Digital solutions for sustainable development – the Rwandan Digital Transformation Center
Project description
Title: Digital solutions for sustainable development
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Rwanda
Lead executing agency: Ministry of ICT and Innovation (MINICT)
Overall term: 2021 to 2023
Context
The Rwandan Government wishes to digitalise the country’s economy and society as a means to accelerate development. For several years now, Rwanda has therefore been investing in digital infrastructure, digital skills among the population and digital public services.
A large part of the population nevertheless lacks both direct access and the digital skills required to use the information and services. To implement large IT projects, it will also be necessary to strengthen the responsible public institutions, primarily the Ministry of ICT and Innovation (MINICT) and the Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA).
Objective
Digital transformation in Rwanda generates innovative and sustainable solutions. Partner organisations, the population and the private sector have better digital skills.
Approach
The project supports MINICT and RISA in promoting digital transformation in Rwanda.
At the same time, it enables experts to develop digital solutions to social challenges at the Digital Transformation Center in Kigali, where events and training sessions are also held. As Rwanda has a leading role in the Smart Cities in Africa project at the ‘Smart Africa’ IT alliance, the project is also supporting training courses and the development of digital solutions in connection with this.
The field of machine translation is a further priority. The project provides open language data sets in the national language, Kinyarwanda, and offers training in this area.
A further goal is to ensure that disadvantaged groups such as the rural population, women and people with disabilities can benefit from digitalisation. To this end, the project is supporting the Rwandan Government in developing a strategy for digital inclusion. It also provides training in basic digital skills.
The Digital Transformation Center promotes Rwanda’s digital ecosystem. It addresses the challenges faced by start-ups and provides exchange platforms (‘communities of practice’) for diverse interest groups on selected topics.
Last update: February 2022
