The role of telecentres in promoting socio-economic development in Rwanda.

Telecentres are an important tool for promoting socio-economic development in areas with \nvery low levels of e-access. They have the potential to offer benefits to rural communities in \neducation, health, agriculture and business. The purpose of this study was to explore the \nstrengths and weaknesses of telecentres in promoting specific socio-economic objectives \nset in Rwanda’s National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI II) plan 2006 - \n2010. The findings were that telecentres have been effective in contributing to community \ndevelopment through access to information, skills development, job creation, study \nopportunities, low cost in telecentre services and increased income. The three main \nchallenges that hinder rural communities from advanced e-access were found to be literacy \nand level of education, language barriers, and lack of skills and awareness. Future policy \nrequires comprehensive guidelines to guide the deployment of rich local content in \ntelecentres that will enable more effective use of these facilities to promote socio-economic \ndevelopment through e-Soko type projects, Umuganda activities and other community or egovernment \ninitiatives.