Families which are set to be resettled to pave the way for the expansion of Volcanoes National Park are expected to move into a new settlement offering modern housing, basic services and other opportunities for better livelihood under a $49 million Smart Green Village project, according to the Rwanda Development Board (RDB).

The village is being developed on a 50-hectare site in Rurembo Village, Kinigi Sector, Musanze District.

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Construction was launched on August 27, with the first phase expected to accommodate 547 households affected by the park’s expansion.

Agnes Mukarwego, who is expected to resettle with her family, said residents were first informed about the planned relocation in 2018, while the first valuation of their property was carried out in 2021.

"At first, we did not really understand what was happening. We thought we were going to have a difficult life after being relocated,” she said.

"However, as they continued educating and preparing us, we came to understand the project better.”

Mukarwego said residents whose land is affected are being compensated financially, although some payments remain pending because of documentation issues.

"About 80 per cent of us have already been paid, while a few others have not yet been paid because they do not have all the necessary documents,” she said.

Residents have also been informed about livelihood opportunities they could pursue after relocation, including agriculture, livestock farming and handicrafts.

François Ndungutse, another resident expected to relocate, said the fact that the new settlement is close to their current homes has made the prospect of moving easier to accept.

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"At first, it was not easy to understand that we would be relocated, but since the new place is also nearby, we were okay with it,” he said.

Ndungutse said the compensation valuation process involved measuring residents’ land, verifying the measurements against their documents and calculating compensation based on the value per square metre.

"The good thing is that those who had jobs were told that we would continue working once we moved to those villages,” he added.

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What families are moving into

The Smart Green Village is planned to provide modern housing alongside water and sanitation facilities, electricity, health and education facilities, and community spaces.

It will also include climate-smart agriculture facilities, greenhouses, irrigation systems and agricultural processing facilities, as well as renewable energy infrastructure.

Other planned facilities include eco-lodges and community tourism facilities. The development is also expected to incorporate rainwater harvesting, wastewater treatment and reuse, solid-waste management and energy-efficient building technologies.

The village forms part of the wider Volcanoes Community Resilience Project, which includes the planned expansion of Volcanoes National Park by about 3,740 hectares and the establishment of approximately 6,620 hectares of buffer zones.

The wider programme is expected to improve livelihoods for more than 17,000 people, representing about 3,400 households, and has an estimated cost of about $300 million over 10 years.

Preparing livelihoods before relocation

Patrick Nsabimana, Country Coordinator for the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) in Rwanda, which is partnering with the Government of Rwanda on the broader programme, said the model was designed to address challenges facing communities living in the Volcanoes landscape.

These include inadequate housing, limited access to basic infrastructure and small land holdings.

Nsabimana said the new settlement will combine infrastructure and basic services with opportunities for residents to build sustainable livelihoods.

One of the planned activities is community-based tourism, through which residents could earn income from visitors to the village.

"We include additional services such as community-based tours, where someone can come and have an experience in the village and pay the community,” Nsabimana said.

The livelihood component will also connect residents to business development services, skills training, financing and markets.

Nsabimana said the process begins with assessing individual households, including their existing skills and economic activities, before matching them with potential business opportunities.

"We start by profiling a specific household to understand the level of skills they have and what they are currently doing. From that profiling, we match them with the available opportunities,” he said.

Residents can then receive skills training for particular businesses and access financing through partnerships with microfinance institutions.

The model also includes an agriculture hub intended to help small-scale producers aggregate their output and connect with larger buyers, including hotels and supermarkets.

"How do we support all those small businesses and farmers who are producing? They bring their production to the hub, and then we sell it collectively to a specific off-taker. It may be a supermarket or one of the hotels,” Nsabimana said.

The hub is also expected to provide services such as agricultural inputs, seeds, insurance and cold-chain facilities.

"We have already established the hub in Kinigi. This year, we will be upgrading it and adding more services,” he said.

The livelihood model is being piloted in four villages and is expected to eventually cover about 3,400 households.

Nsabimana said 102 households have completed the first business incubation programme, while about 54 have started businesses and received financing.

He said the aim is to help families establish sustainable livelihoods before they relocate, enabling them to continue running their businesses after moving to the new settlement.