Rwanda’s government has joined forces with the GSM Association (GSMA) to undertake a series of initiatives to increase citizens’ access to mobile broadband technologies across the country.

This is the East African nation’s second partnership in weeks to advance digital inclusion and mobile broadband access for its citizens.

Earlier this week Rwanda's ministry of youth and ICT has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) programme to advance digital literacy in that country.

Rwanda’s minister of youth and ICT, Jean Philbert Nsengimana said, “A country’s broadband connectivity has become a key competitive differentiator in the global economy. We have made significant progress already for the widespread adoption of ICT, particularly in sectors such as health, government, education, agriculture, business and finance.”

Nsengimana added, “The partnership we are forging with the GSMA will help us to further accelerate this progress, with mobile broadband as a key foundation.”

Also commenting on the partnership was the GSMA’s chief regulatory officer Tom Phillips, “The GSMA is very pleased to be working with the government of Rwanda to support mobile broadband as a key enabler for digital inclusion and economic growth. While there were 7.7 million mobile connections and 4.2 million unique mobile subscribers in Rwanda at the end of 2014, just nine 9% of the population were unique 3G/4G mobile internet users. We expect this number to almost triple to 24% by 2020.”

According to the GSMA’s definition ‘Unique mobile subscribers’ signify individual people, while ‘mobile connections’ represent mobile subscriptions.

Phillips added, “The collaboration announced today will support Rwanda’s ambitious digitisation agenda, which ranges from pushing a cashless economy and a paperless government to extending broadband to all citizens and enabling digital literacy and innovation.”

With a population of 11.78 million people, the country's total mobile penetration currently sits at 65% with internet penetration currently at 22%, according to research firm BuddeComm.