{"id":18148,"date":"2023-10-17T22:10:52","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T22:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paulkagame.com\/?p=18148"},"modified":"2023-10-19T04:12:27","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T04:12:27","slug":"mobile-world-congress-2023-opening-remarks-by-president-kagame-kigali-17-october-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/?p=18148","title":{"rendered":"Mobile World Congress 2023 | Opening Remarks by President Kagame | Kigali, 17 October 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

First of all, I am pleased to join you for the opening ceremony of this Mobile World Congress.<\/p>\n

I welcome you all. We are very happy to host you.<\/p>\n

I commend Mats and GSMA for the important work you are doing to unlock the full potential of mobile connectivity.<\/p>\n

I thank you for contributing to our continent\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

The pandemic has added to accelerating the transition to a new era of the technology-led development.<\/p>\n

Our young and talented entrepreneurs are driving this change, and we continue to support them.<\/p>\n

For example, financial technology is starting to make a big difference in everyday lives of our citizens.<\/p>\n

The potential of digital health technology to transform our health systems, is also very clear.<\/p>\n

That means we have to address the gaps in access and connectivity, with a sense of urgency. Too many Africans remain offline.<\/p>\n

Today, Africa has the fastest-growing mobile penetration rate globally.<\/p>\n

But we still have a long way to go.<\/p>\n

Yet, we already have the means to address the problems we are dealing with today.<\/p>\n

Regional integration, powered by faster and more reliable broadband, is a big part of it.<\/p>\n

The African Union and Smart Africa are our key institutions leading this, and Africa enjoys strong support from many partners.<\/p>\n

We can get more results, faster, by working together.<\/p>\n

I want to commend Airtel Rwanda for bringing the cost of 4G data within reach of nearly every Rwandan, with a new initiative announced yesterday.<\/p>\n

And many thanks to philanthropic support from Reed Hastings, the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Netflix, Rwandans will be able to acquire a new smartphone for under 20 dollars, in order to take advantage of the offer.<\/p>\n

MTN Rwanda has already offered a new competitive pricing to its customers, as well. This is also very good news. We thank MTN.<\/p>\n

Government\u2019s role was to maintain an enabling environment, and a level playing field.<\/p>\n

This shows the power of collaboration among the private sector, government, and strategic philanthropy.<\/p>\n

At the same time, we must continue to prioritize digital skills and literacy.<\/p>\n

Globally, we are also seeing strong momentum to support Africa\u2019s digital transformation.<\/p>\n

The ITU\u2019s Partner2Connect Digital Coalition, launched last year, is a very good example.<\/p>\n

So far, over 32 billion dollars in pledges have been mobilized, and hard-to-reach communities will benefit the most.<\/p>\n

I thank ITU, under the leadership of Doreen-Bogdan Martin, for spearheading this alliance.<\/p>\n

If there is one lesson from the pandemic, it is that in times of crisis, we have to look for the common denominator.<\/p>\n

Only then, can we see the light at the end of the tunnel, and build the future we all deserve.<\/p>\n

Once again, I thank you all for coming to Kigali to attend the Mobile World Congress, which we are very happy to host for the second time.<\/p>\n

You are most welcome, and I wish you all a productive meeting, and I thank you for your kind attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First of all, I am pleased to join you for the opening ceremony of this Mobile World Congress. I welcome you all. We are very happy to host you. I commend Mats and GSMA for the important work you are doing to unlock the full potential of mobile connectivity. I thank you for contributing to our continent\u2019s development. The pandemic has added to accelerating the transition to a new era of the technology-led development. Our young and talented entrepreneurs are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18148","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\/18148","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=18148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18151,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18148\/revisions\/18151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}