The National Union of Disability Organizations in Rwanda (NUDOR) has supported a suggestion by its members, urging designers of major projects to consider quotas for employing people with disabilities.
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This reaction follows comments made by the Association of Deaf People regarding major road construction projects that are set to begin in Kigali.
The Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA) launched a $100 million (Rwf140bn) project on March 24, which is expected to not only transform the face of Kigali but also significantly ease traffic flow along the city's major roads.
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The project, which will be implemented in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB), will begin with the improvement of three critical road junctions: Chez Lando, Gishushu, and Kicukiro/Sonatubes.
The initiative is expected to create approximately 400 temporary jobs during the construction phase, with 30% of these opportunities designated for women.
While the project also includes plans to improve the movement of persons with disabilities on the roads, no specific jobs have been announced for people with disabilities.
"10% of people employed [by projects] should be people with disabilities. We have deaf men who are experts in house and road construction," stated the Association of Deaf People.
"We have many people with disabilities who can perform both physical work and work requiring intellectual capacity," said Beth Mukarwego, the chairperson of NUDOR.
"You might be deaf or blind, but your arms work very well. This means even road projects should employ such people. We have engineers with disabilities, but when they seek jobs, they are not considered. They need to be included."
According to Franklin Murangira Gakuba, the country representative for VSO Rwanda, a branch of the British NGO Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), there is a need for a scheme to deploy the intersectionality tool, a lens to help think about how different people in the disabled community experience disability discrimination differently.
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"Intersectionality looks at how different aspects of a person's identity, such as disability and social status, overlap and contribute to unique vulnerabilities," said Gakuba.
"The intersectionality tools help ensure that policies and programmes consider all of these intersecting issues. This approach encourages the creation of policies that are more inclusive and sensitive to the varied needs of individuals," he said.
He noted that the intersectionality tool could be applied to other sectors, such as employment, to identify how the labor market and job opportunities can better support people with disabilities.
"By using this tool, organizations can assess and address the barriers to employment for people with disabilities, creating more inclusive solutions," he explained.
Unemployment status among people with disabilities
According to the Labour Force Survey 2024 by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), the unemployment rate among persons with disabilities in 2024 was 14.9%.
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The unemployment rate was higher among persons with difficulty in washing all over and dressing (56.2 per cent), and the labor force participation rate was lowest among persons with difficulty in washing all over and dressing (5.4 per cent).
The analysis of employment status among the working-age population with disabilities by type of disability in 2024 indicates that the employment-to-population ratio was highest among persons with hearing impairment (27.7 per cent) and lowest among persons with difficulty in washing all over and dressing (2.4 per cent).
About 22.6 per cent of the working-age persons with disabilities were engaged in paid work or profit in 2024. This ratio increased by 6.1 percentage points compared to 2023. The corresponding rate for the working-age population at large was 54.5 per cent among persons without disabilities.
