Speech by the H.E. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic Of Rwanda

AT THE OPENING OF THE HIGH-LEVEL EAST AFRICAN BROADBAND WORKSHOP

Kigali, Serena Hotel, May 8, 2007

Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen;

I am delighted to have with us today our colleagues, friends and partners from the United States, high level ministerial delegations from the East African Region, development partners, and members of the business community.

I welcome you all to Kigali and hope that you will have a pleasant stay in Rwanda besides the business at hand.

This is an important meeting in that it allows us to further reflect on the San Francisco ICT meeting, whose objective was to foster sustained investment in Africa's ICT sector.

The principle objective of the present meeting is to provide technical and policy support to assist East Africa develop national and regional broadband interconnectivity for improved reliable and secure connections with global communication systems.

These are vital goals - and I hope this workshop will achieve all its objectives.

Distinguished Participants;

I begin my remarks by acknowledging the encouragement and support by the United States Government with regard to promoting investment in the ICT sector on our continent.

We thank the Unites States Government, furthermore, for hosting the San Francisco and the Washington, DC, ICT meetings in March this year, as well as for the support for this present meeting.

The meeting in San Francisco gave rise to what I may call the San Francisco spirit which, for us, is clearly in line with a development paradigm shift - abandoning a donor-driven development agenda and embracing that of a home-grown and investment-driven approach.

The shift takes seriously the idea that development requires an appropriate domestic policy space in which engagement with the external partners requires just that: partnerships.

Further, it highlights the view shared by all of us: that it is trade and investment that create wealth, and remove handouts. We welcome the fact that under Ambassador David Gross' leadership, the private sector has been identified as the prime mover of the United States' Digital Freedom Initiative, that promotes ICTs in the developing world.

This meeting, therefore, provides an excellent context for nurturing this way forward for us for a number of reasons, including the following:

Firstly, we can say without doubt that the region is committed to promoting ICT as an economic sector in its own right, as well as in utilising it to modernise conventional economic sectors.

That is why we want more investment in this sector, not only as individual countries but as a region. Equally important is the need to go beyond information management into value creation, which has so far been the hallmark of this sector on our continent.

The presence of high level ministerial delegations here is testimony to the fact that this region attaches great importance to ICTs. I trust that the post-San Francisco period has accorded all our countries time to develop stronger strategies of the development of ICT sector, as well as the type and scale of investment required to render this sector more effective. This meeting affords us as a region a chance to reflect on where we are in this common purpose.

Secondly, we must maximise the benefits of holding this meeting here today, and come up with a coherent regional interconnectivity framework which will enable us to draw in consistent investment on a much larger scale than we would achieve as individual countries.

Thirdly, let us always recognise that the importance of ICT is dual, in that it is a creator of wealth in its own right but also a facilitator and an innovative tool of the conventional economic sectors.

For our region to benefit from ICTs, therefore, true regionalism has to take root. In that context, we have to think of the supply side-constraints, especially regional infrastructures, such as roads, rail, air, sea, and endeavour to modernise them alongside ICTs. Only then can we meaningfully engage in the regional and global markets.

If we are not able to do that, there is no doubt that we will remain a poverty-stricken pocket in a vibrant global economy.

This is also true of the modernisation of our agriculture, which is the economic backbone of our countries. If we do not modernise it, streamline it, and render it coherent regionally, chances of raising its productivity for the global market place are minimal.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen;

Present with us at this meeting are key players for creating prosperity. We have policy makers, business people, development partners, and specifically our American colleagues, who are eager to promote American ICT investments on our continent.

The San Francisco meeting was critical for the same reason: it brought together these same players and allowed them to examine where opportunities exist.

This meeting takes that exercise much further, by assisting public and private sectors to dialogue on policy enhancement for regional interconnectivity, and secure connections into global communication systems.

I hope that, at the end of this meeting, an effective implementation strategy will be put in place that assigns clear responsibilities to all the stakeholders. I can assure you that the Government and people of Rwanda will play their part in this regional endeavour.

I have no doubt that our East African partners will equally rise to the task.

It is now my pleasure to declare this High Level East Africa Broadband Workshop open. And I thank you for your attention.