While the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) advances in transforming and improving efficiencies in Rwanda’s healthcare, experts emphasize that it is crucial that stakeholders invest in innovating homegrown models rather than relying on external ones. ALSO READ: Can AI unlock Africa’s healthcare bottlenecks? This is mainly because of the data sensitivity that the healthcare sector holds, but also ensuring that the country does not lag behind in the AI revolution, as discussed during an X Space conversation titled “Innovation versus Ethics: AI Dilemma in Healthcare”, hosted by The New Times on July 17. ALSO READ: Poor data infrastructure derails Africa’s quest to achieve SDGs Consolata Nakure, the Project Manager at Rwanda ICT Chamber, said that the country is making significant progress in laying the foundation for AI and innovation in healthcare, particularly through research efforts by the science and technology sector. In 2023, Rwanda launched the National AI Policy to position the country as a leading destination in Africa for experimentation, development, and deployment of trustworthy and scalable AI technologies contextualised for the continent. ALSO READ: How Rwanda’s new health intelligence centre could transform healthcare “The government’s support has been key, especially with the development of a national AI policy. That gives direction so we are not just building blindly, IT professionals now have a framework to guide their AI solutions,” she said. However, according to Dr. Thierry Sebakunzi, the Technical Advisor on Climate and Health, and Digital Health at the Ministry of Health, governance alone isn’t enough. He said: “For Rwanda to build ethical and scalable AI in healthcare, we need to invest in capacity building—not just for doctors and nurses, but also for the people creating the AI.” This, he said, derives from the fact that this involves dealing with data in a sensitive sector like healthcare, which demands the development of data infrastructure that enables the country to have access and control over data. “We shouldn’t settle for being passive users of imported models. Let’s strive to innovate, to understand these systems deeply, and build from the ground up where possible. That’s how we ensure accountability and real progress.” This was reiterated by Benjamin Niyitegeka, a Digital Health Technical Advisor at the Ministry of Health, who noted that the approach of building AI tools should be from bottom up and not the other way round. “As we roll out tools like the national electronic medical records (EMR), the question isn’t just what we build, but how we build it. People-centered innovation means we start from the ground, working hand-in-hand with nurses, doctors, and community health workers from the very beginning.” For instance, he said, the EMR system was co-designed at a health centre, tested with real feedback from clinicians and patients, and refined in real time, which played a major role in its buy-in and is now rolled out in more than 200 health centres around the country. Local language representation Samuel Rutunda, the Chief Technology Officer at Digital Umuganda, emphasized the importance of building algorithms in Kinyarwanda to ease access for users but also cementing Rwanda’s footprint in AI adoption and advancement. “If our languages remain underrepresented in AI tools like digital health assistants or robot doctors, we risk being left behind. In Rwanda, 76 per cent of the population speaks only Kinyarwanda. If these tools don’t speak our language, they can’t serve our people.” He stressed that “language is not just about communication, it is culture and it is key to AI adoption.” Currently, AI-powered tools assist community health workers in diagnosing and providing accurate medical interventions. This has led to improved efficiency. According to the national AI policy, AI can boost productivity and improve service delivery across all sectors of the economy, with an estimated $589 million potential for Rwanda.
