Ongoing Project

Business Process Outsourcing - IT Enabled Services

lutalo — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 08:57:43 +0000

Business Process Outsourcing - IT Enabled Services lutalo Mon, 01/10/2022 - 09:57

The ITES-BPO Framework and Roadmap for Uganda. Uganda has developed a robust ITES-BPO framework that comprises of three key elements – The Governance Group, the Implementation Roadmap and the Monitoring and Evaluation framework as described in the figure below.

BPO/ITES Programme Implementation Update

Establishment of a 240-seater BPO Incubation Centre on the 4th floor of Statistics House in Kampala. It is currently being run by a private sector company, Techno Brain Uganda Limited, employing a total of 240 agents. Indirect employment has also been created in the various sectors of the economy e.g. through provision of food, security, transport, cleaning services, accommodation, etc.

A total of 500 graduates were trained in BPO; some of them have been absorbed in the BPO/ITES Sector. Some of these have now been promoted as supervisors, replacing foreign nationals who were employed at the start of operations at the Incubation Centre.

NITA facilitated the creation of the Uganda BPO Association which currently has 48 registered companies, employing over 4000 Ugandans. Employment in the sector grew by about 30% over the last one year.

NITA-U partnered with the Uganda BPO Association to organize regional BPO conference and exhibition in Uganda in September 2012 and September 2013. This year’s conference was covered widely by both electronic and print media. The Conference will be an annual event for promoting the BPO/ITES sector in Uganda.

Partnership with Internet Now Project at Gulu University, funded by Oxfam, which is currently employing about 210 agents in Northern Uganda. This is an indication that BPO can thrive outside Kampala.

BPO pilot training was successfully conducted from March to April 2013 under the Joint protocol between the Government of Uganda and Arab Republic of Egypt. This will be followed by the training of trainers of at least 25 instructors this FY. It will be facilitated by the Egyptian Government;

Egyptian Experts conducted an In-house training for NITA staff in November 2013 for management of the BPO ToT Programme;

NITA provided technical support to the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and the Uganda Child Rights Network NGO (UCRNN) towards the procurement of a Child Helpline System that has been set up at the BPO Incubation Centre. This is a call centre system for the protection of vulnerable children from abuse and neglect.

The BPO/ITES Strategy and Model for Uganda has been reviewed and updated;

Incentives Guidelines for supporting the BPO/ITES industry has been developed;

BPO Standards, Regulations and Accreditation Guidelines has been developed;

For More Infomation visit the Uganda BPO website.

National Backbone Infrastructure Project (NBI/EGI)

lutalo — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 08:50:59 +0000

National Backbone Infrastructure Project (NBI/EGI) lutalo Mon, 01/10/2022 - 09:50

Ongoing Project

The Government of Uganda through the Ministry of ICT secured funding towards the implementation of the National Data Transmission Backbone Infrastructure and e-Government Infrastructure (NBI/EGI) Project in the financial year 20006/2007. The overall objective of the project is to provide connectivity to Government Ministries and Departments in the country. The project was divided into three phases which involved the laying of Optical Fiber Cable across the country to all major towns, with transmission stations in these towns. Following the NITA-U Act of 2009, the NBI/EGI was handed over to NITA-U in January 2010 to continue and complete the implementation of the respective Phases. After the handover, NITA-U undertook measures to rectify all the implementation challenges that were experienced in Phases I and II.

To date, NITA-U has completed the implementation of all the three (4) Phases of the NBI/EGI Project.

Implementation

After the handover of the NBI/EGI to NITA-U, the Authority undertook measures to rectify all the implementation challenges that were experienced in Phases I and II. One of the measures NITA-U undertook was to assess the entire work that had been completed in Phases I and II to identify gaps in order to address the issues and rectify the faults on the backbone.

Within the financial year 2011/12 and financial year 2012/13, NITA-U undertook initiatives to rectify the issues that were identified through the comprehensive technical and security assessment of the NBI/EGI. For the first time in the financial year 2013/14, the NBI/EGI became operational.

To date, NITA-U has completed the implementation of all the three (4) Phases of the NBI/EGI Project.

Phase I of the project.

Connectivity (168Km of Optical fibre cable) linking the towns of Entebbe, Mukono, Jinja, Bombo to Kampala including 27 Ministries and some Government Departments, was completed.

Phase II

The Project was completed and a total of 1400.734kms of Optical Fiber Cable connecting Busia, Tororo, Mbale, Malaba, Kumi, Soroti, Lira, Gulu, Elegu, Masindi, Kyenjojo, Fort Portal, Kasese, Bushenyi and Mbarara was laid.

Under Phase III

NITA-U completed the extension of the NBI to the towns of Masaka, Mutukula border post, Mbarara, Kabale and the Katuna Border Post.

The laying of the Optical Fibre Cable in Phase III has addressed Creation of the alternative route to the undersea cables via Mutukula to Daresaalam and completion of the concentric rings across the country through the implementation of Kyenjojo – Masindi as well as across the Tanzania and Rwanda through Mutukula, Rusumo and back to Katuna to enhance regional connectivity and
Connection to the border town of Katuna through the laying of the Kampala – Katuna Optical Fibre Cable route.

Phase IV

Phase 4 of the Project commenced with building of the Kasese – Mpondwe Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) Link, Karuma – Arua – Koboko – Elegu OFC Link and the Soroti to Moroto OFC Link.
Additionally, over 100MDAs were added to the National Backbone Infrastructure which brought the total of MDAs to 603.
Three more border points were addded into the National bacbone under phase 4 which included, Oraba with South Sudan, Vurra and Mpondwe with DR Congo and Elegu with sudan were all connected to the ICT backbone for regional connectivity and to enhance the redundancy of the NBI. After the completion of phase4 a total number of 7boarder points were connected to the NBI.

Last Mile project

Currently, the Government is implementing the Last Mile Connectivity Project under which 732km of fiber optic cable are being laid to extend the National Data Transmission Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) connectivity to an additional 700 sites. At the end of the Project, the cumulative span of the NBI shall be over 3,156km across 52 Districts and connecting over 1,300 Government Offices and Target User Groups. As of today a total of 575 out of the 700 sites have been connected.

Map showing the connectivity of the NBI

Key: Coverage of the NBI as by December 2017 Green is completed, blue to be implemented FY 2018/19 Maroon is under funding review.

BENEFITS OF THE NBI

Reduction in Internet costs

At the time the NBI was operationalized by NITA-U(2013/2014) the cost of Internet Bandwidth across Government entities was on average USD 1200 for 1Mbps per month, however this, however this cost was reduced to USD 300 to allow MDAs have access to affordable services and reduce the cost of communication.

As a result, the Government has realized a reduction of internet costs from USD1200 in 2013 to USD 300 in 2014 to USD 190 in 2017 per Mbps to the current USD 70 per Mbps. Further price reduction is expected to be realized in the subsequent financial years as more MDA sites are connected to the NBI/EGI.

Revenue Generation

The Operation of the ICT Backbone/NBI has resulted in revenue generation for the Government.

Connecting Government sites to the Government Network.

To date, a total of 603. MDAs, Local Government (LG) sites and Government service centres (Hospitals, universities) are connected to this network as at the

Enabling E-Government

The endpoint of the NBI is to ensure all Government services are online. Below are some of the Government services online ;

UIA One-Stop Center, (Uganda Investment Authority)
EC Voters Register(Electoral Commission)
E-Visa, E-Tax, E-Single Window (Ministry of Internal Affairs)
IGG Wealth Declaration(The Inspectorate of Government)

These services have proceeded to reduce human interactions and saved the taxpayers time

Regional Communications Infrastructure Program(RCIP)

lutalo — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 08:37:51 +0000

Regional Communications Infrastructure Program(RCIP) lutalo Mon, 01/10/2022 - 09:37

Ongoing Project

Project File Attachment

Attachment	Size
RCIP-project status as per JUNE-2021.pdf (603.61 KB)	603.61 KB

The Government of Uganda secured funding in the amount of US$ 75 Million Equivalent IDA – World Bank for the financing of the Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (RCIP) – Uganda Project. Uganda becomes the 8th African Country to benefit from this initiative which aims to help address the regions connectivity constraints. Other countries that have already benefited from the initiative include: Kenya, Burundi, Madagascar, Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi and Comoros.

A regional approach will help to mitigate the impact for landlocked countries which must rely on transiting traffic through neighbouring countries; and enhance the viability of infrastructure increasing volume of traffic leading to reducing prices and improving regional affordability of broadband.

RCIP will support the Government of Uganda in improving: (i) coverage for IT infrastructure in the country; (ii) the delivery of public services by improving efficiency through government cloud infrastructure (iii) Integration of Government IT systems (iv) building capacity in management of IT programs and projects; (v) improve policy and regulatory environment for ICT in country.

RCIP Uganda will complement existing ICT initiatives in the country, including the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) and private sector investment by helping to bridge the financing and technical gaps. RCIP Uganda project aims to transform public service delivery using Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) to improve the lives of Ugandans.

The 6 year programme was designed, approved and became effective on 26th May, 2016.

Project Objectives

The development objectives of the proposed RCIP Uganda project are consistent with objectives of the RCIP Program as a whole, namely to support the Government’s efforts to:

Lower prices for international capacity and extend the geographic reach of broadband networks (the connectivity development objective); and
Improve the Government’s efficiency and transparency through e-Government applications (the transparency development objective).

Project Benefits

It is anticipated that at the end of its implementation, the following direct benefits will accrue to Government and citizens of Uganda

Increase in ICT sector investment and competitiveness, and improved access to quality of ICT services for citizens, businesses, and government resulting from a conducive enabling environment
Improve in productivity and service delivery across all sectors, both public and private as a result of shared services
Employment - stimulate job creation in new areas where it is extended (northern and western Uganda) through the construction and operation of networks and, importantly, by boosting entrepreneurship and self-employment
Growth in the number of internet users, more intensive use of information-rich services with lower unit prices and greater choice
Growth in locally-relevant content and applications due to faster, cheaper and more accessible platform
Financial savings from not having to build duplicate infrastructure at individual MDAs as a result of shared public service delivery platform
Faster and cheaper implementation of e-Government services in various sectors from not having to build duplicate infrastructure at individual MDAs
Improve in transparency and efficiency of procedures and practices supported by e-Government services

New Services (e.g., mobile money and mobile banking or others) are likely to emerge or become more widely available to society