Access - Africa's Key To An Inclusive Information Society: Speech by his excellency Paul Kagame, president of the republic of Rwanda

Abstract

This Speech delivered by His Excellency Paul Kagame, President of The Republic of Rwanda, at the World Summit on the Information Society. H.E. Kagame, on his remarks highlighted that, Africa continues to trail globally such as GDP per capita, tele density, human development index, literacy, child mortality, and life expectancy. This alarming situation dictates that we, in Africa, grasp the reality that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and socio-economic development are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, and that we must present a unified viewpoint on matters to do with the digital divide. Those ICTs are a tool for enhancing innovation, competitiveness, modernization, and for ushering in other opportunities that can help us attain the Millennium Development Goals. We now use ICT applications in government operations and services. we use them in education and training, in business, in health; we use them as an instrument to enhance unity and reconciliation, to strengthen the participatory justice system we call Gacaca, and as an instrument of empowering our women. In Africa, we have to leapfrog, and always bear in mind that human society advances according to the levels of its knowledge base.