Kigali - 100 Resilient Cities

Kigali’s Resilience Story

Once the site of devastating sectarian violence, Kigali, Rwanda, has made significant strides in the past two decades. The national economy has continued to grow, as has the population of Kigali, the capital city. However, infrastructure development has not kept pace in areas such as sanitation, energy and roads, increasing the risk of epidemic disease, energy shortages, and economic turmoil. Periodic flooding continues to pose a threat to public health, businesses, and agriculture. In response, the city has begun providing civic education about disaster management.

Overpopulation in some areas has led to informal settlements that significantly tax infrastructure. However, a 2012 study on affordable housing led to ongoing projects to increase Kigali’s housing stock. Additionally, the city has been budgeting more resources for road construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance.

SHOCKS AND STRESSES

Aging Infrastructure
Energy Insecurity
Environmental Degradation
Infrastructure Failure
Lack of Affordable Housing
Landslide
Rainfall Flooding

Meet The Chief Resilience Officer

Mr. Japheth Habinshuti brings to the CRO position a deep knowledge of land use and urban resilience planning, resource mobilization and business development, and development-oriented research. He previously served as a senior infrastructure development planner for African Innovators for Smart Civil Engineering Services – AFRISCES Ltd., a local consulting firm focusing on urban physical infrastructure design in Kigali City.

He also served at UNESCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo as an international consultant between 2016 and 2017. On top of coordinating and raising the visibility of natural sciences program, Habinshuti contributed to the elaboration of UNESCO country strategy in the DRC for the period of 2018-2021. His work also touched on building diversified and climate-resilient livelihoods for households in and adjacent to Biosphere Reserves (BRs) in the DRC, as well as strengthening institutional capacity for governance and management of those BRs.

Additionally, Mr. Habinshuti holds almost four years of experience at the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority as a land use monitoring and evaluation professional. While in this position, he made significant contribution to improving land-use planning and management through monitoring land use practices in the whole country and building technical capacity of districts land bureaus in regard to elaborating their district land use plans.

Mr. Habinshuti holds a joint Master of Science degree in Regional Development Planning and Management from the Technical University of Dortmund (Germany) and the Austral University of Chile (Chile), as well as a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Environmental Technology from the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (now the University of Rwanda’s College of Science and Technology). He has served as a member of the Rwanda Urban Planning Institute since 2018.