REPUBLIC OF RWANDA

MINISTRY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

« Ubudehe mu Kurwanya Ubukene »

Concept Note

MAY 2009
SUMMARY TABLE
SUMMARY TABLE ....................................................................................................................................... 2
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 3
2. Theory and Philosophy of Collective Action applied to Rwanda’s .............................................................. 3
Ubudehe process.............................................................................................................................................. 3
2.1. Aims of the Ubudehe process ............................................................................................................... 3
2.2. From Blue Print Style to Learning Process: Devising creative strategies through collective action. ... 4
2.3. Applying collective action principles to the Rwandan setting: Ubudehe ............................................. 5
3. Understanding Poverty through Ubudehe ................................................................................................... 5
4. Decentralisation and Ubudehe .................................................................................................................... 7
5. The Ubudehe process: Methodology ........................................................................................................... 7
5.1. Ubudehe at the Cellule level ................................................................................................................. 7
5.2. Ubudehe at the Household level ........................................................................................................... 8
5.3. Monitoring the Ubudehe process .......................................................................................................... 8
6. The Training of Trainers ............................................................................................................................. 9
7. The Handling of Funds ................................................................................................................................ 9
8. Opportunities ............................................................................................................................................... 9
9. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 11
ANNEXES: ....................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
ANNEX 1: Timeline of the Ubudehe process ............................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
ANNEX 2: A case study from Butare Province: Ubudehe in Vumbi sector, cellule Kidahile ........... Error!
Bookmark not defined.
ANNEX 3: Flow Chart for monitoring the Ubudehe process .....................Error! Bookmark not defined.
1. Introduction

The present note serves as a tool to share the principles that inform the design of the Ubudehe effort that
is ongoing in Rwanda since 2001. The reason for this is that the word Ubudehe is vulnerable to
interpretations which link it to images of rural people engaged in outdated actions. This paper however,
shows that Ubudehe is at the cutting edge of participatory development. The name Ubudehe was chosen
as a reminder that collective action and participatory development are very rooted in Rwandan society.
The aim of the Ubudehe process as it has been designed in Rwanda is to build on the positive aspects of
this history and complement it with modern participatory techniques, which have proven their worth in
Community development.

After this introduction, section two addresses the philosophy of collective action and how “the new
Ubudehe approach” fits in that pattern, after which there are short sections on how Ubudehe has so far
helped to understand and fight poverty right from the grassroots level and how Ubudehe links with the
decentralisation process. Sections 5 through 7 are devoted to how Ubudehe works in practice: the set up,
the monitoring procedures, the training of people and the handling of funds are discussed in turn. Section
8 highlights some opportunities that Ubudehe brings, while section 9 concludes.

The annexes help to better understand the working and set up of Ubudehe. Annex 1 shows the timeline of
Ubudehe activities, from inception to the current situation. Annex 2 gives more insight into how Ubudehe
works in practice through telling the story of one particular cellule, while annex 3 gives the flow chart
used for the monitoring and follow up of the whole process.

2. Theory and Philosophy of Collective Action applied to Rwanda’s

Ubudehe process

2.1. Aims of the Ubudehe process

The Ubudehe process in Rwanda is a unique policy of nurturing citizens’ collective action in partnership
with a government committed to decentralisation. This policy has its roots in the PRSP (poverty reduction
strategy paper 2002-2006) and the PPA (participatory poverty assessment). It is a policy designed to
increase the level of institutional problem-solving capacity at the local level by citizens and local
government. It seeks to put into operation the principles of citizens’ participation through local collective
action. The word Ubudehe was selected to present a quick mental image of people working in collective
action; action to solve problems of local people, by local people, for local people; with support from local
government, NGO’s, local resource people and donors. It sets out to strengthen democratic processes and
governance starting from the people’s aspirations, ability and traditions.

The Ubudehe process seeks to create deliberate opportunities for people at the cellule level to interact
with one another, to share worldviews, and to create institutions of their own which assign duties,
benefits, responsibility and authority. It is through such processes of local interaction for mutual benefit
that trust between individuals will increase, as will reciprocal relationships. The assumption is made that
strong social capital creates high trust and communication within a group and opportunity for economic
co-operative formation. If such a group faces a conflict situation they will attempt to resolve the conflict
through local institutional means without resorting to violence. Consequently, the Ubudehe process,
through encouraging local collective action is also building a foundation for reducing vulnerability and
the potential for divisionism and conflict.

