ICT transcends all aspects of life, providing newer, better, and quicker ways for people to interact, network, seek help, gain access to government services and information and learn.

All these ways of interaction, networking, learning, efficiency should be anchored by national guidance. National guidance is a conscious and continuous process that communicates, instils, builds and emboldens national virtues, values, identity, and consciousness that shapes a transformative ideological orientation.

Ever since the liberation of Uganda in 1986 by the NRM Government, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been aiding Uganda leapfrog chronic development impediments in areas from education and health, to government services and trade.

ICT services make business more efficient and productive, opening the door to innovative services and applications that can fuel growth and trigger new business opportunities. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognises that “the spread of information and communication technology and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to bridge the digital divide and to develop knowledge societies”.

The strategic value attached to ICT is further espoused in the in National Policy and Planning Frameworks such as the Uganda Vision 2040, the National Development Plan III (NDP III) (FY2020/21– FY2024/25) the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Manifesto 2021–2026, and the Digital Uganda Vision (DUV).

For the first time, in the history of national development plans, the NDP III has recognised ICT as one of the enablers of economic growth by creating an ICT programme in the NDP III known as the Digital Transformation Programme. Supervised by the Ministry of Information, Communications Technology and National Guidance, the agencies in the ministry that will contribute to the success of the Digital Transformation Programme include the National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U), Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), Uganda Posts Limited (UPL — operating as Posta Uganda), Uganda Media Centre, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) and Uganda Institute of Information and Communications Technology (UICT). Currently, there are more than 29.1 million mobile phone subscribers.

The 29.1 million subscriptions translate into a telephone penetration of 69%, which can be interpreted as a national penetration of seven lines for every 10 Ugandans (regardless of age). The total internet subscriptions has for the first time crossed the 22 million mark – a broadband penetration rate of 52%.

That means every one in two Ugandans has an active internet connection — this is according to the latest market performance report released by the ICT ministry agency — UCC. Growth in mobile subscriptions also had a multiplier effect on mobile money accounts; the total number of registered mobile money accounts stands at 32.3 million.

The number of active mobile money agents has grown by 11%, from 285,371 in June 2021 to 315,895 by the end of September 2021. With such aggressive numbers, ICT is one of fastest-growing sectors in the country.

To support the continued growth of the sector, the Government plans on bridging the digital divide by improving access to high-speed internet in unserved and selected communities in Uganda, through a combination of infrastructure investments and policy reforms, in support of the objectives set forth in the Government’s Digital Transformation Programme under NDP III, while facilitating Uganda’s post- COVID-19 economic recovery.

Uganda’s digital infrastructure will also be enhanced through the expansion of in-country data centre hosting capacity and the establishment of e-waste management capabilities expected to contribute to climate mitigation.

Components of the Digital Transformation Programme include the following:

EXPANDING DIGITAL CONNECTIVITY IN SELECTED AREAS

EXPANDING THE DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE OUTREACH

• Extension of the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI): The Ministry of ICT and National Guidance will build an additional 1,000km of NBI backbone fibre infrastructure with an additional 500km of fibre-optic network links between towns, and updates to the existing links between 20 towns across Uganda.
• Last Mile Connectivity: In addition, 900 government administrative units and service centres will be connected through mobile broadband coverage. A total of 828 Wi-Fi hotspots will be established in selected last-mile locations to support the access to secure online services by rural and peri-urban underserved and unserved communities. This activity will also include the design and deployment of Local Area Networks (LANs)/ Campus Area Networks (CANs) in each of the 2,900 last-mile locations planned to be covered by this programme.
• Pre-purchase of international bandwidth: This activity involves lowering the average cost of international bandwidth through a bulk pre-purchase of international bandwidth, through aggregation of the needs of public institutions which allows to capitalise on the economies of scale. An additional 20Gbit/s for the duration of the project will be financed to cater to the growing bandwidth needs of government institutions.
• Mobile broadband deployment in rural areas: This activity will finance the deployment of broadband in rural areas and provisioning of mobile broadband in selected areas. This activity will involve installation of 50 masts (tower type structures to support antennas and other telecom transmission equipment) to improve voice and data services in underserved areas.

