{{The World Bank\u2019s Board of Executive Directors has approved the third in a series of programs for Rwanda that will help accelerate the country\u2019s impressive poverty reduction of recent years. }} <\/p>\n
The US$70 million IDA allocation will be used to expand and strengthen Rwanda\u2019s social protection system, which protects the most vulnerable people against the worst effects of poverty.<\/p>\n
Rwanda has reduced extreme poverty dramatically in recent years, from 40 percent in 2001 to 24 percent in 2011. <\/p>\n
This remarkable success has been achieved with support from the World Bank and other partners, and social protection has been established as a central policy tool for reaching the poor and the vulnerable. <\/p>\n
Rwanda\u2019s flagship social safety net\u2014the Vision 2020 Umurenge program (VUP) consisting primarily of cash transfers and public works employment\u2014now covers close to a million people.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody should benefit equally from Rwanda\u2019s economic growth,\u201d said James Musoni, Rwanda\u2019s Minister of Local Development. \u201cTargeting vulnerable families and persons with disabilities or elderly people makes our growth more inclusive and will help us reach our vision of becoming a middle income country by 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rwanda has already undertaken a number of strong policy actions that have established it as a leader among low-income countries seeking to build a strong base for their social protection systems. <\/p>\n
The new grant will help to strengthen management capacity and monitoring systems, make social protection more responsive to natural disasters, and expand coverage to greater numbers of poor regions and people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has used social protection programs very effectively over the past decade and is now pursuing an even more ambitious goal\u2014to reduce extreme poverty to 9 percent by 2018,\u201d said Carolyn Turk, World Bank Country Manager for Rwanda. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe new grant will strengthen the national social protection system so that it becomes more efficient, reaches more people, and is flexible in times of crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vivienne Nyiramahigura is a 45 years old beneficiary of VUP public work. She is a widow, and heads a household of seven people. She lives with her 70 year old mother. <\/p>\n
Her earnings have helped her to feed her family, pay for their health insurance as well as school fees and scholastic material for her son.<\/p>\n
Vivienne says that before VUP: \u201cthere was nowhere I expected to get that amount of money. We could not afford to pay for such things\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite Rwanda\u2019s remarkable progress and strong economic growth, many families are still poor, live in rural areas, and are vulnerable to climate-related disasters,\u201d said Laura Rawlings, World Bank task team leader for the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cRegular cash transfers or income from temporary jobs in public works projects such as terracing the land helps poor families to buy food and keep children in school even during hard times, giving this generation and the next a chance to prosper as the Rwandan economy develops.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{The World Bank\u2019s Board of Executive Directors has approved the third in a series of programs for Rwanda that will help accelerate the country\u2019s impressive poverty reduction of recent years. }} The US$70 million IDA allocation will be used to expand and strengthen Rwanda\u2019s social protection system, which protects the most vulnerable people against the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-13157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050953,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13157.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13157.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13157.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13157.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13157.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13157.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13157"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=13157"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=13157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}