President Paul Kagame has, on June 5, co-chaired the Broadband Commission Meeting for Sustainable Development, along with Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire.

They were joined by Houlin Zhao, the Vice Co-chair of International Telecommunication Union, and Tawfik Jelassi, representing the Director General of UNICEF.

The meeting is taking place for the third time in Kigali.

Last year, Kagame emphasised the need to forge new partnerships for universal broadband and scale up investments required to bridge the digital divide.

Broadband Commission’s Covid-19 Agenda for Action focuses on three points: Resilient connectivity, affordable access, and online safety.

The pandemic has opened up new opportunities for Rwanda, just as other countries, to see a boost in technological innovations that drive the ambition to have a digital-led economy. 

With that, several platforms and hubs such as Norssken for Eastern Africa, were created for pushing and empowering young entrepreneurs to come up with sustainable digital solutions, for addressing societal issues including unemployment. 

However, the digital divide and affordability in the country as well as on the continent, as claimed by several officials, remains an issue to be tackled.

The Commission defines the internet as being affordable when 1.5 gigabyte of mobile data is priced at no more than 2 percent of average income.

"We need to continue to invest in the digital skills of our young people. Digital skills are increasingly becoming the footing of all jobs,” said Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente, during the recent Generation Connect Global Youth Summit.

Established in 2010 as a top-level advocacy body promoting broadband, as an accelerator of global development, the United Nations’ Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development in 2018, set out seven targets for 2025 to "Connect the Other Half” of the world’s population.

These targets aim to expand broadband infrastructure to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).