Number of vulnerable households down almost 50%

The number of vulnerable Rwandans without proper shelter has dropped by almost 50 percent since 1999, a survey by the Ministry of Human Settlement has shown.

A 14-day 'Rapid Assessment of Immediate Shelter Needs' survey that ended on 21 October showed that 191,844 Rwandan households were still living under sheeting and grass-thatched shelters compared to 370,000 in 1999.

The survey attributed the downward trend to five factors, among which was that displaced and other returnee populations recovered their properties. Some other factors were that non-governmental organisations - funded by France, Switzerland and Canada - built more homes; government urging of the public to build their own shelters, as well as UNHCR and WFP provision of food-for-work programmes to resettle homeless families.

Vulnerable people without shelter were widows, the elderly without resources and children. Most of these households are in Ruhengeri (73,462) and Gisenyi (34,503), in the northwest. Their plight was due to the insecurity caused by incursions of Interahamwe militia and ex-FAR from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Least affected are the provinces of Butare, Cyangugu, Gikongoro, Gitarama, and Kigali-Ngali. The survey says that Kigali-Ngali suffered least because it benefited most from returnee resettlement projects.

The Ministry of Human Resettlement, in collaboration with the UN Development Programme and UNHCR, sent a 13-member team of surveyors and supervisors to carry out a comprehensive census of households still living in these make-shift shelters.

A team composed of representatives from the ministry, Denmark, UNDP, UNHCR, the Swedish International Development Agency, USAID, the National Programme on Poverty Reduction, and the Conflict Management Centre of the National University of Rwanda was set up to assess policies, achievements and unmet needs during the transition period in areas of human settlement and land. The team began its work on 10 September 2001. The survey was initiated by the recommendation of a task force set up by the Brookings Institute.