STRENGTHENING DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE

• Data centre infrastructure: The Ministry of ICT and National Guidance will expand the current data hosting capacity in the country, and establishment and operationalisation of a green data centre to complement the existing data hosting capability at the current Government Data Centre.
• Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) Centre: The ministry will renovate and upgrade the MAN Centre located at Statistics House in Kampala to provide a standard environment for mission-critical systems installed in the facility. This will include the upgrade of core routing equipment and provisioning of air-conditioning, fire suppression system, closed-circuit television (CCTV), access control, and cabling in the MAN. This activity will also establish the national Internet Exchange Point (IXP) that will be governed by multi-disciplinary stakeholders from private and public sectors, academia, and civil society organisations (CSOs).
• E-Waste Management: The ICT ministry will establish two regional e-waste collection and management centres in different regions of Uganda to ensure that e-waste is collected, sorted, and stored at central locations for the ease of management, further refurbishing (when possible), and processing at recycling facilities.
• National ICT Spatial Data Infrastructure Store and High-Performance Computing Centre (HPC). The ICT ministry will undertake studies, equipment, software, Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping tool, as well as mapping of core ICT infrastructure that will guide the roll-out of ICT spatial infrastructure in the country.

STRENGTHENING THE ENABLING ENVIRONMENT, DIGITAL CAPABILITIES, AND INCLUSIVENESS OF DIGITAL SERVICES

• Support the deployment and operations of the digital infrastructure and services, including strengthening the related policy and regulatory environment and promoting digital skills among project beneficiaries.
• Strengthen the regulatory framework to coordinate investments and ensure infrastructure sharing, open access, and complementarity through a variety of legal and regulatory instruments to provide incentives to sharing, thereby reducing duplication and better effective utilisation of digital infrastructure.
• Support the review and development of the following policies; Data Sharing and Governance Policy, development of the policy framework for coordination of public and private infrastructure deployment, Open Data Policy, National Critical Information Infrastructure Policy, and Spectrum Management Policy.
• Support digital inclusion capacity building activities, including initiatives to train public officials on policy and regulations, and will provide retooling and capacity building to the identified women SMEs and associations, youth groups, and the elderly.

ENABLING THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF GOVERNMENT

ACCELERATING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF SERVICE DELIVERY
The Ministry of ICT and National Guidance will carry out the following activities:

• Scale-up of shared platforms. The ministry will scale up the digital authentication and e-signature (DAES) capability, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to enable secure and trusted online transactions, roll out messaging and collaboration services to an additional 50,000 users in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and local governments; expand the use of mobile gateway; increase the use of e-Payment mechanisms for e-services in support of cashless transactions; and onboard an additional 20 new government agencies into the integration platform designed to facilitate data exchange between ministries.
• Support the development of new shared solutions designed to promote innovation in digital service delivery such as the development of a front-end mobile platform; shared applications and microservices platform to avail new opportunities for e-services innovation.
• Support a variety of e-services support and promotion mechanisms, including the establishment of three regional e-Government support service desks in Gulu, Mbarara and Mbale, in partnership with the sectoral ministries and Posta Uganda an e-Document Management and Workflow System (EDMS) aimed at improving internal efficiency within MDAs and local governments.

MAINSTREAMING DIGITAL SERVICES IN PRIORITY SECTORS

• Support specific sectoral digitalisation of services in six priority sectors, including agriculture, education, justice, health, tourism and trade.
• Deployment of new digital services, development of additional modules for existing e-services to make them digital end-to-end, technical advisory services in support of digitalisation of business processes across the six priority sectors.

