Less than 13% of Rwandans will be poor in 2030 - World Bank

This is the popular globally known event ‘Dinner en Blanc’ (White Dinner) that took place last month on a busy road in Kigali for the second year in a row (Courtesy photo)

More than 87 percent of Rwandans will be enjoying a comfortable lifestyle by 2030, as the number of poor people drops faster than in any country in the region, says a World Bank report.

The Bank says that in 17years from now, only 13% of Rwandans will still be poor – down from the current 45%. The data is contained in the global report predicting poverty levels by 2030 across all nations. The report was released October 10.

Rwanda at the moment has slightly above 11m people, and is predicted to be more than 17million by 2030. From this estimate, it means that there will be around 2million people still struggling to make ends meet.

The World Bank report says Kenya will have about 30 percent of its people still in poverty – making Kenya what the media in Nairobi are describing as ‘bedrock of poverty in East Africa’. Tanzania for its part will be 19%, while Uganda will be much lower.

In 2007, Rwanda launched an ambitious five year anti-poverty drive which resulted into uplifting of up to 1.2million from poverty by last year. Earlier this year 2013, Kigali launched the second phase of the same program that it estimated will create more than 200,000 jobs every year.

With a combination of the jobs and other programs, Kigali believes by 2020, individual incomes will have risen to more than US$1,000 – up from the current $680. These incomes mean more people will be having much better living conditions.

Less than 13% of Rwandans will be poor in 2030 - World Bank