President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

Rwanda recorded a 30% rise in transactions on its electronic government portal since its introduction.

Paula Ingabire, Minister of Information and Communications Technology and Innovation, says this reflects a positive response from citizens since the one-stop project known as "Irembo" was established.

Irembo is an eGovernment platform which enables the access and provision of government services in Rwanda, built within a PPP framework.

Since its launch, today Irembo hosts over 40 e-services deriving from 6 different government agencies with more than 90,000 users a month.

Ingabire was describing her country's digital transformation journey, led by President Paul Kagame, at the Government Summit 2024 in Dubai.

She feels that education and awareness initiatives, as well as the passage of the Data Protection and Privacy Law roughly two years ago, helped to gain support for the Irembo.

“What we have seen is that with trust, and that’s the beauty with data and privacy laws, once the citizens have trust in the system, then there is greater participation,” Ingabire said.

“Rwanda is a case in point. From the time we digitised services to today, we have seen a 30 percent growth in the number of transaction in the Irembo platform, which means citizens trust the service, citizens trust government and citizens provide input into how we can improve these services.”

The World Bank has named Rwanda's e-government systems a top performer on the Doing Business Index, making the East African country of 14 million people appealing to investors.