The Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ericsson to facilitate the country’s vision of becoming an ICT hub in the region.

Youth and ICT minister Jean Philbert Nsengimana, signed the deal on behalf of the government of Rwanda, with communications giant Ericsson for broadband and internet services.

The MoU was signed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this week.

Nsengimana said that government had in the recent past been investing in this new technology because it believes in the transformative power of technology for development.

"We’ve done a lot in terms of putting in place an environment, policies and institutions that are going to drive that transformation,” he said.

"The country is steadily moving toward its vision of becoming an information-rich and knowledge-based economy and an ICT hub in the region. However, our focus is not just technology, but how it can be used to deliver better services, create jobs and transform society.

This is the focus of the SMART Rwanda Plan,” he added.

Under the deal, the Swedish firm will be tasked with upgrading infrastructure and services in areas such as e-government, healthcare, business and education as well as providing network security for government systems.

The president of Ericsson in Sub Saharan Africa, Fredrik Jejdling, said the project is set to drive ICT development in the country.

Smart Rwanda aims at helping the country achieve its ICT for Development Vision, one village at a time. This is essential to key sectors including education, healthcare, governance, business, agriculture, environment, job creation, infrastructure, and Smart Cities.

Rwanda continues to be one of the fastest growing African countries in ICT and there are several avenues for growth of the sector – from e-commerce and e-services, mobile technologies, applications development and automation to becoming a regional centre for the training of top quality ICT professionals and research.