2.2. From Blue Print Style to Learning Process: Devising creative strategies through
collective action.

Underlying Rwanda’s Ubudehe process, are ideas about participatory approaches and creative strategies
and planning processes. It is built upon a new paradigm, first expressed by David Korten, who argued for
a paradigm shift from the “blue-print style” towards “learning process” (see box 1).

Box 1: Paradigm shift from blue print style to learning process

BLUE PRINT STYLE LEARNING PROCESS
 Researchers Analyse  No preplanning
 Planners Decide  Learning with people
 Employees execute  Through action build experience, and
 Researchers evaluate institutional capacity
 All are outsiders, none are affected by  Embrace Error
problems they solve  Adjust and change

A blueprint approach implies that someone in authority decides all the objectives and activities of a
project. Different people are assigned to carry out the plan. No deviations are permitted. Everyone is
expected to adhere to the blueprint. In a learning process, there is little preplanning. The emphasis is on
learning through actually doing things and using that experience-based knowledge for other similar
problems. People are encouraged to innovate and think for themselves. This approach leads to creative
problem solving. Also, it will help the promotion of Rwandan people helping themselves and as such
breaking out of the tradition of centralised regimes and prescriptive donor projects, which have yielded a
dependency syndrome in Rwandan local administration and population.

Much has been written about planning & developing strategies. Most strategies are designed at the
beginning of a project by people who have management tasks. While it is good to have a broad direction
in the beginning, it is often not very effective to plan all details in the beginning. People change,
conditions change, the problem may also change. As such there is a need to “improvise strategy in the
present”, i.e. keeping in touch with realities on the ground and adapting to them.

2.3. Applying collective action principles to the Rwandan setting: Ubudehe

The principles guiding Rwanda’s collective action process are summarised in the COMIC 8-4 tool, which
is used throughout the Ubudehe planning methodology. “COMIC” stands for Co-operation, Operational,
Maintenance, Information and co-ordination: guidelines which need to be followed to make sure the
collective action set up will be sustainable. “8” are the number of principles for a community action
system: a well defined framework, striking a balance between benefits and costs, inclusive participation,
monitoring & evaluation, gradual sanctions, conflict resolution mechanisms, acknowledgement of the
right of free organisation and integration of different levels of organisation. Finally, we have the “4” kinds
of opportunistic behaviour, which need to be avoided: corruption, opportunism, escaping responsibilities
and moral corruption.

3. Understanding Poverty through Ubudehe

Ubudehe was set up as part of the Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA). The overarching goal of the
PPA was “To help community groups and some poor households to create their own problem-solving
experience”. As such, information gathered at the cellule level, by the population, helped to understand
people’s experience of poverty and was incorporated into the final PRSP. The following principles were
to guide the Participatory Poverty Assessment and through that the Poverty Reduction Strategy:
 Enhance local problem solving experience;
 Attempt participation of all actors;
 Those affected should be able to participate;
 The “action-experience-knowledge-new action” cycle of all nationals should be protected;
 This is a project of the people of Rwanda outsiders must facilitate not operate processes;
 The poor should not lose livelihoods for the days that they engage in the PPA;
Rwanda committed itself to follow up on the collected information at the level where the information was
gathered! The result of this is Ubudehe.
4. Decentralisation and Ubudehe

The key policy relating governance, public administration and poverty reduction is the decentralisation
policy of 2000. The decentralisation policy was developed after widespread consultation on the causes of
disunity and long lasting underdevelopment among Rwandans. In those countrywide consultations, the
citizens showed a remarkable desire to have a voice in decision-making and development at all levels.
The global objective of the Decentralisation Policy 2000 is ‘to ensure political, economic, social,
managerial/administrative and technical empowerment of the local populations to fight poverty by
participating in planning and management of their development process.’

