Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of ICT and Innovation and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Abdullah Alswaha, held a discussion on possible areas of collaboration on digital transformation.
The discussion was held on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which took place in Davos, Switzerland, from January 20 to 24, 2025.
Innovation, technology, artificial intelligence, and expanding technological capability were the main topics of discussion between the two parties. After it is finalised, the cooperation will be run by the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based Digital Cooperation Organisation (DCO).
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Rwanda’s plan to use ICT and innovation to boost economic growth
This rapprochement may be a component of Rwanda’s plan to use innovation and ICT to boost growth and alleviate poverty to transform into a knowledge-based economy and an upper-middle-income nation by 2035.
According to the 2024 United Nations e-Government Development Index, Saudi Arabia is ranked sixth globally. Out of 1, the kingdom has a score of 0.9602. The nation receives scores of 0.9900 and 0.9841 for the telecom infrastructure and online services sub-indices, respectively.
Also, the country is ranked as one of the cybersecurity best practices by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which has verified all five of the cybersecurity index’s pillars.
With a score of 0.5799 out of 1, Rwanda is ranked 118th in the world for e-government, higher than the averages for Africa (0.4247) and East Africa (0.3903) but lower than the global average (0.6382).
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Rwanda’s progress in cybersecurity
The nation is one of the best examples to follow in terms of cybersecurity, much like Saudi Arabia. The ITU says it still has to work on technological measures, though.
Rwanda’s digital transformation may be accelerated in large part by the proposed partnership with Saudi Arabia.
The specifics of the areas of cooperation have not yet been established despite discussions about broad directions.
Additionally, the two parties are only in the preliminary stages of their discussions, and no formal agreement has been signed or announced as of yet.