Burundi Digital Foundations Project

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The proposed project is designed to increase high-speed internet access and to improve government capacity to provide and deliver digital public services, which will help lay the foundations for accelerated development of Burundi’s digital economy. It is composed of three main components: Component 1: Digital Access and Inclusion will focus on creating digitally enabled citizens and expanding the existing consumer base for digital services. This component will support wider access to broadband, as well as the adoption of data-enabled services. It will do so by financing activities that helps strengthen the enabling environment for broadband market development, catalytic investments to expand local access networks, and schemes that support digital access enablers that help grow demand among groups that face barriers to access and usage. The design of this component is shaped by MFD and PCM principles. Sub-components will be implemented sequentially to ensure that upstream reforms improve the downstream investment climate. Activities under this component ultimately aim to connect more users to broadband and to create a growing user-base for digital services in Burundi. Proposed sub-components include: (1.1) Enabling environment for broadband and e-services access, (1.2) Local connectivity access, (1.3) Access and digital inclusion enablers. Component 2: Digital Public Service Delivery Enablers will focus on creating a digitally enabled government, by strengthening adoption of digital tools by government and introducing the basic building blocks for incrementally scaling more secure and sophisticated digital service delivery. This component will finance cross-cutting digital government foundations that can boost capacity for secure digital public service delivery and use of digital tools and systems by Burundi’s public administration. It will adopt a whole-of-government approach to developing the GoB’s “digital stack” for e-services. It will predominately focus on transversal, government back-end systems, including reusable and shared digital infrastructure, platforms, and legal and governance frameworks to improve and expand government’s capacity for digital public services delivery, reducing existing fragmentation and supporting incremental digital transformation of government, as well as greater resources efficiency (e.g., by reducing infrastructure duplication). By enhancing the digital capabilities of public administration, through digital tools and systems, and digital skills for civil servants using, managing, and maintaining the shared infrastructure and services deployed, the project will expand the GoB’s capacity to provide e-services, increasing resilience to shocks by enabling remote service delivery. Proposed sub-components include: (2.1) Institutional, legal, governance and technology frameworks for e-services; (2.2) Shared digital government infrastructure and platforms; (2.3) Digitalization of select services and flagship use-cases Component 3: Institutional Coordination and Project Management will finance project management and coordination, including procurement, financial management (FM), monitoring and evaluation (M&E), as well as environmental and social (E&S) safeguards management.