The Local Administrative Entities Development Agency (LODA) on Tuesday, October 13 launched a nationwide exercise to classify households into different groups under Ubudehe, following reforms in the programme.

Ubudehe is a social stratification programme depending on income among households and was reformed in a new grading system that was announced in June this year.

There are five categories, represented by letters A, B, C, D, and E; with A consisting of households with the highest income, while E consists of those who are the most vulnerable in the society.

The process to classify Rwandan households into the new categories runs from through January 2021, and implementation will start in February 2021, according to LODA Director-General, Claudine Marie-Solange Nyinawagaga.

She said the classification exercise will take place at community level to enable citizen participation, adding that there was need for honesty during the information gathering.

"People should give the right information about the economic status...people should not say they have one cow, yet they own a herd,” she said, warning that wrong information can lead to wrong categorisation and allocation of resources.

The categories and respective households

Category A

It consists of the households that are considered well-off.

Those include families with an aggregated income of more than Rwf600,000 per month from various sources such as salaries or pension benefits, or other income-generating activities.

Also in this category are households with over 10 hectares of land in the rural arears, and more than one hectare plot in urban centres, or carry out livestock farming activities that enables them to get the above-mentioned income.

Category B

This category comprises households that earn between Rwf65,000 and Rwf600,000 monthly from the similar sources as those cited above. For land, they should own between one and 10 hectares for rural areas, or between 300 square metres and one hectare in cities.

Category C

It groups consists households that make an aggregated income of between Rwf45,000 and Rwf65,000 per month. Their land ownership ranges from 0.5 hectare to one hectare in rural areas, or 100 square metres to 300 square metres in urban areas.

Category D

This category is for households that earn less than Rwf45,000 a month (casual workers). Their land is less than half a hectare in the rural areas, and less than 100 square metres in urban areas.

Category E

This is a special category comprising people out of labour force as a result of age, major disabilities or incurable diseases, yet they do not own other assets or other sources of livelihoods.

Those found in this category include those where the head of household and their spouse is at least 65 years old and have no source of income to provide for the family.

The others are households headed by children under 18 years, and does not have any source of income; or headed by a person who is still pursuing studies, yet does not have members who are able to work, and have no source of income.

On why people with Rwf65,000 income were put in the same category (B) as those with Rwf600,000, which is the widest income gap among all the categories, Nyinawagaga said this was informed by a survey that found that a household earning Rwf65,000 per month can afford minimum basic needs, including all meals.

De-linking services from Ubudehe

Nyinawagaga said that some services, especially university scholarships, were linked to Ubudehe categories, and blamed that for malpractices in the categorisation and implementation process.

"There were cases where some people with financial means were scrambling to be put in the first and second Ubudehe categories to be able to benefit from services that were preserved for those with the least means,” he said, pointing out that the issue sparked off a debate whereby Rwandans suggested a review of the classification.

She indicated that apart from social protection for the most vulnerable so as to break the cycle of poverty, no other services will be provided based on Ubudehe categories.

"Services such university scholarships or costly medical services such as dialysis for kidney disease should not be offered based on Ubudehe categories,” she said.

She said that these services will be provided to those that deserve, and not based on which category under Ubudehe in which they fall.

The social protection interventions include Girinka – one cow per poor family – programme, direct support consisting of handouts to the most vulnerable people (who are old), and Vision Umurenge Programme (VUP) public works where people get wages for work.

Ubudehe categories are revised every three years, with the view that there are some developments that happened during that period.

Talking about the importance of categorisation of people based on their income levels, Nyinawagaga said that Rwanda has more than 2.7 million households, and getting data on their living conditions is a valuable asset for the country as it enables effective planning so that the right support reaches the right beneficiaries.