A capability analysis of Rwandan development policy: calling into question human development indicators

This article provides a capability analysis of Rwandan development policy. It is motivated by impressive progress on human development indicators in combination with highly centralised policymaking, giving ambiguous signs regarding a capability approach. It is based on extensive original empirical material, along with large numbers of official documents and academic sources. The analysis is structured around three issues that concern the relation between individual agency and government policy, and that are debated among capability scholars as well as in relation to Rwandan development policy: participation, transformation and paternalism. The finding that Rwandan development policy reflects an approach very different from a capability approach is not surprising, but establishes that the assumed link between human development indicators and the capability approach needs to be questioned. This brings our attention to shortcomings in any quantitative measurements of development, or in the use of and importance attached to them, as well as to the problem of assuming that certain outputs go hand in hand with certain processes. While this is valid for contexts far beyond Rwanda, it also sheds light specifically on the polarisation that exists in the scholarly debate on Rwanda.