ABSTRACT
According to the World Bank, poverty is more than just the amount of money one has. It is a multidimensional issue that concerns one’s level of access to health services, educational opportunities, and quality of life (WB, 2015).
The aim of the study was to examine the paradox of poverty amidst potentially plentiful natural resources of land in Rwanda. This was done by analyzing the relationship between land as a natural resource and poverty levels, assessing the level of poverty, examining people’s perception with regard to poverty, and analyzing the level of poverty amidst potentially plentiful natural resources of land in rural Rwanda. The research was carried out in 20 districts that are considered to have rural characteristics. Questionnaires and document reviews were used to collect the respective datasets and a simple random sampling technique was used to distribute 600 questionnaires. The findings revealed that the attitude of rural people towards land use as a resource is positive. Further, the study findings indicated that though people are willing and able to use land, but nature of the landscape and the problem of land fragmentation has quite often acted as a hindrance to land use, and hence exacerbated poverty. However, the research results revealed that although these people are referred to as poor due to their inability to earn a certain percentage of money as per the World Bank standard, they are able to sustain themselves with all human necessities using the small amount of available land. However, the World Bank does not only look at poverty in terms of money, but also in terms of a basic needs approach which they convert to 1.2 dollars per day.