The Ubudehe process fits perfectly with Rwanda’s decentralisation objective. In effect, what makes
Ubudehe so unique is that it exactly tries to work with and reinforce the on-going political and financial
decentralisation process. This will also provide a direct injection of financial capital into the rural
economy, and will thus overcome one of the main obstacles to pro-poor economic growth. By targeting
communities at a cell level it penetrates right down to the lowest decentralised structure. The ultimate aim
is that Ubudehe will become the tool of bottom up planning and that it will feed into decentralised policy
making and finally into sector strategies at the national level, as the contribution at the cellule level, from
the people living in the cellule.

5. The Ubudehe process: Methodology

5.1. Ubudehe at the Cellule level

Ubudehe is made up of two distinct processes, one at the community level and one at the household level.
Both processes use in essence the same methodology. In this paragraph, the community level is discussed,
whilst next paragraph focuses on Ubudehe for households. The community goes – with the help of
facilitators/trainers – through the following steps:
- Determine the poverty profile as perceived by the people themselves;
- Determine the causes and consequences of poverty;
- Draw up the social map of the cellule, which includes the names of household heads, their social
category (different categories are again decided by the people themselves), development
infrastructure, material of each house’s roof;
- Identify and analyse the problems facing their community and determine a priority problem to be
addresses;
 - Plan the activities and relative means needed for addressing the prioritised problem through a
collective action plan (Ubudehe);
- Put in place a system to manage the identified collective action (soft system check list);
- Submit the action plan to a pertinence test for all stakeholders to see if the retained strategies are
the best to solve the identified problem;
- Check if collective action principles are respected through the COMIC 8-4 tool;
- The management committee, elected by the community, local technicians, local authorities and
other stakeholders approve the execution of the collective action and engage to safeguard and
respect the principles of collective action.
After this process, funds are made available to support the identified ubudehe collective action.

5.2. Ubudehe at the Household level

As mentioned before, the Ubudehe process is also applied to a poor household selected by the
community. The idea is to have some kind of model in the community that shows that poverty can be
overcome if one is determined to fight it. For the household, the methodology consists in analysing and
identifying the household’s survival (coping) strategies. The members of the household, together with the
facilitators/trainers:
- Determine their coping strategies throughout the year (seasonality);
- Analyse these strategies in order to come up with a strategy favourable to the promotion and
improvement of the living conditions within the household (preference scoring);
- Plan activities and budget the necessary means to execute the retained strategy;
- A pertinence test is then carried out by wise men in the cellule (Inyangamugayo) to make sure
that the retained strategy is appropriate and will be of good use to the household;
- The household members finally accept and sign for the funds that are accorded to them. They
agree that the funds supporting the execution of their strategy will have a rotating character.
After this process, funds are made available to support the identified household strategy.

5.3. Monitoring the Ubudehe process

In each districts, there is two persons trained on the Ubudehe approach who are responsible for the day-
to-day follow up in all the district village. It has been proposed that every month all these district people
would gather at the district level to discuss and evaluate Ubudehe implementation. As funds for Ubudehe
itself (opposed to funding of the training mechanism, see next paragraph) have only been disbursed in
Butare, this monitoring process has only been started up in that province. More specifically, the table in
annex 3 summarises the monitoring process. These charts are at the moment being used by the district
trainers and the same system will apply in the remaining provinces.

6. The Training of Trainers

To be able to reach the Rwandan population at the cellule level and familiarise them with the Ubudehe
process, a system of Ubudehe trainers has been put into place. The methodology was to have a cascade
system of training trainers, starting from the national level 1, through the district and sector level down to
the cellule and village level. As such, a critical mass of resource people will be created at community
level.

As such, initially a system of national master trainers was set up, with people from MINECOFIN,
MINALOC, NURC, Action AID and some independent consultants. These people then trained people at
the district level, district level trainers trained people at the sector level, who then trained the people that
were and are to be responsible for Ubudehe at the cellule level. The following table shows how this
system has worked so far in Butare province:

Table 1 : The Training of Trainers in Butare province

Level Number of persons trained
Province and District 32
Sector 422 (2 per sector, total of 211 sectors)
Cellule 1358 (2 per cellule, total of 679 cellules)
Total 1812

The selection of these people was based on certain criteria such as: being a permanent resident at the
specified administrative level, integrity and gender. Training took at least 10 days at all levels. It is the
persons trained at the cellule level who have actually facilitated the Ubudehe process in their respective
communities.

