The city of Kigali has been growing rapidly.
With an estimated annual growth rate of 4-7%, half of Rwanda’s urban population now resides in Kigali.
Infrastructure and housing development have struggled to keep pace with the city’s rate of growth, and ‘unplanned settlements’ have formed to fill the gap.
According to official statistics, 79% of Kigali’s households live in unplanned areas. To date, information on these residents has been limited.
New policy brief
Laterite worked with the City of Kigali and the International Growth Centre (IGC) to study 1,594 households in Kigali’s unplanned suburbs using both face-to-face and SMS surveys.
This project aimed to overcome the knowledge gap on the socio-economic situation of residents in unplanned settlements to inform future policy decisions.
Laterite’s policy brief summarizes the findings of this study and what they mean for urban policy in Kigali.
This work was carried out in collaboration with the City of Kigali and funded by the IGC. The full report “The dynamics of unplanned settlements in the city of Kigali” is available online.