Publish open data to spur innovation in public service delivery and development (KE0026)

We will lower the barrier and increase access to timely, affordable, up-to-date, and accurate data for socioeconomic development in order to reduce inequality and improve evidence-based decision-making for enhanced service delivery.

Objectives Promote transparent and accountable use of publicly funded research data for open science to spur innovation and knowledge creation, public expenditures, Earth Observations and geo-spatial information to enable academia, citizens, innovators and other data communities harness its capability for use in the areas of health, agriculture, water, physical and land-use planning, disaster management, natural resources management, environmental conservation and climate change.

Status quo Analysis-ready Earth Observations Data - datasets that have been processed to allow analysis with minimum additional user effort and infrastructure - and information are currently not easily available or accessible to data communities such as farmers, planners, surveyors, health workers, academia and first responders in disaster. Data on public expenditures and location of capital projects in datasets that are also analysis-ready and can be used by both government and non-state actors is also not easy to find. County planning is guided by Section 102-115 of the County Government Act, 2012. County Governments are required to prepare a 5-year County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) that informs annual budget of a county, a 10-year County Sectoral Plan, a 10-year County Spatial Plan, and city and municipal plans based on geographic information system (GIS). Clause 105 (f), in particular, obligates counties to establish a GIS based database system to be used as a tool for planning and implementation of development programmes in order to ensure inequalities in resource allocation are addressed. However, these requirements are currently at disparate levels of implementation. Further, current Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Resilience interventions at national and sub-national level are not supported by accurate and timely data.

Ambition The initiative will help provide affordable access to analysis-ready data in open standards, including publishing, and where possible disaggregated to include gender, minorities etc. The intent is to publish and share algorithms for re-use, through openly accessible platforms. This will enable decision makers and innovators leverage on open data to create products and services that are more context specific to cater for service gaps to farmers, policy makers, health workers in aid of every day decision making and action. The infrastructure will also be repurposed to ensure adequate disaster preparedness, faster response and recovery

No. Verifiable and measurable milestones to fulfill commitment Status of milestone Start Date End Date 1. Regularly update the Kenya Open Data portal Ongoing February 2021 May 2022 2. Include GIS information of capital projects in County budgets Ongoing February 2021 May 2022 3. Establish conditional grant to support development of geographic information system laboratories (GIS Labs), and digitization of development control New February 2021 May 2022 4. Support development and implementation of Spatial Plans through technical assistance, capacity building and sensitization, infrastructure development and data provision in at least five Counties New February 2021 May 2022 5. Integrate use of analysis-ready data for development and disaster risk reduction Ongoing February 2021 May 2022 6. Support the implementation of a Disaster Early Warning System New February 2021 May 2022 7. Develop demand driven market for dissemination of simplified data products for decision making and action for different data communities (Governments, Civil Society, citizens) New February 2021 May 2022 8. Open Research Data-Open science to accelerate Knowledge creation and Innovation (CODATA) New June 2021 May 2022 9. Development of Data Policies, Data Management Plans for at least five counties New June 2021 May 2022

Action Plan Review

Commitment 3. Open Data for Development

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential for results: Modest

Results Report

Commitment 3. Open Data for Development

This commitment sought to lower the barriers and increase access to timely, affordable, up-to-date, and accurate data for socio-economic development in order to reduce inequality and improve evidence-based decision making for enhanced service delivery.

Milestone 1 aimed to establish an up-to-date open data portal, which is housed by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics [36]. It contains an array of information pertaining to Kenya’s economy, such as population, economic indicators, inflation, and export-import data. However, the data on the portal was not up to date with information for the year 2023 at the time of writing this report. The commitment text was also too general and lacked specificity on the frequency of updates, hence making it difficult to assess the precise level of completion.

Milestones 2 and 3 sought the inclusion of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) information of capital projects in county budgets, the establishment of conditional grants to support the development of GIS Labs, and digitization of development control. While there was no evidence of the inclusion of GIS information on capital project budgets, there was indication of the utilization of GIS information to streamline operations in select counties. Nairobi County, for instance, employed the use of GIS information to streamline revenue collection. [37] At the same time, Mandera County and 17 other county governments established functional GIS laboratories, whereas 20 other counties were in the process of establishing conditional grants to support the development of GIS laboratories. [38] These capital intensive yet hidden projects are major conduits for corrupt dealings and could have the potential of enhancing transparency within the counties. Lack of prioritization and financing was the main challenges to achieve full implementation.

According to the National Land Commission (NLC), only seven out of the 47 Counties in Kenya had successfully formulated and approved a county spatial plan in compliance with milestone 4 by the end of the 2021–2022 fiscal year. [39] According to UN Habitat, some challenges inhibiting the implementation of this milestone included weak technical knowledge and skills as well as lack of effective tools and technology. [40]

No progress was made under milestones 5 and 6 on disaster reduction and mitigation. However, the National Assembly discussed and approved two bills relating to disaster management during this action plan cycle. These included the National Disaster Management Authority Bill of 2019, which was passed on 16 February 2022, and the National Disaster Risk Management Bill of 2021, which was passed on 12 May 2022. Both Bills were still going through the remaining stages of the legislative process at the time of writing this report. [41]

Milestones 7, 8, and 9 related to the development of data policies and their subsequent public dissemination and utilization. The researcher did not find any evidence of the commencement of any of the three milestones. All the three milestones were couched in a manner that did not demonstrate a measurable outcome. As such, assessing the completion status was difficult.