Sound Off: Rwanda Vision 2020-What Lies Ahead

Rwanda is a country that has been on my mind a great deal, these days.... As a matter of fact, my wife and I are planning a trip to Kenya this year and while there, we hope to make it into Kigali (Rwanda's capital). There are just so many fascinating things about Rwanda, these are a few of the things that intrigue me:

• They will soon be joining the East African Community, which is the regional intergovernmental orginazation currently comprised of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

• They have taken a proactive approach to investment promotion-coffee (often through fair trade ventures) and IT have been two of their major focal points.

• They have gotten rid of capital punishment.

• Rwanda's tourism sector is beginning to rebound nicely.
  

• The country's "turnaround" from massive civil strife and turmoil to beacon of hope.

What intrigues me even more than any of points above is their president Paul Kagame. I have heard and read how his greatest mentors and role models are business people. Even how he reminds some more of a very pragmatic business person than a national president. But then again, maybe these two roles share more similiarities than meets the eye. Here's an excerpt from a post on The Next Billion, which to me, reinforces that very thought:

"...Certainly job creation and economic growth is central to raising livelihoods. This given, the mind is once again on the hypothetical; if the goal is job creation, 'What’s the first step?'

In grappling with this question, in 1997 the Rwandan government first set out to detail where they wanted go, then worked backwards to decide how to get there. In consultation with the development community, NGOs, and the private sector, the result of their efforts is Vision 2020. The document rests its development strategy on six 'pillars'; in short, the Nation, the State, the People, Infrastructure, the Private sector, and Agriculture.

(For another take on Vision 2020, check out Worldchanging, where editor Alex Steffen weighs in on the program as a test case for leapfrogging.)

What impresses me most about the document is not its MDG-style ambition, but its level of self-awareness. There is an honest discussion of the country's turbulent political, economic, and colonial history. The country not only knows where it wants to go, but even more importantly, it knows where it is, and how it got there; and as such its first steps, and each one there after, should be firmly grounded..."

That was an excellent synopsis by Courtland Walker and for the most part it echoed my thoughts on Vision 2020. This plan, to me, resembles a business plan and if Rwanda is able to continue carrying out the plan over 13 more years, then Rwanda could become a regional leader in several areas.

The main question in my mind, however, is whether or not it will be carried out when Rwanda's next president comes into office. If this were a Western nation or even a huge multi-national corporation business would most likely just continue as usual. But in a developing nation, or in a developing nation in the Great Lakes region of East Africa can we assume the same? I really want to know your thoughts, is this a valid question or am I being a little paranoid? Please sound off below and let us know.


Source:
Rwanda Journal: Vision 2020 | NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise:

Tags: Rwanda, Paul Kagame, Vision 2020, NGO, East Africa, East Africa Community, African coffee, fair trade, Kigali, africa business plan

Read More......

Africa's ICT Leaders: Present and Forecasted

What does an emergent IT sector mean for Africa, some have asked. It may mean the following:

• Increased foreign exchange earnings from other parts of the world outsourcing to Africa.
  
• Reduction in Africa's vulnerability to natural resource price fluctuations.
• Populations could become less reliant upon traditional media for their information needs.
• Producers could broaden market exposure which could grow revenues and employment.
• African countries and organizations could begin to control the PR that they receive.
• More transparency for public, private, and civic organizations.

African Internet Usage from 2000 to 2006-

see table

Judging from the data describing Africa's IT and internet markets, several African nations are poised for tremendous IT growth. For further refererence on this topic you may go to Internet World Stats. In this post we have included data from 9 different African nations.


South Africa, Egypt, Morroco, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda have each made the list for countries to keep on the IT radar for 2007. Each of these countries has a unique set of circumstances and strengths that could help them become IT hubs for their respective African regions.

For the purpose of simplicity let's look at Africa in the basic regions of North, South, East, and West. If we do this; then the countries above that most intrigue me are Nigeria, Egypt, Rwanda, and South Africa.

Here the reasons broken down by country:

Nigeria

• Within just five short years over $5 billion has been invested into Nigeria's ICT sector via foreign direct investment.

• The current administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo has placed a heavy emphasis on being cxertain that Nigeria becomes a major player in the global ICT market.
  
• Over 36m Nigerians own mobile phones.
• Nigeria is West Africa's largest economy, meaning there is still much more room for ICT growth here.
• The telecoms sector projects continued growth of over 4 million new phone lines annually over the next 5 years-this makes Nigeria the fastest growing telecom sector worldwide.
  

Egypt

• The ICT sector has experienced 50% year by year growth since 2000.
• Egypt's ICT sector represents 7% of the GDP or $580m.
• Huge annual talent pool of new graduates
  

Rwanda

• Out of 2, 300 primary schools, 1, 138 have at least one computer each
• 400 secondary schools are fully equiped with 4,000 desktop computers
• These schools are also training 2,000 teachers in basic computing
• Rwanda's government is aggressively pursuing more IT development
• Next, Rwanda aims to have all rural & urban schools "connected"-with solar or electricity.
• All of Rwanda's ministries have been mandated to appoint ICT directors.
• Rwanda is already on it's way to having Africa's largest underground fiber optic network.

South Africa

• Network is 99% digital
• Already a hub for several very large IT multi-national companies-each being worldwide market leaders in their respective fields.
• Electronics revenues in South Africa at growing faster than the GDP growth rate.
• South Africa already ranks 37th worldwide in ICT according to World Economic Forum's Global Information Technology Report.
• Many of South Africa's local ICT companies have expanded into southern, West, and East Africa.

In closing, this was not meant to be all-inclusive, there are many other regional players accross Africa that are also making great strides. However, the countries above were mentioned here primarily because they have continued over a relatively long time span to make significant progress in the IT and technology field. Also, one more time I would like to point out the signifigance of Africa's IT growth in one statement-uplifting the local economies. That could be one reason that there has been so much buzz on this topic lately.

Tags: South Africa, Egypt, Morroco, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Congo, Rwanda, Foreign Exchange, Outsource, BPO, IT, Internet, Fiber Optic

Read More......