In Rwanda, accessing essential government services has been transformed, bringing unprecedented ease and efficiency to citizens’ lives. IremboGov, a pioneering digital platform, has been at the forefront of this revolution, digitizing a remarkable 248 services from nearly 40 different institutions. While the platform’s reach is extensive, its profound impact on some of the most frequently requested civil status certificates, marriage, celibacy, and birth certificates, stands out as a testament to the power of digital innovation. 

This story explores how IremboGov has not only scaled access to these vital documents but also dramatically improved the citizen experience, saving valuable time and fostering a new era of trust and efficiency in public service delivery.

Scaling adoption while delivering a better experience to citizens

From 2020 to 2024, IremboGov has significantly scaled access to the most popular civil status certificates (birth, being single, marriage). In just four years, the number of certificates delivered almost tripled from 683,560 in 2020 to 1,977,628 in 2024.

In addition to scale adoption, IremboGov improved the experience of citizens to save them more time: 70% of applications were issued within an hour in 2024 vs 61% in 2020. In absolute numbers, almost 1 million more certificates were issued within 1 hour in 2024 compared to 2020.

Delivering a better experience through speed, reliability, and convenience translated into more trust for the service, which translated into more adoption. The key enablers for this achievement were:

• A vast network of agents covering all sectors of the country to allow citizens who lack digital literacy or digital confidence to easily access the services.
• A simplified user experience that allowed citizens to request these certificates on IremboGov web portal in a few clicks and pay instantly using their preferred payment channels.
• Availability of some of the services on the Irembo USSD app to expand accessibility to users with feature phones.
• Countrywide education campaign (Byikorere) to create awareness among citizens and build their digital confidence.

Figure 1: Total applications for essential services (birth, being single, marriage certificates) processed from 2020 to 2024, and the percentage of applications processed within 1 hour.

“It is more than a decade now working with Irembo to facilitate MINALOC’s digital initiatives, particularly through IremboGov. This journey has empowered citizens by providing seamless access to essential services, with over 5 million service requests processed in 2023-2024 alone. This transformation has not only elevated the citizen experience by significantly reducing waiting times, distance covered to seek services and related cost incurred.  It has also improved local governments’ efficiency significantly, with officers now able to handle three times the volume of applications.” – Gakire Bob, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC)

Delivering unmatched efficiency at scale for government officers

With the applications volume that increased by 3x and the ~1 million more applications that got processed within an hour, one might imagine that the government had to significantly scale officers in charge of processing these certificates. Well, the power of IremboGov in automating workflows, reducing manual work, and eliminating the management of physical queues translated into improved efficiency for government officers. Despite surging demand, the number of officers has remained largely constant, and in 2024, officers were able to do 3x the work done in 2020:

• In 2020, each officer processed ~905 applications.
• In 2024, that number rose to 3,047 applications per officer—a 3.4x increase in productivity.

Going digital with IremboGov made officers much more productive and focused on delivering value, not managing queues and paperwork.

Figure 2: RGB CEO, Doris Uwicyeza Picard, testimonial, commending IremboGov for its convenient and efficient birth certificate service.

Conclusion

At Irembo, digital transformation means more than technology; it means impact. A parent accessing essential services from the comfort of their home. An officer serving more citizens, faster, and more efficiently. A country moving forward, one click at a time.

Through the IremboGov platform and initiatives like the Byikorere campaign, we’ve brought government services closer to the people; faster, simpler, and more inclusively than ever before. And with the IremboApp that we recently launched, we are embracing a mobile-first world where essential services are available in the palm of citizens’ hands.

And this is just the beginning. As we scale across other sectors and Africa, we remain committed to building user-centric platforms that seamlessly connect service providers and service consumers.

Partner with Irembo and let’s reimagine service delivery together.