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| Philbert Nsengimana, Youth andICT Minister |
The Ministry of Youth and ICT, also known as MYICT,
says it has developed a strategy that will help track and assess ICT progress
in various institutions, including learning institutions.
The assessment, which will be quarterly, will cover
all the sectors, with the view of measuring how the country performs in the ICT
domain, and what that means in terms of national development.
ICT, as a
cross-cutting enabling tool to socio-economic programmes, is indispensable in
Rwanda's development path, and understanding how the country fairs in this
area, will be key for planning and investment purposes.
In recent years,
Rwanda has made significant strides in ICT, earning herself a place in the
league of countries with strong, dynamic ICT markets.
Initiatives such as
the laying of the all-important fibre optic cable, continued rolling out of the
One Laptop Per Child programme, the Innovation Endowment Fund (designed to
support entrepreneurship development and research in key sectors), and schemes
meant to train a critical mass of specialists in the ICT field, have all helped
make Rwanda a "connected" country.
Most importantly, with the dockets of ICT and Youth
now under the same ministry - and under one roof - the latter will help empower
the young people - the bulk of the country's working class and population -
with the tools they need to respond to the challenge of the times, thus taking
their country to another level.
But all this would
not be possible without updated figures, without a clear understanding of the
progress and challenges in the ICT field.
That's why the
significance of the new programme that will help measure ICT development across
the board cannot be overemphasised.
The New Times of Rwanda