Kigali, 14 September 2015
President Kagame today officiated at the launch of the 4th Household Living Conditions Survey, EICV4, which demonstrated impressive progress made in various indicators, including reduction in poverty levels, illiteracy, Agricultural production, among others.
In his address, President Kagame commended the resilience of Rwandans in the last two decades which has resulted in the sustained progress, asking them to stay the course and never take anything for granted.
“We look forward to continuing this journey, in collaboration with all our partners. The progress we continue to make demonstrates that we have what it takes to bring about the transformation of our country and our region. We can’t afford to see a big part of our population stunted when we have the means to prevent it. The only fitting response to remaining challenges is to get back to work and speed up progress towards the Rwanda we want and deserve. Today’s survey results confirm the stories we hear directly from Rwandans of all walks of life around the country.”
President Kagame pointed out that Rwanda learned from implementing the MDGs that governments must take into account the aspirations of citizens and called on Rwandans to be more determined, even if they are to be satisfied.
“My reaction to these statistics is determination, rather than satisfaction. I think it must be the same for all of you. Ten years ago, almost none of the poorest 20% of Rwandans owned a mobile phone. Today one-third of them do. The biggest gains in literacy in last decade among the most disadvantaged shows that the poorest are not being left behind. We have to pay attention to our youth and the opportunity provided by the demographic we have should be realized. Among results that stand out is the rate of enterprise growth in rural areas, which is higher than in towns and cities. Inequality continues to fall reflecting the values of our society and Agricultural production has grown twice as fast as the population.You hear message of hope, not desperation. There are many problems to deal with but there is an opening into the future.”
The UN Resident Representative, Lamin Manneh stressed that even the most unobjective observers would not fail to be impressed by this remarkable progress that Rwanda continues to make.