IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

How individuals and corporate plug into the bigger picture of a better ecosystem in realizing smart cities is the responsibility poised to the Kenyan society today.

During the IoT & AI Summit held in Nairobi, Konza City was termed the ‘dream of Africa’ in its realization.

Summary

• The study, which investigated 85 countries in which 81 per cent of the people in the world lived in the past 12 months, picked six countries in Africa for the research, and Kenya emerged at position 77.
• Kenya beat Nigeria and Algeria but was unable to surpass the technological convenience in South Africa, Morocco and Tunisia.
• While the 2020 DQL Index Edition report exposes Kenya's weak and below average digital quality of life during the pandemic, it ranks the country 61st in the quality of delivery of e-government services.

Digital tools were already commonplace before 2020. Still, Covid-19 took the Kenyan digital transformation to the next level. The adoption of digital technologies flourished in several sectors of the economy. Purchasing habits adjusted, as Kenyan e-commerce grew by 88%. But the lasting effects of Covid-19 were nowhere as visible as in the workplace.

Lockdowns and stay-at-home measures nudged many employers to be more innovative. A report by McKinsey & Company shows that companies adopted digital changes up to 20 times faster than they would have before Covid-19. And the definition of the workplace changed, too. When Coronavirus struck, organisations had to implement quick transition strategies. Remote working, thus, became the new normal.

Ambitious? Of course. This is a country where only 23 percent of people have access to electricity.

In Kenya today, a consumer wants to swipe to pay at a clothing store, pay via mobile money at the grocery store, write a cheque for school fees, and pay cash at the fuel station.

This highlights the changing dynamics witnessed in the payments industry in Kenya and around the globe, with consumers and businesses using multiple channels, interchangeably.

This came against a background that most public offices still operated on the traditional rigid model of public administration where processes and procedures are more important than citizen satisfaction.

The review master plan that is anchored on e-government services, ICT as driver of economy and developing ICT business, hopes to create 180,000 direct jobs and contribute 8 per cent of the GDP.

A delegation of Kenya’s Petroleum and Mining department, which visited Raipur appreciated the IT-based mining administration system developed by Chhattisgarh and showed interest in emulating it in Kenya, officials said on Saturday.

According to officials, Kenya has chosen Chhattisgarh among other Indian states for studying the mines administration, because Chhattisgarh is the first state to implement compete e-auctioning of mines not only for major minerals but also for minor minerals.

The delegation, led by Francis Meja, registrar of motor vehicles, Kenya Monday called on Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to understand the procedures so that it could be replicated in the African country.

Explaining about the concept of citizen centric reforms, Badal said, "this whole exercise was to eliminate interaction between general public and authorities by making the whole process online".

Developments at the World Economic Forum held in New Delhi recently could see science and technology transfers and the creation of value-added products from raw materials, as well as infrastructure development, prioritised as the two countries move to cement their trade relations.

“We see Africa’s relationship with Brazil, India and China as strategic. They are important in the quest for socio-economic development of our continent,” said Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Introduction

ICTs have quickly developed. Therefore, new knowledge and modernization have been designed to lead to the constant growth in the economic system and community, and society.

To support the modification of ICT and to create and enhance the ICT potential of Kenya in the worldwide market, The Kenya Digital Masterplan (2013-2017) was created to be used as a structure for piloting the e-Government Strategy 2004, the first National ICT Policy of 2005 and The Master Plan 2013.

Kenya National Libraries Services branches will be connected to free internet in a Sh72 million deal by data carrier Liquid Telecom Kenya and regulator Communications Authority of Kenya.

The 46 public libraries will each get an additional 11 computers, Kindles – hand-held electronic for reading books – and tablets from next month. The partnership enables readers to access fixed and wireless internet on either the KNLS' computers or on their own devices.

The county government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a Chinese firm Comservice Kenya Ltd and Ahadi Africa Digital Project for the establishment of communication hubs within the county.

The ICT and e-Government executive, George Lutomia asked the technical team to immediately embark on the work that will see learning institutions, urban areas and public offices connected to Wi-Fi and internet.

Kenya has consistently set herself as a technological trendsetter in the sub-Saharan region.

• With accurate, well analyzed and interpreted data, the government has an opportunity to facilitate real-time-decision making.
• The buck does not stop at having a webpage that provides access to governmental services.

The exercise which is part of the Inter-Governmental Steering Committee for the Capacity Assessment and Rationalization of the Public Service (CARPS) programme will wipe out ghost workers and ensure Kenyans receive the quality services they deserve.

Kenya became the first country in the East African region and second after South Africa in the entire Sub-Saharan Africa to launch a national broadband strategy.

Deputy President William Ruto said the realization of Vision 2030 is anchored upon maximizing the catalytic role of information and communication technology (ICT) in socio-economic development.

State ministries, departments and agencies are dragging their feet in adopting mobile money platforms compared to private entities, a government-sponsored survey suggested yesterday.

The inaugural ICT Enterprise Report shows that only 19.2 per cent of the public institutions have mobile money accounts compared to 73.3 per cent in the private firms.

In Kenya, the late Lee Kuan Yew, founding Prime Minister of Singapore, is regarded as something of a secular saint.

Barely a month passes but some media commentator laments the fact that Kenya has remained a third world country 50 years after Independence, while – under the visionary leadership of Lee Kuan Yew – Singapore evolved into a first world nation in just 30 years or so.

The Kakamega government will roll out a cashless revenue collection system to seal theft loopholes, Governor Wycliffe Oparanya has said.

The system will be launched on June 1. It will be operated by telecom provider Safaricom and supervised by the county’s revenue collection agency.

Oparanya and county officials met Safaricom representatives in Kisumu on Thursday.

As the 21st Century technology wave improves business efficiency and service delivery in the private sector, Government is not be left behind. Through advanced technological processes such as intelligent process automation, advanced analytics and AI, modes of interaction between the citizen and government are rapidly changing, with increased opportunities for quality, efficient and reliable public service delivery. Simply stated, by leveraging on technology, governments’ world over have an opportunity to develop, improve and maximise on citizen-centric service delivery.

Closer to home, it must be noted as a point of pride that Kenya has consistently set herself as a technological trendsetter in the Sub-Saharan region and Africa at large. Particularly, governmental services have increasingly been automated allowing for the delivery of government information and services to citizens ‘anywhere, anytime’. With the advent of online e-government services such as e-Citizen and iTax, Kenya is arguably at the forefront of e-service delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa.