ICT4D, A Driver of Socio- Economic Development in Rwanda: Situation 2000-2015 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Impact of ICT on Employment in Rwanda
Rwanda is a stable macroeconomic performer in Africa with economic growth expanded on 7.60 in first quarter of 2015. The contribution of ICT for the achievement is paramount as stipulated in pillar of EDPRS2 to achieve 2020 vision. Rwanda continues to be one of the fastest growing African countries in ICT, from e-com¬merce and e-services, mobile technologies, ap¬plications development and automation to be¬coming a regional center for the training of top quality ICT professionals and researchers. This study intended to determine the impact of ICT on Employment in Rwanda with specific objectives of determining impact of ICT on youth employment and employment promotion in Rwanda. The study employed time series data spanning from 1985 to 2014, measuring the ICT facilities by mobile cellular subscriptions and the number of internet penetration. The empirical test showed effect that mobile subscriptions have on youth employment and on employment promotion in Rwanda. The empirical test also showed the impact of internet penetration on both youth employment and employment promotion in Rwanda. To increase the employability of young generation and rate of employment creation in Rwanda, basing on findings the study recommends that government should create attractive environment for foreign direct investment in ICTs infrastructures. More efforts are needed to promote the access of young people to ICTs facilities especially in rural areas and the government should coordinate more effort and enhance innovations and research in ICTs from High Learning Institutions (HLI) and IPRCs that can contribute to services and agriculture sectors.
The study aimed at investigating the contribution of ICTs on socio-economic Development in MUKURA and NGOMA Sectors. The research questions included: What are the perceptions of ordinary citizens regarding ICTs and their use? How do ordinary citizens benefit from the use and development of ICT? And how does ICT use contribute to the increase in household income? While the objectives of the study were: To find out the perceptions of people on ICT use and its contribution on people's standard of living in their respective areas and to evaluate the level of ICT use in the two sectors of MUKURA and TUMBA. Theoretically, the study focused on the Social Development theory which entails a set of social changes resulting from the convergence of computers and communication technologies, their assimilation in the society and their use for communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing. Economic Development theory advocates for the increase in economic wealth and wellbeing of individuals. The theoretical framework also looked at ICT4D as the relationship between ICTs and Development.
The effect of ICT on GDP per capital in Rwanda
The effect of ICT on GDP per capital in Rwanda, 2023
Although a quite number of studies have been conducted to understand the impact of Information Communication Technology (ICT) on a country's economic output; a complete effect of ICT to GDP per capital has yet to be visualized, especially on individual country. This study aims to investigate this topic, by exploring to what extent ICT has an impact (causal relationship) on real GDP per capital in Rwanda for the period of 20 years (200-2020). In this study, the ICT is defined as internet penetration (narrow and broadband and mobile and fixed), mobile phone subscription per 100 people. Researchers revealed that the use of high technology products is a gateway for successful economic transition, because these tools can function as significant productive and economic forces. Technological development is commonly known as the main driver behind employment and economic growth. Increased innovations for information and communication technologies (ICTs) have, in particular, been discussed to be the primary transformer for economic processes as production and trade during recent decades (World Bank, 2017a)
The study aimed at investigating the contribution of ICTs on socio-economic Development in MUKURA and NGOMA Sectors. The research questions included: What are the perceptions of ordinary citizens regarding ICTs and their use? How do ordinary citizens benefit from the use and development of ICT? And how does ICT use contribute to the increase in household income? While the objectives of the study were: To find out the perceptions of people on ICT use and its contribution on people’s standard of living in their respective areas and to evaluate the level of ICT use in the two sectors of MUKURA and TUMBA. Theoretically, the study focused on the Social Development theory which entails a set of social changes resulting from the convergence of computers and communication technologies, their assimilation in the society and their use for communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing. Economic Development theory advocates for the increase in economic wealth and well-being of individuals. The theoretical framework also looked at ICT4D as the relationship between ICTs and Development. The study employed qualitative design which was used to collect primary data from the respondents and documentation was used to cover the secondary data that was not covered by views of the respondents. Questionnaire, interview and observation were major tools that were applied to collect data. Qualitative analysis was applied to reveal major findings. Respondents under the study were ICT users and non users from both MUKURA and TUMBA Sectors. In MUKURA, the sample was 65 to represent 21.191 and 85 in TUMBA to represent 31.909. The findings revealed that, ICTs have contributed much in reducing transport costs, accessing health services, education, participating in governance and quick service delivery, employment, information sharing and agricultural skills. Findings also revealed that 100% of respondents were knowledgeable about ICTs especially mobile phones usage. The findings further revealed that the number of people accessing ICTs in TUMBA is higher than in MUKURA Sector. Results also showed that despite numerous challenges such as unavailability of electricity, lack of requisite knowledge to use some ICT tools and above all poverty, ICTs played a transformative role in standard of living of people under the study. Because within ICT for Development field, ICT and Development have been disconnected, the study contributes in exploring the linkage between ICTs and intended Development outcomes.
