Baseline Report of Bridging Digital Divide in Mahama Refugee Camp, Rwanda

This report shares proceedings of baseline commissioned internally for the project entitled “Bridging Digital Divide”. The baseline study was conducted between 7th and 11th August 2023 with aim of gathering baseline data before the project implementation and understanding the extent to which digital businesses would contribute to improve the lives of refugees in Mahama refugee camp. It employed mixed methods of questionnaire to collect quantitative data and semi-structured interviews for quantitative data, in addition to key informant interviews.

Findings revealed that Congolese women and Burundian men are majority of operating entrepreneurs in Mahama refugee camp. It was found that youth invest more in digital businesses than other age brackets among entrepreneurs surveyed. More interestingly, the study indicated that literate entrepreneurs are the majority investing in digital businesses than other entrepreneurs with education background. Worth mentioning, off-farm entrepreneurship looks to be parent-led and especially mother-led businesses in the context of Mahama refugee camp. The baseline showed that over half of refugee entrepreneurs surveyed are from lower livelihood category group, which provides opportunity to graduate them to upper livelihoods level through BDD project. Findings indicated that the vast majority of surveyed entrepreneurs are operating, but generate survival income. Sadly again, Entrepreneurs’ monthly income declined due to huge unpaid domestic careworks in households with children aged under 5 years.

Moreover, it was seen that less than half of entrepreneurs surveyed use internet to learn more about their business and that gender variations predominate the use of digitalization, more especially on non-livelihoods nor education related information searching. The baseline found some great opportunities to further run the project, these include like the vast majority of entrepreneurs have smart phones and can buy data for their phones, digital market is in huge demand in Mahama refugee camp and host communities but, the offer is reportedly poor, youth predominate potential clients of digital market in Mahama refugee camp and host communities.

Based on the above findings, the baseline recommends the BDD project management team to:
a) Ensure gender sensitivity is reflected and applied through digital interventions by tackling unpaid domestic care works, which hamper smooth women in digital business economic empowerment at large;
b) Mobilize project beneficiaries on the use available internet that the project intends to offer to advance and respond to their livelihoods and education outcomes of their children as aligned to the project result chains;
c) Strategize youth in digital business by indicating how best they are impacted through the use of internet by improving their employment, quality of their lives and education outcomes;
d) Target the existing digital entrepreneurs e.g. sellers of electronic devices, agents of MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Money as well as digital item repairers especially new business entrepreneurs, with gender and youth sensitivity, in Mahama refugee camp by coaching and mentoring them as well as building their business capacity and organizing them into business cooperatives to effectively attain the expected results of the project before expand it to other recipients;

e) Empower beneficiaries of the BDD project to learn how to use business revenue by balancing both spending to cater for family needs and to grow their business. This should be included in business training resources which the project will be delivered along the implementation of activities;
f) Develop social impact framework and innovation tracking system of which information and learning should be sensitized to key actors, stakeholders and refugees on occasions of beneficiary meetings, stakeholder consultation workshops, project review and reflection meetings;
g) Establish mechanisms and plan for phone disposal and management of digital waste after a certain number of years in the use of these digital devices in order to keep the environment safe and clean.