7. The Handling of Funds

The European Union has until now been the major donor supporting the Ubudehe process. At this point in
time, i.e. late February 2003, two tranches of the STABEX funds have been released, together amounting
to 1 000 825 euros. These funds have been used for collective action in the province of Butare where all

1
Initially, there was a team of 12 National Trainers. With the completion of the PPA, the size of the team has been
reduced (see also annex 2: timeline of the Ubudehe process).
cellule projects and family projects have been funded. On top of that, trainers have been trained in 6 other
provinces.

The flow of these funds so far can be traced in the diagram below. These data are for the handling of the
first tranche, for which an account at the BNR was set up the 28 th of May 2002 « PNRP/STABEX » no.
120 26 33. Once funds are deposited in the BNR, they are released through the Strategic Planning and
Poverty Monitoring Department (SPPMD) in MINECOFIN, which manages these funds and channels the
money destined for the actual collective action2 from the BNR account to the district level accounts. All
cellules have set up an account in the Banque Populaire’s nearest branch. The money, which is now at
district level, is then transferred to the cellule account. The average time between the release of the money
at central level and arrival at district level was 2 months, while it took another 2 1/2 months before the
money arrived at the cellule level3.
Demand for Ubudehe
funds by GoR

Decision made at EU to Funds released from EU and

fund Ubudehe received at the BNR

Funds released by SPPMD and

sent to district accounts

Funds received at district level

Funds sent from district to funds received at

cellules cellule level

8. Opportunities
It would be limiting to think of collective action as being only applicable for cellule level work using
local skills and knowledge. For creative strategies to work and effective decisions to be taken, we need a
functional combination of local knowledge and appropriate technical knowledge.

2
There is also money reserved for working costs, training, monitoring, etc, funds which are managed directly by
SPPMD.
3
Note that this is not only due to administration. Sometimes money was not transmitted because a cellule had not
completed the whole preparation process (as outlined in section 5)
There are proven appropriate technology models in agriculture, health, electricity, education, water, etc.
As an example, we elaborate on Community health models, which have been implemented successfully in
many locations. The model rests on the assumption that 80% of all human diseases can be treated by
trained health workers. The other 20% are referred to doctors and hospitals. The health workers are
selected by communities and then given intensive training by doctors and other health professionals in
both preventive and curative health care. There has been some criticism of the model, usually related to
the lack of accountability of health workers. But lack of accountability happens when group processes are
weak. In those communities where community members have created a health management institution,
the community health worker strategy is an effective strategy for delivering affordable, accessible health
care.

Other projects such as electricity generation, and strategies related to education, agriculture, water, forest
management, fisheries etc. are in the pipeline and partnerships with ministries such as MINAGRI and
MINISANTE are being forged.

9. Conclusion

This paper has clearly shown the innovation and the usefulness of the Ubudehe process as a tool to make
Rwandan people at the grassroots level aware of their poverty related problems and help them address
these problems in a participatory and solidarity way.

Ubudehe has helped to understand poverty in Rwanda and how it is felt by the people through the PPA
process. The methodology used for this (e.g. the COMIC-8-4 tool) can be said to be state of the art in
current participatory development thinking.

However, this was not the end-point, as Ubudehe was exactly envisaged not to stop at the diagnostic
level. Communities were encouraged to identify one key problem they felt comfortable to address in a
participatory way – this then became their collective action and they were funded to implement this
priority action subsequently.

As a means of devolving responsibility – not in the least financially – to the lowest possible
administrative level, Ubudehe fits in perfectly with the decentralisation process. It is exactly envisaged
that Ubudehe tries to work with and reinforce the ongoing political and financial decentralisation process.
This will be possible as Ubudehe is aimed to cover the whole country in the medium run (1-2 years),
which is a unique ambition in participatory development thinking and a fast way to boost living
conditions of the majority of the poor through minimal investment and a big and sustainable impact.

It is hoped that this paper highlights the strengths of the Ubudehe process and therefore will mobilise
stakeholders at all levels to support the approach and contribute to its sustained development in a
comprehensive community development framework.