A passenger boards a Kigali city bus and pays using the Tap&Go smart card system — a homegrown cashless payment technology developed by AC Group Ltd, a Rwandan tech firm credited with revolutionizing public transport efficiency and accountability.
Kigali — Rwanda’s first-ever national innovation survey has exposed a sharp gap between the country’s policy ambitions and the financing realities facing innovators.
Despite several government funds established to drive research and creativity, most innovators say the money is either too limited, too bureaucratic, or not reaching them at all.
The Rwanda Innovation Survey 2022–2024, conducted by the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) in collaboration with the Ministry of ICT and Innovation, shows that only about 8 percent of all innovation funding in the country comes from government sources.
The rest—nearly two-thirds—is raised from self-funding, local NGOs, or philanthropic organisations, with foreign donors accounting for another 19 percent.
Over the three-year period (2022–2024), the survey found that all the institutions combined spent or received a total of Rwf 54.6 billion (about USD 41 million) specifically for innovation-related activities — including research, product development, process improvements, and technology adoption. So basically, government has only issued out about Rwf 4.3 billion for innovation in the last 3 year, a very meager amount.
The findings were unveiled at a stakeholders’ forum this Tuesday, attended by Education Minister Joseph Nsengimana, top academic leaders, and all agencies concerned.
The study describes Rwanda’s innovation ecosystem as “largely homegrown but underfinanced.” While government institutions and universities appear highly active — 91 percent and 89 percent of them respectively engaged in innovation — the private sector struggles to find the money to turn ideas into products. Only 51.6 percent of businesses surveyed said they were innovation-active.
What the Study Means by Innovation
In the context of the survey, innovation goes far beyond developing new mobile apps or high-tech inventions. It refers to any significant improvement or introduction of new products, services, or processes that enhance how an organization operates or delivers value.
That includes a wide range of changes — from a factory redesigning its production line, to a hospital adopting digital records, to a university launching a new training method, or a government agency streamlining service delivery.
The report follows the OECD’s internationally accepted “Oslo Manual” definition, which classifies innovation into four types: product, process, organizational, and marketing innovation. This broad approach means Rwanda’s innovation landscape includes not only tech start-ups but also schools, cooperatives, manufacturers, and public institutions improving how they work and serve citizens.
Innovation with a ‘Made-in-Rwanda’ Character
The survey reveals that Rwanda’s innovation is overwhelmingly homegrown, aligning closely with the country’s “Made-in-Rwanda” policy — the national drive to build self-reliance and competitiveness through local solutions.
According to the findings, 93.5 percent of product innovators and 74.2 percent of process innovators developed their innovations entirely in-house, without foreign partners or imported technology. Likewise, over 90 percent of the innovations were “new to the firm” but not “new to the market,” meaning most organisations adapted or improved existing products using local knowledge, resources, and creativity.
This domestic orientation underlines a strong culture of problem-solving from within, where Rwandan firms and institutions modify what exists elsewhere to fit local needs — a hallmark of the broader Made-in-Rwanda movement. However, the report cautions that while this self-reliant model has built a resilient innovation base, Rwanda must now move from adaptive innovation toward export-ready, market-creating innovation to compete regionally and globally.
Funds Exist, But the Money Doesn’t Flow
At the centre of the problem are two government-backed funds: the National Research and Innovation Fund (NRIF) managed by NCST, and the Rwanda Innovation Fund (RIF), established under the Rwanda Development Board with African Development Bank support.
Together, they form the backbone of Rwanda’s strategy to finance new ideas, yet their impact appears limited. According to the 2025/2026 national budget, the NRIF has been allocated Rwf 1.23 billion (about US$ 920,000) — roughly the same as last year and just a fraction of what is needed to finance national-scale innovation.
By comparison, the Rwanda Innovation Fund operates off-budget and is largely financed through a US$ 30 million African Development Bank loan, with a target size of US$ 100 million. However, public records and media reports show that disbursements have been slow and focused mainly on a few tech start-ups, leaving most innovators without access.
The NCST’s own report echoes this frustration. It notes that nearly one in five institutions that did not innovate blamed “lack of funds or inability to obtain government grants” as the primary barrier. Even among those that innovated, most relied on internal financing rather than state support.
“Public innovation financing exists in policy form but remains difficult to access in practice,” the survey concludes. “Innovation financing windows should be well-resourced and responsive to sectoral needs, especially for SMEs and higher learning institutions.”
Strong Vision, Weak Execution
The report credits Rwanda with establishing a strong policy foundation — including the National Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy (2020), the NRIF, and a growing ecosystem of incubators and research centres. Yet it warns that unless financing becomes more predictable and accessible, the country risks remaining stuck at the “adaptive innovation” stage — where firms improve existing processes rather than creating new technologies.
According to budget figures reviewed by KT Press, the National Council for Science and Technology has a total allocation of RWF 3.89 billion for the 2025/26 fiscal year, with the NRIF consuming about a third. By contrast, the Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA) will receive RWF 21.7 billion, mostly for ICT infrastructure and digital transformation projects — not direct innovation support.
Analysts say that while digital transformation funding is important, it does not substitute for direct innovation finance, which helps researchers, start-ups, and local firms test, patent, and commercialize ideas.
Survey Scope and the National Innovation Picture
The Innovation Survey covered 867 institutions across the country, drawn from a target population of about 8,826 organizations. Respondents included government agencies, higher learning institutions, private non-profits, and businesses of all sizes.
No public list of names was released, as the data are aggregated for confidentiality. However, examples of innovation-active institutions mentioned elsewhere in the report include the University of Rwanda, Carnegie Mellon University–Africa, Rwanda Polytechnic, NIRDA, RISA, and several centres of excellence under UR.
A Homegrown, Underfunded Ecosystem
The survey paints Rwanda’s innovators as self-reliant and domestically driven. More than 90 percent of firms developed their innovations internally, without international partners, and nearly all said their innovations were “new to the firm” rather than “new to the market.”
That pattern underscores a strong local innovation culture — but also a lack of scale-up capital, export partnerships, and R&D depth. Business innovation intensity remains just 0.77 percent of turnover, far below the 1–3 percent typical in OECD economies.
The Road Ahead
The researchers recommend a series of far-reaching reforms aimed at closing the gap between Rwanda’s innovation policies and their financing outcomes. They call for a significant expansion of public funding and, critically, the regular disbursement of innovation grants so that resources already allocated can reach innovators in a timely and predictable manner.
The study further urges the creation of sector-specific innovation funds tailored to Rwanda’s strategic growth areas — including ICT, health, green technology, and agriculture — rather than relying on one central fund for all innovation activity.
To widen participation, the report proposes simplifying access procedures for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), universities, and research centres that often lack the administrative capacity to navigate current funding systems.
Finally, it recommends establishing a national innovation financing dashboard under NCST to track where public and private innovation funds go, how they are used, and what measurable results they produce. Together, these reforms, the report says, would make Rwanda’s innovation system more inclusive, transparent, and responsive to the country’s economic transformation goals.
