{"id":15175,"date":"2020-02-05T11:52:13","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T11:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulkagame.com\/?p=15175"},"modified":"2020-02-05T11:53:37","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T11:53:37","slug":"president-kagames-remarks-at-the-african-drone-forum-kigali-5-february-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/?p=15175","title":{"rendered":"President Kagame’s Remarks at the African Drone Forum | Kigali, 5 February 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

I am pleased to join you for the first-ever African Drone Forum.<\/p>\n

A warm welcome to Rwanda to all those who have come, from near and far.<\/p>\n

We are greatly honoured to be your hosts, and I wish to thank the World Bank, and other supporters, for partnering with us to organise this inaugural forum.<\/p>\n

I understand that some of you visited Karongi yesterday for the start of the Lake Kivu Challenge Flying Competition, which will continue there later this week.<\/p>\n

This tournament has a great practical value, because competitors get to demonstrate what is possible, on the ground.<\/p>\n

Rwanda is committed to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, as a key pillar for transforming our country and our continent, both socially and economically.<\/p>\n

We are already seeing some of the benefits, not to mention the even bigger potential that lies ahead.<\/p>\n

The use of drones to deliver life-saving blood products and vaccines to remote health centres, is already a reality in Rwanda, through our partnership with Zipline.<\/p>\n

A Rwandan company, Charis UAS, is using drone technology for crop monitoring and mapping, to support the productivity of our farmers.<\/p>\n

Another application already in use, is the inspection of power transmission lines from the air, to help make our electricity grid more reliable.<\/p>\n

There is also a pilot project to test the effectiveness of drones for mosquito spraying.<\/p>\n

There is so much that can be done with this technology. The African Drone Forum therefore comes at the right time.<\/p>\n

Let me offer a few thoughts on the importance of this work for our continent.<\/p>\n

First, the policies and regulation that we put in place should promote innovation, not slow it down.<\/p>\n

Our experience in this sector has been that the priorities of safety, security, and innovation can all be effectively catered for, within the regulatory framework.<\/p>\n

Second, continued investment in physical infrastructure and human capital, should go hand-in-hand with the adoption of drone technology.<\/p>\n

Why limit ourselves to just using drones? We can also design and manufacture drones in Africa, as demonstrated by examples at this forum.<\/p>\n

This allows the technology to be tailored to our specific needs, and to help create new industries that generate employment and prosperity.<\/p>\n

Finally, cross-border cooperation is essential.<\/p>\n

The flying competitions taking place in Karongi illustrate how much there is to gain, by fostering regional cooperation in this sector.<\/p>\n

I trust that the 5th East African Community Aviation Symposium, taking place later this month, will bring us closer to regional harmonisation in terms of policy and regulation.<\/p>\n

The African Drone Forum is about turning challenges into opportunities.<\/p>\n

This can-do mindset should inspire and guide us more broadly, in all that we are trying to achieve for our continent, and the world as a whole.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s challenge ourselves to ensure that the outcomes of this gathering are practical and meaningful for the people of our continent.<\/p>\n

I wish you fruitful deliberations, and I also wish the best of luck to all the teams competing in the flying competition.<\/p>\n

Thank you all for visiting Rwanda, and thank you for your kind attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am pleased to join you for the first-ever African Drone Forum. A warm welcome to Rwanda to all those who have come, from near and far. We are greatly honoured to be your hosts, and I wish to thank the World Bank, and other supporters, for partnering with us to organise this inaugural forum. I understand that some of you visited Karongi yesterday for the start of the Lake Kivu Challenge Flying Competition, which will continue there later this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speech","post-has-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15175"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15178,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15175\/revisions\/15178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}