STRENGTHENING CYBERSECURITY AND DATA PROTECTION

• Supporting cybersecurity, cybercrime, and critical infrastructure legislation. The ICT ministry will provide technical capacity for the drafting of: (a) cybersecurity and cybercrime legislation; (b) Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) protection legislation; and (c) regional and international collaboration in cybersecurity, including signing and ratification of treaties and conventions.
• Strengthening the cybersecurity institutional and governance framework to support: (a) an institutional and governance structure for cybersecurity/CERT with a cybersecurity work and action plan; (b) an evaluation and audit framework for audits of infrastructure, systems, and processes to ensure compliance with the NISF and training of auditors; (c) analyses of cybersecurity status in key sectors and development of customised cybersecurity guidelines; and (f) adoption of compliance standards and certification for SMEs, with training for auditors.
• Strengthening threat intelligence, monitoring, prevention, mitigation, and response. This will include: (a) capacity building of the national CERT and the Security Operations Centre (SOC); (b) upgrading of the national CERT’s forensics lab with mobile kits and malware analysis capabilities; (c) capacity building for regular penetration tests, cyber risk analyses, and security assessments of relevant agencies; (d) provision of systems and software to enable threat intelligence, incident handling and response, as well as a threat sharing platform, incident response platforms for subsector CERTs, and a test lab and sensors on Critical Information Infrastructure Protection (CIIP) networks
• Building cybersecurity capacity and digital skills of government officials and decision-makers. This will support: (a) capacity building for key stakeholders and decision-makers; (b) cybersecurity digital skills in basic, secondary, and tertiary education, in collaboration with the education ministry and universities (Phase I); (c) Cybersecurity Training Centres in universities to boost the capacity of government officials and private sector;
• Strengthening Child Online Protection (COP) to deliver: (a) a COP statistical framework; (b) COP guidelines, toolkits, and an awareness campaign; (c) training for children, parents, guardians, educators, and Government; and (d) support for preventative actions by ISPs, schools, and parents.
• Strengthening data protection by supporting the delivery of: (a) data protection guidelines, toolkits, codes of practice, and benchmarks; (b) DPO IT systems (for example, a registry of data processors and controllers, complaints and compliance management tools); (c) data protection assessments and compliance plans for key MDAs; (d) a customised training programme for Data Protection Officers across priority MDAs.
• Supporting change management and communications through a public, external-facing and an internal, government-facing communications campaign on cybersecurity awareness.

PARTNERING FOR PROGRESS

As we now open up the economy, it is important to take stock and remember how COVID-19 underscored how inadequately prepared we were for a digital world at the start of the pandemic. Uneven connectivity within Uganda meant that many people and businesses in the country could not avail themselves with high-speed networks for remote learning, access to e-Government services and online shopping. To aid Government further in ensuring that the task of digital transformation is done right, the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance has partnered with the private sector on the following themes:

1. YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT – The ministry appointed a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Innovation Council that is chaired by Prof. William Bazeyo. The BPO & Innovation Council works with the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance to formulate strategies for creating jobs for the youth through ICT outsourcing and innovation, and prescribe regulatory frameworks/reforms and projects relevant to the growth of the BPO and innovation industry. In addition, the council also identifi es, supports, and scales up breakthrough technologies and disruptive innovations.

2. GOVERNMENT OF UGANDA — Communication – The ministry announced the appointment of a Government Communication and National Guidance Taskforce that will be working with the ICT ministry to ensure that government communications are consistent, relevant, and comprehensible. The taskforce, in addition, will provide input in the formulation of the national guidance programme. President Yoweri Museveni has ensured that there is national recognition of the importance of information and communication technologies. The Government recognises ICT as an infrastructure priority at par with water, electricity and roads. The job at hand is not borne to Government only; the ministry seeks and continues to build multistakeholder partnerships/collaborations to foster meaningful connectivity and digital transformation in Uganda, including hardest-to-connect communities.