currently stands at 112 RWF/Kwh for households and RWF 102/kWh for industries, despite GoR subsidizing the utility. Rwanda’s electricity costs of $0.24/Kwh, almost double that of its neighbours. 64% of businesses surveyed in the 2008 business investment climate survey cited access and cost of electricity as a major constraint. As Rwanda strives to increase electricity generation, ICTs can be leveraged to consolidate Rwanda’s energy sources in order to enable sustainable energy generation, transmission and distribution through a SMART Electricity Grid and Energy Market Design.   Limited access to finance: Lending for ICT companies is constrained by costs and risks arising from several factors, including: lack of adequate collateral, crowding out by government bonds, asymmetrical information (caused in part by limited private credit registries), and inadequate skills to assess and manage risk. Limited lending can also be attributed to Rwanda’s low savings rate that currently stands at 8% of GDP. GoR should partner with financial institutions to establish special funding mechanisms to foster ICT industry growth. Inadequate international bandwidth: Rwanda still does not have sufficient international bandwidth. Being landlocked, the country is very dependent on neighboring countries for connectivity, which greatly increases connectivity costs. More importantly, given that ICT is a competitive industry, this dependence could compromise Rwanda’s information security and business continuity. This can be remedied through other links to other sea cables such as those from southern Africa as well as satellite back up. Further, a virtual landing point can be established locally where telecommunication providers converge and acquire submarine capacity that can be distributed through their networks. Inadequate ICT skills: Rwanda has insufficient skilled personnel in the ICT field to drive ICT development. As such, more ICT professionals will be trained and developed to increase Rwanda’s ICT skills base. Low ICT awareness and usage: Most Rwandans are still not aware of the available ICTs and their benefits. This is largely attributed to the lack of awareness, insufficient content relevant to the general population and limited rural ICT penetration. ICT in education, community development and public awareness initiatives will be implemented to increase ICT awareness among Rwandans. Nascent private sector: Rwanda’s private sector, particularly the ICT sector, is relatively small. It is mostly constrained by the high cost of accessing ICTs especially in rural areas, insufficient payment systems and a lack of innovation. Several initiatives will be implemented to foster ICT and ICT-enabled sector development including establishing a Technopole (an advanced ICT park), e-Payment systems, a national access network to increase broadband penetration and Internet affordability among others in order to foster both ICT and ICT-enabled sector growth. Inadequate information security: Rwanda’s cyber security needs to be reinforced to mitigate ever-increasing cyber threats. Cyber security awareness will need to be disseminated and public private institutional collaboration strengthened. Furthermore, a strong policy, legal and regulatory framework to ensure cyber security and compliance will be required. Limited interoperability of government systems: Many government systems work in isolation of each other, which creates duplication and inefficient resource management. Most processes are to a large extent paper-based, which creates unnecessary delays. As such ICTs can be leveraged through e-Government initiatives to further improve government operational effectiveness and efficiency, thereby improving service delivery to citizens. NICI III aims to address the above-mentioned challenges while improving Rwanda’s ICT environment and accelerating services development. Page 20 of 85   © No part of this document can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without the permission of Rwanda Ministry in charge of ICT in the Office of the President.