Urban poor families access to assets and implication on household’s food security, the situation of low-income households in City of Kigali, Rwanda

Abstract

In 2015, poorer households owning fewer assets and with more unstable sources of income were more likely to have experienced food shortages and shocks (NISR, 2015) and Bashir et al. (2012) state that households with ownership to land and livestock to be associated with less food insecurity levels. This paper aimed to analyze how access to assets, access to finance and level of education for the head of household in low-income households in City of Kigali influence household's level of food security. Our research has focused on how the three key factors; i) Household owned assets (Land, shelter), ii) Employment/occupation status of the head of the household (Employed: full time, part time, casual labor, Unemployed, doing skilled labor or non-skilled labor) and iii) Household access to financial services (loans), influence livelihoods for the low-income households in City of Kigali. The research has revealed that majority of low income HHs, 76.7% do not have access to assets like land an houses, 5% have confirmed to own houses while 8% own land, majority (89.7%) of the heads of low-income households earns daily wages and only 10.3% earn monthly salaries. Only 29.5% of the heads of households have confirmed that their salaries/wages are regular while 70.5% said that it they are irregular. The results from the Multiple Linear Regression Model has revealed that there is no statistical significant relationship between the three variables with the low-income household's food security in City of Kigali, meaning that food security for the income families in City of Kigali does not depend with the formal employment of the head of household, access to finance from formal Financial Service Providers, nor it does not depend on household owned assets (land and house). Index Terms-Urban poor families, access to assets, food security and low-income household.