Policy Statement
Rwanda

Your Excellency, Chairman of The Plenipotentiary Conference
Excellencies Ministers, Head of Delegation
Secretary – General of ITU, Dr. Hamadoun Touré
Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of the Government of Rwanda, we would like to first of all express our sincere thanks to the Government of Mexico and the International Telecommunication Union, for organizing this 10th Plenipotentiary Conference which, indeed, represents a solid platform for constructive discussions, with a common vision of fostering global development of inclusive Information and Communications Technologies.

The Government of Rwanda has adopted ICTs as one of the key pillars of our socioeconomic development policy, with the objective of disseminating access to communications services and broadband for all. Our policy encourages synergies between both public and private sectors that resulted into significant consolidation of Rwanda ICT infrastructures initiatives.

Rwanda ICT agenda and policies put a strong emphasis on integration of ICT infrastructures and regional interconnection as a way to facilitate trade through reduction of transactions costs, increasing business competiveness while promoting global exchange of knowledge and culture. The government of Rwanda also stresses on the fact that the real transformational power of Information Technologies resides in our ability to mainstream access digital contents which address the specific needs of citizens. To this end, we need to foster innovation in the interesting area of digital contents and mobile applications development. In Rwanda, we are witnessing how mobile-phone-based ICT programs are improving service delivery in the health, agriculture and microfinance sectors, in line with the achievement of the millennium development goals.

We fully support the development and efficient utilization of both existing as well as emerging Information Technologies (such as Next generation Networks, Cloud Computing, and IPv6) which allow efficient access and use of internet and other multimedia platforms, accelerate good governance and business development. Of course, this requires concerted efforts to address the critical issue of information security and protection of consumer data integrity and privacy.

Furthermore, Rwanda strongly believes in the crucial importance of global synergies between nations to fully exploit the potential and opportunities brought about by Information Technologies. This justifies why we value our excellent partnership with ITU under the visionary leadership of the Secretary General Dr. Hamadoun Touré whom Rwanda Government and its people are proud of his achievement and will continue to support, through initiatives such as the Connect Africa Summit held in 2007 in Rwanda and the recent Broadband Commission for Digital Development co-chaired by H.E. the President of Rwanda.

It is in the same spirit that Rwanda would like to be a full member of the ITU Council in order to further contribute towards the achievement our global ICT agenda. We therefore call for your support and vote for Rwanda during the forthcoming elections of the ITU Council. We thank you for your kind attention.