Rwanda

Mr. Chairman, 
Excellency, Ministers and Heads of Delegation, ITU Secretary-General and other Elected Officials, 
Distinguished delegates, good afternoon ! 

Allow me to begin by expressing our gratitude to the Government and people of Romania for the warm reception and excellent hospitality. We all feel at home!! 

Yesterday, at Rwanda’s reception, I shared the ethos that have guided Rwanda’s progress and concrete examples of our digital transformation programs that reflect those values. I hope you all remember. In case, you don’t intend to I use them again today: THINKING BIG, STAYING TOGETHER; ACCOUNTABILITY. 

Today, anchoring around the three same fundamental choices we have made as country, I will share what our priorities are as we seek to LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND. 

THINKING BIG guides out commitment to: 

• Double broadband usage statistics to 70% of the population 
• Develop Fit-for-purpose licensing and regulatory framework that enable innovation in the Telecommunication industry 
• Expand fixed broadband access to 1.8 million households through various innovative deployment models. 
• Under GIGA, we will ensure all schools (over 4000) in Rwanda are connected to high-speed, reliable and affordable connectivity solutions by 2024. 
• Drive smartphone or smart devices ownerships to 90% of the population by 2027. 
• Ensure 60% digital literacy for the adult population and 100% Youth digital literacy. 

STAYING TOGETHER: Partnerships are what have brought us this far. What has brought us together, as the ITU family, is a shared interest and commitment towards developing the digital economy, that benefits all of humanity. The COVID-19 crisis not only accelerated digital transformation but also ignited disruption in all aspects of our lives. We witnessed tremendous challenges and opportunities across every industry. 

To this end, we commit to: 

• Leverage Rwanda’s position as a leading test-bed for new technologies and innovation to share lessons learnt. 
• Empower startups, local content creators through a mix of entrepreneurship and innovation 
• support programs that allow them deploy and scale their solutions. 
• Rwanda has benefited from the visionary leadership of our President, HE Paul Kagame, who not only has driven the digital transformation of our country but together with other visionary Heads of State and Government across the continent, established Smart Africa initiative, with the objective of building a single African digital market. 
• HE President Paul Kagame highlighted the importance of the 4^th Industrial revolution. I quote: » If we can use this time together to look for ways to harness the Fourth Industrial Revolution for everyone’s benefit, based on the inherent dignity and value of each person, then we will really have accomplished something useful.» End of quote. 

ACCOUNTABILITY: 

The WTDC held in Kigali this June was a landmark event aimed at highlighting the urgent need to bring affordable, and meaningful connectivity to the estimated 2.9 billion people around the world who are not connected to the Internet. 

Through the Partner to Connect initiative, launched at WTDC, an estimated USD 27 billion pledges were made and more continue to come in. These can’t remain as pledges, they need to be honored for us to collectively the billions of people that remain unconnected. 

We can’t afford to connect the remaining 2.7Bn, at the pace we did last year moving from 2.9bn. We need to more than double down our individual and collective efforts. 

Let me conclude by reiterating the candidature of Rwanda to the ITU Council and request for your votes for Rwanda to be re-elected to ITU Council elections on Monday. 

I thank you all for your kind attention. 

Mulțumesc!