President Paul Kagame has said that Africa’s growing commitment to leverage information and communication technologies for transformation and growth ought to be matched by wins and gains for citizens.

President Kagame was speaking while chairing the Smart Africa board meeting in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, on the margins of the African Union Summit.

Kagame said that the continent’s growing promise to capitalise on the potential of ICT should be reflected in gains for citizens.

"This growing commitment to leverage ICT for transformation and growth has to be matched for wins to our citizens,” he said.

With the world fast embracing the fourth industrial revolution, Kagame said, Africa’s challenge is to catch up in providing universal broadband.

"To succeed in making African homes, offices, schools and cities smart, we have to harness opportunities in exponential technologies. These technologies include artificial intelligence, robotics, drones, big data, block chain, and 3D printing,” he said.

Yesterday’s meeting marked the first anniversary of the Smart Africa Secretariat, which has its headquarters in Kigali. The Smart Africa Alliance has grown over time from seven members during inception in 2013 to 17 countries representing a market of about 360 million people.

Seven additional countries are expected to join the alliance before the end of March.

The President extended his gratitude to countries and partners who have supported the secretariat and scholarship funding.

The board meeting was attended by the International Telecommunications Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. Also present were member countries as well as representatives of multinationals that are part of the alliance.

Among the firms represented at the meeting were Ericsson, Liquid Telecom, Inmarsat and Huawei.

Six countries have since joined the alliance since January 2016, bringing the total number of partner states to 17 countries. The latest entrants are Benin, Djibouti, Egypt, Guinea, Niger and Togo.

Private sector players have also joined the alliance, bringing on board technical expertise and funding.

A total of $1,579,873 has so far been raised to support the secretariat, of which $0.8m is a contribution from the Government of Rwanda, while the private sector contributions in membership fees amount to $779,873.

Alliance toward Africa’s growth

The alliance and secretariat have overseen multiple initiatives such as a scholarship fund which has raised over $1.1m in contributions from Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali, Rwanda, South Sudan and ITU.

The alliance has also facilitated the signing of a memorandum of understanding with two regional centres of excellence; Carnegie Mellon University in Rwanda and Ecole Supérieure Multi-nationale des Télecommunications in Senegal, to increase the pool of human resources in the region.

Select members under the alliance in 2014 introduced a One Network Area to harmonise tariffs on mobile voice calls and text messages within some member countries.

The initiative now has five member countries; Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya and Gabon, and is set to be replicated in the West African region between Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Mali effective March 31.

Previously, making calls between member countries was often more expensive than calling Europe, America or Asia despite the geographical proximity.

The Smart Africa alliance is part of an initiative, ‘Internet for All’ which is in partnership with the World Economic Forum aiming at connecting over 25 million new internet users in East Africa by 2019.

President Kagame also extended an invitation to Board members to the Transform Africa conference scheduled for May in Kigali.

The conference will focus on smart cities and will, among others, convene mayors and city leaders to deliberate on how cities can embrace ICT to improve efficiency.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw