Paper short abstract:

This paper provides a critical analysis of the Rwandan government’s effort to manage urban growth and implement its highly ambitious vision for Kigali. It explores both the political motivations behind the state’s recent urban planning drive and the impacts of the plan on ordinary urban-dwellers.

Paper long abstract:

Amid widespread perceptions of African cities as dangerous mega-slums characterised by chaos, over-urbanisation and under-employment, the government of Rwanda has sought to invert the stereotype and recreate its capital city as a 'model city' for Africa. Since 2007, it has been working to a highly ambitious Master Plan drawn up by American and Singaporean experts, which envisions Kigali as a services and logistics hub as well as symbolic site of security and order in the midst of a troubled region. This paper explores the tensions, contradictions and paradoxes of the Rwandan government's vision of an urban future, exploring the political underpinnings of its drive to transform the city as well as the socioeconomic and political impacts of efforts to implement the plan. Rwanda is one of the least urbanized countries in Africa yet is urbanizing fast, and unlike many African governments its leadership has, in theory, embraced urbanization. Yet some of its policies and practices pull in the opposite direction, subjecting many urban-dwellers to multiple and often contradictory pressures. The Master Plan has come at the same time as new strategies towards formalizing urban employment, efforts to attract investment, a constantly-shifting legal framework pertaining to land, and the progressive alienation of a number of donors. The interaction of these factors seriously affects the livelihood and tenure security of those living in the city, rendering the sustainability of its contemporary urban reality questionable and undermining its vision of a secure, prosperous urban future.