The Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA) has earned international recognition after its AI-Powered Policy Navigator was recognised as an outstanding AI innovation project under the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) Innovate for Impact initiative, in the category of Open-Source AI for Global Impact. The award was announced during the AI for Good Global Summit 2026 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The project, officially titled "GoR AI-Powered Policy Navigator," was developed by a RISA team during the Data Science Capacity Building Initiative (DSCBI), organised by AIMS Rwanda in partnership with Cenfri and the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR). The programme brought together 50 professionals from 24 government institutions to develop AI-driven solutions addressing key public sector challenges.

The Policy Navigator is designed to improve access to government policies, regulations, strategies, and official documents through a secure, multilingual platform powered by Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology. By generating responses exclusively from verified government sources, the platform delivers reliable, context-specific information while significantly reducing the time required to search through policy documents.

Beyond information retrieval, the solution includes a secure workspace for managing sensitive documents and an automated policy alignment tool that assesses compliance with national frameworks and generates recommendations to support evidence-based policymaking and improve the quality and consistency of government policies.

Following the completion of the DSCBI programme, the project was selected among the top five best projects, earning an award from AIMS Rwanda. It was subsequently chosen among the Top Three Best Projects to represent the programme at the international AI for Global Impact competition, which attracted innovators from around the world, a milestone that further highlighted its potential to transform public sector service delivery through artificial intelligence.

Building on these achievements, the project earned its most significant recognition yet at the AI for Good Global Summit 2026, where it was selected within 59 outstanding AI use cases from nearly 400 submissions received worldwide under ITU's Innovate for Impact initiative. The Innovate for Impact initiative identifies, evaluates, and promotes practical AI solutions that address real-world challenges and contribute to sustainable development, with a strong focus on solutions that can be replicated in resource-constrained environments.

This recognition places RISA's AI-Powered Policy Navigator among a distinguished group of global innovations leveraging artificial intelligence to improve governance, healthcare, education, agriculture, financial inclusion, and other critical sectors. According to ITU, the selected projects demonstrate how AI is evolving from experimental concepts into scalable solutions capable of delivering measurable impact for communities and institutions worldwide.

This achievement underscores Rwanda's growing leadership in harnessing emerging technologies to accelerate digital transformation and modernise public service delivery. It also reflects RISA's commitment to developing home-grown, responsible AI solutions that improve access to public information, strengthen digital governance, and support data-driven decision-making across government institutions.