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Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said that bridging the huge digital gap in Africa requires deliberate and constant partnership between governments and the private sector.

He said governments must lead the way by deliberately reducing the tax burden on the private sector in exchange for obligated investments into innovations that will deliver very affordable digital access for the masses, adding that anything short of that is mere lip service that will not deliver any dividends.

President Kagame was delivering the keynote address on to the topic – Building a Digital Future Together – at the opening of the Mobile World Congress Africa in Kigali, Rwanda.

The GSMA flagship event comes to Africa for the first time and brings together over 2,000 participants from across 75 operators and with almost 400 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, to be addressed by at least 187 speakers in 47 sessions.

A cross-section of delegates at the opening of MWC Africa 2022

In what was described as shocking statistics about the digital divide in Africa, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reports that in Africa in 2021, only 33 percent of the population was using the internet, meaning an estimated 871 million people are not realizing digital dividends.

This is in spite of the fact that several Africa governments, including Ghana, brag about having built substantial infrastructure geared toward driving digital inclusion.

President Kagame said it is common knowledge that technology is catalytic to national and human development and yet almost half of Africa’s population do not have access, in spite of the usual boast by governments about having built infrastructure.

“Digital infrastructure is key, but it is not enough,” he said. “We must make the infrastructure meaningful to our people through deliberate partnerships with the private sector.”