E-commerce is expanding rapidly in Rwanda, presenting an important opportunity for accessing untapped regional and global markets, creating jobs and improving living standards.

To harness and promote its potential for development, the Government of Rwanda has embarked upon developing a policy and institutional framework for a unifying 'whole of government' approach on e-commerce, within the broader digital economy agenda through the elaboration of an e-commerce policy and its supporting implementing strategy.

The e-commerce strategy, presented in this publication, aims to facilitate and support the implementation of the policy. It translates the policy areas* into actionable strategic initiatives and provides a detailed framework for governance, implementation, as well as monitoring and evaluation.

The strategy aims to bring Rwanda towards a sustained and inclusive development path through digitali-zation and e-commerce and contribute to its overall ambition to become an upper middle-income country by 2035.

Notably, the e-commerce strategy aligns with guiding development and sectoral policies that steer Rwanda’s ambition in the ICT sector, including the Smart Rwanda Master Plan, National Strategy for Transformation, and the Strategy for Digital Transformation of Trade, Industry and Commerce.

The document is organized as follows:

Chapter 1 provides a situational analysis of the readiness of the country to engage in e-commerce. It also discusses the alignment of the e-commerce strategy with other sectoral and national development plans.

Chapter 2 presents the Strategic Framework – reproducing the vision, mission statement, and overarching goals, and specific outcomes of the E-commerce Policy.

Chapter 3 presents the Strategic Initiatives associated witih each priority area, in line with the goals and outcomes.

Chapter 4 provides the Governance Framework.

Chapter 5 provides the Implementation and Monitoring and Evaluation frameworks, including a risk mitigation analysis.

While the strategy provides the main aspects for implementation, as well as monitoring and evaluation, it should be considered a living document. Specific sections may need to be adjusted to ongoing developments under the guidance of the National E-commerce Council.