A stand of fruits at Kimironko market. EICV 5 will show country progress in fighting stunting among other indicators
Effective tomorrow, December 6, Rwandans will know the status of poverty levels in a detailed report to be released by National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR).
Yusuf Murangwa, Director General of NISR together with Finance Minister Dr. Uziel Ndagijimana are expected to unveil poverty updates to the media.
The latest results are part of the fifth Integrated Household and Living Condition Survey (EICV5).
Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey or Enquête Intégrale sur les Conditions de Vie des ménages (EICV) is conducted every three years. It provides information on changes in the well-being of the population such as poverty, inequality, employment, living conditions, education, health and housing conditions, household consumption, among others.
For the past three years, Rwanda in collaboration with development partners put in place several initiatives to bring down poverty levels in the country.
The government has been scoring high on most of the global development indices. However, President Paul Kagame says he is not satisfied by the work done by government officials to push the country’s development agenda.
For instance, while closing the 13th National Leadership Retreat in 2016, Kagame said his government was operating at 40%.
“What we are achieving does not match our capacity, we are operating at 40% of our ability,” he said then.
In the previous AEICV4, figures indicated some progress in poverty reduction and improvement socio-economic and demographic indicators between 2010 and 2013.
The survey showed that poverty was at 39.1% as of 2013/14, down from 44.9% as was reported in 2010/11. During the same period, extreme poverty dropped from 24.1% to 16.3%.
Stunting was still rampant then. EICV4 in September 2015 indicated that 38% of Rwandan children below five years were stunted.
Three years down the road, the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, local government, other institutions responsible together with country partners have been busy trying to bring down these figures.
Have they succeeded? The report will show.
