Rwanda and the need for Microcredit
Rwanda is emerging from the aftermath of the 1994 mass genocide during which roughly one million of its citizens were slaughtered in a period of only 100 days. The Rwandan genocide was one of the most brutal examples of ethnic extermination in modern times. Entire families were lost and tens of thousands of children were orphaned.
The United Nations considers Rwanda among the twenty-one (21) nations in the world that categorically fall into the “Low Human Development” category in its 2007/2008 Human Development Report. Rwanda, in the lowest category, ranked near the bottom at 161 out of 177 nations. Rwanda’s low ranking was the result of strikingly low life expectancy, adult literacy, primary and secondary school enrolment, GDP per capita, access to clean water, and underweight children.
Despite the genocide fifteen years ago and the low development in the country, Rwanda is a nation of hope. New roads have been constructed across the nation, new universities have opened, the economy has grown, and reconciliation is slowly progressing. Predominantly agrarian, the Rwandan population has limited access to commercial bank loans and services, lacking necessary collateral and being considered generally unbankable by formal banks. Microfinance institutions have begun filling the disparity between the demand for credit and savings and the supply of services.
Commercial banks require high levels of collateral and salary. Since property rights are negligible, the rural poor are not able to access credit since their only asset of any worth are their small farms. Banks will not take farm land as collateral.
Many Rwandans desire access to credit to pull themselves up and work to provide for their families. Microseeds programs in Rwanda do not require collateral in order to access credit. Microseeds fills a critical gap in the financial sector enabling rural and urban poor to access working capital for their small start-up or existing businesses.
Rwanda Facts
Country: Rwanda
Capital: Kigali
Official Language: Kinyarwanda (official) universal Bantu vernacular, French (official), English (official), Kiswahili (Swahili) used in commercial centers
Population: 10,473,282. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa.
GDP per capita (PPP): $900
Labor Force: Agriculture: 90% Industry and Services: 10%
Population Below Poverty Line: 60%
Literacy Rate: 70.4%
Infant Mortality Rate (per 1000): 81.61 deaths
Life Expectancy: 49.76 years
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