Rwanda’s National Broadband Policy and Strategy

The National Broadband Policy and Strategy outlines the vision for Rwanda in 2050, emphasising economic growth, prosperity, and an improved quality of life. The digital transformation is a crucial driver towards these goals, focusing on high-quality broadband access. The vision includes milestones such as achieving upper-middle-income status by 2035 and high-income status by 2050. The strategic direction builds on previous policies and plans, such as the Smart Rwanda Master Plan, National Broadband Policy, National Digital Talent Policy, National Cyber Security Policy, National Strategy for Transformation, and the ICT sector Strategic Plan. Notable achievements from these policies include operationalising the universal access fund, national fibre backbone deployment, international connectivity redundancy, and widespread broadband coverage. Despite broadband availability to most citizens, challenges like customer experience quality and relatively high prices have limited adoption to approximately 30 percent. The introduction underscores the importance of the new Broadband Policy in expanding availability and enhancing affordability and adoption to position Rwanda as a leading knowledge economy in Africa.