Last week, Rwanda hosted International Telecommunication Union (ITU) secretary-general Zhao Houlin for three days where he toured ICT facilities in the country and took time to assess an overview of the National ICT Plan as well as give input on how to further develop the sector. Among the facilities he toured were Carnegie Mellon University Rwanda-campus, K-Lab innovation centre, 4G innovation centre and the Computer Security Incident Response Team offices as well as the University of Rwanda, College of Science and Technology. Before his departure, he briefed the media on his observations about the ICT status and also gave a few recommendations for continued progress. The New Times’ Collins Mwai put together some of his interactions with the media and below are the excerpts;-

You had a chance to visit the country’s ICT projects as well as training facilities, what do you make of the country’s status and its goals in the near future?

I found out that in Rwanda, ICT contributes about 3 per cent of GDP, which is a very big achievement. Rwanda doesn’t have much resources, but you have very good human resource capacity and are working on being better going by what I see in the universities and the emerging entrepreneurs.

By making ICT a big pillar of economic development and a contributor to GDP, Rwanda has made the right choices and has a lot of potential. It is a move that should be replicated by other African countries with similar ambitions.

The move will enable the development of the private sector in ICT as well as attract international players and investors.

The country has also shown a lot of commitment to ICT and ITU by the involvement in recent years. The President has put a lot of dedication towards the promotion of ICT all across the continent.

3G and 4G technologies have provoked debate as they continued to be rolled out in the country. The contentious issues are mostly around cost and value for money. Is it an issue that you have spotted in other parts of the world?

When talking about 3G and 4G technologies, there have been a lot of reactions from operators and their clients.

There has been some kind of debate around the technologies as some operators might say that they have not yet fully received the return on their investments.

In the various places I have been visiting, there have been different reactions about the technologies. So it is quite normal to have different reactions during the uptake of the technologies from clients and operators. Some say it is expensive, while others say that the market has been slow to adopt it, but bottom line is that 4G is our next step in the future for our people to enjoy fully the benefits of modern technology.

As more people get onto the technology, there will be a consensus between clients and operators.

On the first day of your tour in Rwanda, you talked about the need to have a common platform for SMEs from all over the world to network. How do you think this will change SMEs’ impact to technology and economies?

SMEs have had a huge role in developing and developed economies mostly for modern innovations that have shaped today’s markets and economies saying their ideas and knowledge of local market dynamics would further develop economies.

ITU would like to create some kind of platform to help SMEs to have better chances of networking to create more partnerships and to share their experiences to facilitate their growth.

I am working with many ministers of ICT from all across the world and I also talked to President Paul Kagame about the same and he fully supported the initiative.

I recently shared the same with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and he also pledged to support the initiative. We hope that local SMEs in ICT will benefit from the platform by sharing their lessons, experiences and expand their markets.

In the last Transform Africa Summit held in Kigali in 2013, the smart Africa Manifesto was launched as a platform to shape the future of ICT for Africa’s development, is ITU considering supporting the initiative in any way?

Smart Africa initiative, which was launched by a group of African countries in the last Transform Africa Summit, has gained a lot of momentum in the previous year and attracted numerous partners.

It presents another opportunity for African nations to develop their own path towards ICT development. It is encouraging and positive to see Africa’s leaders support the initiative as they have in several ways.

In future, we hope to attract the private sector in the continent to also support the initiative since it is currently largely driven by governments. Private public partnerships will raise more resources and contribute more to the continent’s development.

Lately, the subject of cyber security has taken precedence all across the world with numerous concerns being raised from sensitive content to hacking and online theft. In its various dimensions, the issue seems non-discriminatory in terms of its effects to the world’s population. Is it a priority for ITU and what ways would you recommend to tackle the vice?

The topic of cyber security has been among our agenda for a long time – about three decades – even before it gained interest as it has across the world lately.

Recently, while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, I made it known that the issues around cyber security were not new as most people would think.

They have been around and will continue being for a while. It is positive to see that the whole world is recognising the threats and challenges that come with internet development and are now seeking ways to address them.

As ITU, we have been trying to reach out to our different partners to find a common way regarding this issue.

It is important to work closely as the issues around cyber security keep changing and increasing every day. An example is that the issues and threats that we had 15 years ago are not the same issues that we have now.

We have to bring together governments and the private sector to agree on basic principles that we can all agree on.

The challenge is that what is considered by some as a threat or criminal action is a non-issues to others. That makes it very hard to have a common agreement and principles that will govern the internet community.

What we have done about this is by starting by introducing policies that will be agreed on by everybody such as protection of children and minors from content such as pornography, it is in everybody’s best interest to do this. We will continue using the approach as well as pushing for more agreements and common points that will protect our values.

During your stay, there must have been a few things that you noted that ought to be corrected or improved, would you mind sharing?

During my stay, I observed that Wi-Fi connection was not very reliable in most places I visited including the hotel I stayed. In my conversations with various leaders and people I also learnt that internet access was still a challenge in most schools.

Addressing some of these challenges will increase the country’s chances of developing through ICT and improving the lives of people in the country.

It will ensure that there is optimum use of the optic fibre that the country has invested in installing. In future it will also be good to see building constructors install optic fibre cables in all apartments so that more people can have access to affordable internet from their homes.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw