Research conducted by ACORD Rwanda in 2004

There is a strong cause-and-effect relationship between the lack of participation of the poor communities, especially small farmers and artisans, in the design and implementation of poverty reduction strategies and other development initiatives, on one hand, and, on the other hand, the miserable reality of “abject poverty” that the people sub-saharian countries are living in. This is because of a complexity of factors that include lack of strong involvement of the leadership of the underprivileged groups in policy-making, lack of space for poor citizens within the civil society to debate and communicate their concerns, inadequate accountability of governance structures, hierarchical structure in the design and implementation of PRSPs that exclude poor and marginalized citizens

This study was commissioned by ACORD Rwanda, to research and explore the various possibilities of engaging poor citizens in collective actions against poverty and social injustice, by learning from past and current experiences.

Rwanda has had numerous and various collective actions in past, these were for social or poverty fight purposes, which some have been maintained in their original forms and others modified over years. The research team took a journey in the past – period before the country’s independence, looked at all the relevant ones and identified their ways of working, strengths to build on and weaknesses to be avoided. Current initiatives have also been looked at in the same light with the purpose of identifying opportunities on which ACORD should build on.
This study sets out to inform the development of ACORD’s way forward and strategy to promote social forum to fight poverty, within the country’s strategic, legal and administrative frameworks