The Bwera Model and the Problem of Funding

Earlier this week, there was a worker strike at Bwera. The funds that had been raised by the community were running dry. Unfortunately the pledges, which are around $150 USD, are rather costly for the community members at Bwera (Rwanda's GDP per capita is around $632 USD). As a result, it takes time for contributors to honor the full amount of their pledges, and do so in parts. However, this can make it difficult to continue to pay workers in a timely manner.

However, enough money was scrounged up due to a short-term loan, to cover a few days’ worth of wages. This should be enough to pay the workers until the completion of the roof of the church at Bwera. While the strike has been overcome, the funding issue is indicative of a larger problem for the Bwera Model. The funding problem stems from several previous events, where wind and rain caused a portion of the wall to collapse. As a result, construction was delayed several times. This meant that more funds had to be devoted to paying wages. Considering that the success and sustainability of projects like Bwera are propped up by tenuous pillars, it is crucial that issues with funding do not derail these efforts.

When considering the replicability of the Bwera Model, there may be several ways to mitigate the issue of funding. The issue could be ameliorated through a form of either unconditional or conditional cash transfers and to the members of the community to subsidize their contributions to the projects to allow them to contribute to the project in a timelier manner. Additionally, instead of cash transfers, members of the community could receive long-term, interest-free loans so that they can pay off their pledges over a longer period of time without having to worry about project timelines. Instead of focusing on an individual basis, the entire project could also be subsidized. Through either a matching campaign or a set-price subsidy or through a micro-grant process, subsidizing the entire campaign could take a bit of the pressure off the members of the communities while helping ensure that the project reaches completion.

I am personally inclined to favor a matching subsidy, as it still encourages community members to invest in the project. This also has its problems, as it increases the incentive for individuals to defect. This incentive could be counteracted by using the matching subsidy to unilaterally and equally decrease pledge amounts, In order to truly know which methodology would be most effective, tests and experiments would have to be run with a large and diverse sample size that consists of projects across multiple contexts.