The Role of E-commerce in Agriculture Digitization Promoting Rural Development in Rwanda
This paper sought to analyze pros and cons of the current e-commerce and agriculture digitization in Rwanda and how rural development benefits from them. Since the country emerge in social and economic transformation, ICT has been a prominent tool to inject a rapid Economic growth among Rwanda’s citizens. Agriculture digitization has been successfully implemented, different national and international organization sponsored this ultimate initiative, Rwanda become one of the fewest African country with an electronic world trade platform in Africa. Though a promising progress is noticeable, the researcher found some barrier towards a successful migration from a longstanding model towards an advanced and ultramodern agriculture’s e-commerce and digitization platform.
Global diffusion of the Internet : the Internet in Rwanda : building the information society
The African journal of information and communication, 2013
The article uses the Global Diffusion of the Internet (GDI) framework to examine Internet diffusion in Rwanda along six dimensions: pervasiveness, geographical dispersion, sectoral absorption, connectivity infrastructure, organisational infrastructure, and sophistication of use. Internet access was launched in 1996, but it was only in 2004 that significant Internet penetration occurred, when the privatisation of Rwandatel to Terracom brought in new investments and technology and the ISP market was opened to competition. Access to the Internet grew to approximately 24% of the population in 2012 or 2.7 million subscribers. Internet growth is hampered by factors which include poor resource mobilisation, unrealistic implementation plans, shortage of qualified human resources, a miniscule private sector, low level of private sector involvement and low Internet usage awareness. Despite these challenges, Rwanda has attained Level 4 (pervasive) for pervasiveness, Level 3 (broad) for connectivity infrastructure, Level 2 (controlled) for organisational infrastructure, Level 3 (highly dispersed) for geographic dispersion, Level 3 (common) for sectoral absorption and Level 3 (transforming) for sophistication of use. This limited progress is due partly to the policy focus on addressing Internet access (Vision 2020), and financial support from multilateral and bilateral agencies. Further policy and regulatory action and heightened awareness of the Internet are required to translate the statistics for GDI into greater access.
European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2016
With the development of technology in the 21 st Century, education systems attempt to integrate technology-based tools to improve experiences in pedagogy and administration. It is becoming increasingly prominent to build human and ICT infrastructure capacities at universities from policy to implementation level. Using a critical discourse analysis, this study investigates the articulation of ICT capacity building strategies from both national and institutional ICT policies in Rwanda, focusing on the higher education. Eleven policy documents were collected and deeply analyzed to understand which claims of ICT capacity building are made. The analysis shows that strategies for building ICT capacities are evidently observed from national level policies and only in two institutional policies (KIST and NUR). Among 25 components of ICT capacity building used, the ones related to human capacity are not plainly described. Additionally, neither national nor institutional policy documents include the creation of financial schemes for students to acquire ICT tools whilst learners are key stakeholders. Although there is some translation of ICT capacity building strategies from national to some institutional policies, planning for motivation and provision of incentives to innovators is not stated in any of the institutional policies and this is a key to effective technology integration.