In recent years, Rwanda has implemented numerous reforms to advance economic competitiveness. One of the strategies it employed to achieve this feat is the provision of quality services and customer care in the public and private sectors.  

The Rwandan government will digitize more than 400 additional administrative procedures by June 2024. The plan was announced by ICT Minister Paula Ingabire, during a session on ICT development with the Senate on Thursday, June 1.

The new administrative procedures will be added to the 103 services already digitized and available on the Irembo portal set up by the government for this purpose. According to Minister Ingabire, the next stage of digitization will be transformational. It will involve digitizing all remaining services, "enabling time efficiency and removing unnecessary costs and processes that come with paperwork or transport as citizens make trips to different government offices.”  

To achieve this goal, Rwanda will be supported by a range of partners, including the French Development Agency (AFD), which granted a €37 million loan to support the digitization of public services and innovation in the country earlier this year. 

According to Irembo CEO Israel Bimpe, the launch of the Irembo public services platform in December 2015 has enabled the processing of more than 25 million service requests to date. This has saved over 100 million man-hours for both civil servants and Rwandan residents.

The portal employs 7,700 agents in different regions of the country, and more than 1,500 government officials use it to approve and deliver necessary services. As a result, the government has been able to collect RWF 300 billion ($265 million) in service fees.  

This new initiative is part of a RWF 13 billion project that began in March this year with the identification of the services concerned. The project is one of the priorities of Rwanda's National Transformation Strategy (2017-2024).

Samira Njoya