.

Officials at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning attributed sustained poverty reduction to the government’s efforts in inclusive and pro-poor development programmes.

They include a social protection programme, VUP-Umurenge, through which the poor get jobs and cash handouts, the One-Cow Per-Poor-Family (Girinka) programme, universal education programmes as well as universal access to healthcare.

The government has also invested heavily in electricity – currently about 20 per cent of households in Rwanda are connected to electricity – scaled up efforts to improve access to potable water, proper sanitation, job creation, and improving agriculture productivity.

The Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Claver Gatete, expressed optimism that, with the current rate of poverty reduction, the country is likely to eradicate extreme poverty by the year 2020 as it has been pledged by the government.

"It gives us hope that by the year 2020, we will have completely eradicated extreme poverty. It’s a big improvement and we are also seeing areas where we need to improve,” he told a news briefing in reaction to the latest findings on poverty reduction.

At the launch of the EICV4 findings, the UN Resident coordinator, Lamin M. Manneh, congratulated Rwandans on their achievements in the fight against poverty and pledged more support from the UN and other development partners to continue transforming the country.

"We, development partners in Rwanda, would like to commend the progress that the country has made,” Manneh said.

The Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey is conducted every three years to provide an account of estimates of the level and pattern of poverty and living conditions in the country in order to inform decisions by policy-makers on the country’s progress.