A quantitative analysis of poverty and livelihood profiles: The case of rural Rwanda

The paper applies a quantitative methodology to study poverty and livelihood profiles on the basis of a large set of variables. It takes the context of post-conflict rural Rwanda for a case study. By means of exploratory tools (i.e. principal component and cluster analysis), it combines variables that capture natural, physical, human, financial and social resources together with environmental factors to identify household groups with varying livelihoods. The paper further explores how these clusters differ with regards the incidence of poverty, livelihood strategies and their respective crop preferences. The paper concludes that Rwandan rural policies should adopt distinct and appropriate interventions for impoverished peasant groups, each having their own particular livelihood profiles.