Chief Executive Officer, Council of GovernorsMary
Mwiti/HANDOUTThe digital era has redefined our social interactions, how we experience the world and how we conduct business across multiple fields.
The governance landscape has witnessed a major shift, with ICT and emerging technologies transforming service delivery in different sectors including finance, health, trade and citizen engagement.
Kenya has emerged as a pacesetter in ICT in Africa, with its growth largely attributed to Fintech innovation, market liberalization, changing geopolitical dynamics as well as a competitive and inclusive regulatory environment.
The 2025 United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ICT Regulatory Tracker ranked Kenya as having the most progressive ICT regulatory ecosystem, in Africa.
Globally, Kenya ranked 20th out of 194 countries, with Italy, Lithuania, Finland and Ireland taking the lead. The country is moving towards adopting global trends in ICT including AI automation, cloud computing, big data analytics, sustainability (green ICT), cyber security and blockchain technology.
As Kenya advances ICTs, a powerful truth emerges. ICT is no longer just a support function that deals with computers and hardware systems.
It is a strategic enabler that has the potential to spur socio-economic growth, promote good governance and support the realization of Kenya’s Vision 2030 and the Digital Superhighway, a foundational pillar of the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
Effective implementation of ICTs, or the lack of it, can either be a catalyst for transparent, efficient, responsive governance, or further widen the digital divide and entrench existing inequalities that undermine constitutional ideals.
National and County Governments must therefore take deliberate steps to strengthen and invest in ICTs to fully realize digital transformation.
Digital connectivity is central to this transformation. In the spirit of leaving no one behind, both levels of government must work together to ensure universal access to ICTs across the entire country. Strengthening ICTs further calls for joint efforts particularly in policy formulation, implementation, infrastructure deployment and the digitalization of public services.
Through the National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure Project (NOFBI), the government has connected key government institutions and offices, providing a reliable,secure and stable network that can be utilized at both national and county levels.
Additionally, last mile connectivity is being implemented to ensure all Counties are interconnected and ease access to critical government applications like IFMIS.
While this is commendable, some Counties are yet to be connected on the NOFBI Project while the last mile connectivity is yet to be achieved across all 47 Counties.
This is further compounded by the high costs of infrastructure deployment, especially in remote and underserved areas.
Connectivity is not just about urban centers and towns, it must go beyond to reach far flung communities that would traditionally have been cut off. Such capital intensive investments necessitate public-private partnerships.
Poor internet connectivity does not merely mean a slow download, for others it means a smallholder farmer losing their harvest to middlemen because they can’t access market information, a mother missing critical maternal health alerts and a student being locked out of digital learning platforms while their urban counterparts thrive, not by choice or the lack of ambition, but due to limited or non-existent infrastructure.
As the uptake of ICTs increases, empowering the intended users with the relevant skills to fully harness its benefits becomes more apparent.
According to the Kenya National Digital Master Plan 2022 – 2032, the government seeks to establish 1,450 village digital innovation hubs that will serve as local centers for digital literacy, creative economy support and enhance access to online job platforms for the youth.
Similarly, ICT professionals as well as public servants will receive training on digital literacy, facilitating the seamless adoption of technology and effective service delivery across the 47 counties. These digital literacy initiatives must go beyond ticking boxes.
They must be the critical link that transforms national policy ambitions into local realities and deliver tangible outcomes that empower citizens to thrive in the digital economy.
ICT operates as a cross-cutting enabler of governance and quality service delivery.
The recent inaugural ICT intergovernmental sector forum, held in January this year, marks the first step in enhancing collaborative, structured and concerted efforts between both levels of government.
So, how about we start by ensuring that all Counties are connected to NOFBI and Last mile connectivity is fully implemented to support service delivery at the grassroot level?
The Council of Governors, in partnership with VNG International, is piloting a Digital Maturity Index (DMI) tool designed to help County Governments assess and advance their digitalization journey.
The tool identifies strengths and gaps while defining actionable steps to enhance public service delivery. It also measures the level of digital preparedness of each county to adopt ICT as an enabler of development.
The pilot is currently being implemented in Kitui, Turkana, and Kisumu counties, with plans to scale up to all counties by the end of July 2026.
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