The ICT department of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB/IT), in collaboration with the nonprofit organization One Global Economy, is to set up a web portal, Rwanda Beehive, aimed at disseminating information to the communities across the country, especially those in rural areas.

“Rwanda Beehive is set to address individual and household issues through access to the internet, training of local communities on the use of the internet as well as getting more from the information on the Beehive website,” explains Moustapha Mourad, the president of One Global Economy.

Rwanda Beehive relies on local partners such as the government, private sector and nongovernmental organizations to come up with issues that can be addressed on its web portal. The website has sections such as money, environment, health education, jobs agriculture, and gender as well as government programs. To ensure maximum accessibility, all information will be published in Kinyarwanda.

The telecenters that are currently being set up by RDB across the country will play a crucial role in giving local communities access to the portal. So far, only 12 telecenters have been established, yet Rwanda Beehive has also come up with other ways to reach the communities.

For instance, it plans to send out an army of youths equipped with laptops and CD’s or flash disks containing the Rwanda Beehive website. They will go down to local communities in rural areas to explain the importance of the website and how it can help them.

“These young people will also take questions from the communities which will be answered by all the sectors concerned, after which the answers will be taken back to the rural areas,” says Harry Goodall, the chief operations officer of one Global Economy.

The youth will also help in overcoming the problem of illiteracy, in that even those who cannot read and write will be able to express their views and ask questions.

“Through this system, information from the central government will be easily disseminated to the local communities,” Moustafa Mourad points out, adding that the Rwanda Beehive will provide short term solutions to communities such as ways of saving money, health tips and may more.

However, with the internet penetration still low and many people still unable to use computers, it is likely that the information will not be as effective as intended. Yet Wilson Muyenzi, the e-government coordinator at RDB, remarks that the target is to have 30 telecenters by mid next year, so that each district will have at least one.

“Our overall target is to have 416 telecenters by 2012, meaning one per sector,” Wilson Muyenzi said.

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