Small towns and rural growth centers as strategic spaces of control in Rwanda’s post-conflict trajectory

Since the 1994 genocide, the government’s vigorous pursuit of security, development and poverty alleviation has been translated into its strategy for urban development. With urban population growth rates rocketing in the period following the genocide with the return of both new and old caseload refugees, urban security became a critical focal point for the new government, which takes an active role in the planning and managing its urban trajectory to bring about secure and orderly development. Whereas the growth of Kigali has often been studied as a critical site in the context of post-conflict reconstruction and securitization, the dynamics at play in small towns and urbanizing centers have been less in the picture. This paper focuses on the role of small towns and emerging urban centers in the debate on the politics of urbanization in post-conflict settings. It investigates the significance of rapidly growing small towns for development in the post-conflict context of Rwandan society by analysing two cases of emerging urban centers. Presenting small towns and rural growth centers as strategic spaces of control, the paper argues that the process of rural urbanization in Rwanda can be understood as a potentially contested arena of change.