ICT Sector

The Government of Rwanda (GoR) has placed ICT not only as a central tool for its transformation to facilitate its service delivery across all sectors but also as a driving force to develop a knowledge-based economy by investing in infrastructure and digital services. The ICT Sector has significantly contributed to the country’s GDP by over 4%. Since 2010, JICA has been working hand in hand with the GoR in its effort to create emerging innovation ecosystem in Rwanda. Generating innovation, value-added services and products is vital to achieve Rwanda’s aspiration of becoming a knowledge-based economy.

In 2022 the ministry of ICT and Innovation together with JICA embarked on “Digital and Innovation promotion project” with an overall goal of positioning Rwanda as a leading ICT Hub in Africa through market creation for the innovation model. This project proceeded the “ICT innovation Strengthening Ecosystem project(October 2017 – March 2022) which aimed at systematically enhancing the ICT Innovation ecosystem in Rwanda.

The project will strengthen an entrepreneur supply system by improving a nationwide ICT entrepreneur support environment through ideation/incubation programs in innovation centers located in the secondary cities. It will also strengthen the innovation ecosystem of Rwanda through market creation by implementing proof of concept (PoCs) related to digitizing services with private companies (including alumni of 250 startups) and by promoting its growth and expansion. In addition, it will enhance the capacity for orchestrating ICT related initiatives in Rwanda and establish Rwanda model for market expansion for innovation.

JICA and Rwanda Space Agency (RSA) are implementing the “Project for Human Resource Development in Space Sector”. The Project is about the utilization of space technology to achieve the sustainable development. This will be achieved through the development of human resources who contribute to the development of satellite and promotion of satellite data utilization over the medium to long term, and the enhancement of RSA’s cooperation with relevant organizations (including ministries).
The project will also strengthen education and research capacity of the University of Rwanda in satellite development and the use of geospatial information. In addition, it will be an opportunity to enhance cooperation between RSA and various stakeholders (international organizations, Japanese institutions, others) to expand social economic impact of space technology in Rwanda.