Visit to the district of Nyamagabe
Nyamagabe, a district in the South province, next to the high mountains of the Nyungwe forest, is probably one of the most rainy and hilly districts of the country. With its steep and inaccessible slopes, this district is mainly cultivating tea, a plant that supports resistance against erosion.
This district was one of the 3 districts that we visited together with the National Decentralisation Implementation Secretariat (NDIS) to prepare for an upcoming BTC-PSCBS project activity*.
The purpose of this activity is to strengthen the capacities of local governments regarding the collection of demographic data and develop better monitoring and evaluation systems for these data.
Within these preparatory visits we analysed how demographic data are currently collected and how their reliability is verified. By improving this process on all levels (from data collection at the very low level till the analyses and strategic decision making at the district and central level) the strategic interventions regarding the local development of villages and regions will be more relevant since they will be based on more accurate and reliable information.
Water point constructed in well accessible area to offer all villagers access to water
Achieve the MDGs
When we talk to demographic data we mostly mean the data that are in relation to the Millennium Development Goals:
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger- Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
- Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
- Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
- Goal 5: Improve maternal health
- Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
- Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
- Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
« One vegetable garden per family » is an initiative to sensitize
villagers to grow different vegetables to have a more varied diet
For example: If demographic data show that in some villages the distance to schools and health centres is too far, districts can decide where to build a new school that is easily accessible for everyone. This will then contribute to the achievement of MDG 2, which aims to achieve universal primary education.
Rwanda’s decentralisation
Rwanda is still in the process of decentralisation, which means that progressively more and more responsibilities are handed over to decentralised levels. In total there are 30 districts, with each of them between 10 and 20 “sectors”. Those sectors consist in their turn of “cells”. The cell is the lowest official level and within each cell there are averagely 5 villages (“umudugudu”). Each village has its own elected village chief who works on a voluntary basis,
The district
The district has the overall responsibility of planning the development of its territory. Therefore, within each district administration, there is a statistician who is in charge of analysing collected data on which the planning director bases some strategic decisions for the development of the district.
The sector
Sectors form the connection between districts and cells and provide cells with the necessary support to collect data and to distribute information coming from district and central level to the lower level. They also gather all information coming from their cells and keep archives of this. In a sector there are specialised staff members in agriculture, education, veterinary, civil status and health who offer support to the cells in these specialised domains.
The sector office of Tari
The cell
On cell level, there are supposed to work 2 staff members but up till now, there is only one employed This person is in charge of collection of data and the solving of village conflicts. On of their problems is 
that they don’t have any transport means and when village chiefs don’t have a mobile phone, they often have to walk a few kilometres to reach them in the villages. As a consequence, there is no permanent service delivery possible in the cells.
Apart from this, most cell offices only have a chair and a desk. Only some of them (on this picture for example) are lucky to have electricity and even a computer. This is however quite rare and since most cell offices don’t have electricity, a computer is often of little use.
Cell of Kibyagira, located in Tari sector in Nyamagabe district
Collection of data in the district of Nyamagabe
Anyway – to keep a long story short – the collection of data goes through many instances and demands an intensive process. This process encounters of course lots of difficulties on its way. Every level has capacity issues, ranging from material capacity (folders, papers) to lack of systems, knowledge, communication channels, human resources etc.
A 10 pages form containing excel tables to be filled in with information related to the MDGs
Nyamagabe is probably the best organised district regarding the collection of data, hence the reason for this visit. They’ve set up a system on their own initiative of collecting demographic data, in order to anticipate incoming requests from central government and tackle demographic issues right from the start.
Since several years now they are being rewarded by central government to be the best achieving district. Recently the president himself paid a visit to one of their example villages, in which all the villagers are member of the health care system, in which all children go to school and that has all facilities necessary for the population to lead a healthy life (access to water, vegetable gardens for each family, compost heaps, one cow per family, garbage collection system etc).
The example village Kagano
Next steps of the project
The project that NDIS will now be implementing with funds from our “Support to Capacity Development project” will now try to integrate these best practices in other districts, where systems are not as well established.
This project will be intervening in different ways on the different government levels. and can range from sensitization for accurate data towards the chiefs of villages (who are in the end responsible for making the 
correct counts) to provision of systems (from down till top and visa versa), from supporting in the development of standardised forms to the provision of basic desk materials. From organising study visits between districts to train the trainer sessions for cell heads to form their village chiefs.
For all these activities a budget of around 600.000 euros has been earmarked. Since this budget is too small for strengthening all 30 districts, a selection of 3 districts will be made to pilot these interventions and make their data collection systems operational.
Cell of the Kaganza office, showing completed forms
*The “Support to Capacity Development in Rwanda” project is a BTC project, executed by the Public Sector Capacity Building Secretariat, which is an office depending on the Ministry of Public Service and Labour, specialising in Capacity Development. The project recently decided to dedicate 2 million euros to the strengthening of capacities of the local government entities. One of the things that will be treated is the data collection systems and M&E of demographic data.
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