The Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) plans to put in place a stronger and more equipped cyber department that would focus on protecting national Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure.

This was disclosed on Tuesday by James Kabarebe, the Minister for Defence, while presenting the ministerial budget framework paper to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Budget and Patrimony.

"It’s important that the ICT infrastructure gets protected. Every national sector uses ICT, you, therefore, need to protect the infrastructure, and so the cyber Unit will do precisely that,” he explained.

A cyber Unit has been in existence, but the minister said they seek to give it the required capacity and build it progressively to effectively carry out its mission.

"We have trained personnel, and we are in the process of acquiring the necessary equipment to make the unit work effectively,” Kabarebe added.

The cyber unit has been allocated Rwf 1.1 billion from the ministry’s budget.

Gender quality in military

Kabarebe further told Parliament that the defence and security sector prefer quality to quantity, when it comes to the mainstreaming of gender policy in the state budget.

"Our policy and preference in military is to focus more on gender quality than gender quantity- by recruiting, capable, skilled, educated females in the military and empowering them in different professions where they would comparatively work better,” said Kabarebe, stressing that females in military perform as good as their male counterparts.

The minister said there were some instances in military where one gender performs better than the other. He singled out a battalion located in Karisimbi mountains and Virunga national parks, that serve to protect and preserve wildlife but also safeguard it from any security threats

He noted that such places suit males mostly, whereas in security Intelligence and cyber security female combatants would work efficiently.

"Our policy is to have many females in areas where they have a comparative advantage, best suitable for them. Cyber unit, for example has many females,” he said.

Kabarebe, however, clarified that the military policy on gender mainstreaming does not contradict national policy, but rather it adjusts to the particularity of military policies.