On this Wednesday, June 13, 2018, the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (MITEC) hosted ICT Joint Sector which brought together all Sector Working Group (SWG) stakeholders to engage in policy dialogue and to ensure ownership, accountability and transparency of the National Strategy for Transformation (NST-1) implementation and monitoring process, and reviewing the progress of sector toward ICT policies and strategies.

Speaking to the participants, Lt Col François Régis Gatarayiha; Permanent Secretary of MITEC, told them two main aspects of the meeting.

“One; it is an opportunity for us to revisit the progress registered so far towards achieving our objectives in ICT sector and to link implementation status with recommendations from previous Joint Sector Review. Two: the main focus is to share on ICT sector priorities for the upcoming financial year 2018-2019.”

The 2018/19 Forward-looking Joint Sector Review had 4 main objectives, which are: to present and discuss areas prioritized during the planning and budgeting process, to discuss and validate the 2018/19 sector targets and related policy actions; to select policy related studies to be conducted in 2018/19 Fiscal Year and to assess progress towards implementation of the 2017/18 policy actions.

During the meeting, different development partners such as JICA, GIZ, KOICA and DOT presented what they have done so far and their key projects in the upcoming fiscal year and various recommendations were made to match them with the Government’s priorities in the area. Additionally, all the participants were advised to be accountable and collaborative to make Rwanda an ICT hub in Africa.