IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Rwandans and businesses can now easily access government services with fewer struggles thanks to information and communications technology; this is according to Alline Kabbatende, chief operating officer of RwandaOnline Platform Limited.

Kabbatende said this was poised to help the east African country’s move towards a cashless economy and improve how people use government services.

“RwandaOnline has developed an e-government portal for Rwandan citizens and business to access government services,” added Kabbatende.

African nation Rwanda will play host to the 2015 Commonwealth e-Governance Forum Africa, which takes place from 24-25 March.

The forum is organised by Rwanda's Ministry of Youth and ICT (MYICT) and the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO).

The CTO is an international body, which is engaged in multilateral collaboration of ICT and uses its experience and expertise to support its members in integrating ICT to deliver interventions that enrich people within the Commonwealth and beyond.

This landmark development takes place in the lead-up to the GSMA’s annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a key gathering for African stakeholders with over 46 African governments attending last year.

The ICDL programme enables the proficient use of ICT to empower individuals, organisations and society, through the development, promotion and delivery of quality certification programmes.

However, the reason I have been here more often than to any of the larger African nations is that its national strategy has turned it into a center for international conferences, where many of the future goals and perspectives of the continent are hammered out. In that respect, it has something in common with Addis Ababa.

The plan, dubbed "Smart Rwanda Days", is a citizen-centred business-friendly, accessible and sustainable information and service delivery chain, which will be realised through public-private partnership.

To realise Smart Rwanda Days, government, in partnership with the World Bank, yesterday hosted an event to help stakeholders develop a shared vision for the initiative.

Rwanda is set to serve up to five million new internet users by 2020 under a new initiative, “Rwanda Internet for All,” which was initiated through the Ministry of Youth and ICT and the World Economic Forum (WEF) earlier this year.

Speaking during the ‘Rwanda Internet for All Forum,’ Jean-Philbert Nsengimana, the youth and ICT minister, said the initiative is part of the bigger project to create millions of internet users in the Northern Corridor and beyond.

Rwandans are required to log onto an online public platform to apply for an Identity card, driving permit, land title and many more – gradually, the use of papers will become history.

In the next two years, about 5 million Rwandans will have acquired skills to use the internet to help them in their daily activities. The government targets to significantly digitise the population by 2019.

With digital transformation being continuously positioned as a key enabler for the country’s development agenda, is Rwanda ready for the transition? A World Bank study and analysis on the subject shows that there is need to adjust approach in a number of sectors to make the most of the trend.

In an interview with APA on Wednesday, the Mozambican coordinator of the ID card project, Paul Fobes said the project was part of Mozambique’s e-government strategies to enhance the implementation of other strategies in the electronic world.

Internet is a key component in Africa’s economic development but it is not serving to its potential and a lot more has to be done, a new Internet Society Report indicates.

The report, “Promoting the African Internet Economy,” was released last week. It shows that there is need to address the lack of local content infrastructure in African countries, such as data centers, routers, servers in order to drive wider and deeper internet usage.

Airtel Rwanda has launched its three-month promotion to give chances to its clients and agents to win huge amount of money every time they transact on Airtel Money.

The campaign by Airtel Rwanda dubbed 'Bukya Uri Millionaire' is intended to promote cashless economy. Lucky customers of Airtel win cash prizes when they carry out transactions such as sending and receiving money on their phones, paying for water, electricity, school fees, pay for e-government services such as Irembo among others. Airtel customers who transact using their Airtel Money and Tigo Cash accounts will be entered into a lucky draw in which 25 clients will share the daily prize of Rwf 500,000 and the weekly prize of Rwf 2,000,000 and the monthly prize of Rwf 10,000,000 in the cash box machine, as reported by The New Times.

The choice of Kigali as host did not surprise Information Communication Technology (ICT) experts; Mr. Kagame's government takes ICT so seriously that it aims to creating an ICT infrastructure comparable to any in the developed world. The choice was also not surprising since Rwanda hosted the Connect Africa summit in 2007 that championed broadband connectivity for the continent.

“The internet is a needed public utility as much as water and electricity,” declared President Paul Kagame at the Transform Africa summit held in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city, last October to discuss the future of broadband in Africa.

The choice of Kigali as host did not surprise information and communication technology (ICT) experts; Mr Kagame’s government takes ICT so seriously that it aims to create an ICT infrastructure comparable to any in the developed world. The choice was also not surprising since Rwanda hosted the Connect Africa summit in 2007 that championed broadband connectivity for the continent.

Digital innovations for development appear to be the theme of the 2015 Transform Africa event in Rwanda, among them is an online platform created to establish connectivity between Rwanda's government and its citizens for access to government services.

According to the website, Irembo is the "one-stop portal for e-Government services", a platform for the provision of government services online.

"We already are live, we have five government services online and we will be having about 30 services by end of this year," said Clement Uwajeneza, CEO of Rwanda Online Platform Limited.

Key systems used at BNR such as the Rwanda integrated payments processing system (RIPPS), FINA-the system used to collect data from financial institutions and TeamMate, another system which enhances onsite inspection activities and the regional payments and settlement system (REPPS), Bloomberg and Reuters financial news services have all been backed on the system which has reportedly cost the Bank over Frw 300 million.

The telecentre forum intends to give a platform for telecentre practitioners for learning and sharing experience; discuss subjects like sustainability, connectivity and relevant content .More importantly, the forum will offer to the participants a unique occasion to exchange their understanding and views on how to transform Telecentres from a mere ICT access point to community service and knowledge hub.

The agreement was announced on Friday in Brazzaville, after a meeting between Thierry Moungalla and Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Congolese and Rwandan Ministers in charge of ICT respectively.

The Rwandan Minister highlighted the efforts made by his country in the past 15 years to connect to the world through fiber optic technology.

This problem has called for innovative clinical, technical and developmental strategies, which seek to transform the country's economy from agriculturally based to knowledge-based. Such a transformation definitely calls for investment in technology and highly skilled software developers.

Expresso Telecom is working with Rwanda Online to showcase the e-Government service developed for Rwanda to other governments across Central and West Africa as part of its ongoing strategy to provide new services that will help improve the lives of people across Africa. Expresso Telecom has an exclusive agreement to sell “Irembo”. The e-Government platform developed by Rwanda Online is a public/private initiative with the Government of Rwanda.