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2011 has been a great year for Kenya in the areas of access to information and open data.

First, in April 2011, Kenya Gazette Notices dating back to 1906 were digitized and made available online through a partnership between Kenya Law Review and Google Kenya.

Then, in July, Kenya partnered with Google Books to release 60 years of Kenya’s Hansard (the official report of parliamentary proceedings) in an easily accessible and searchable online format.

July also saw the launch of the Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI) with the goal of making “core government development, demographic, statistical and expenditure data available in a useful digital format for researchers, policymakers, ICT developers and the general public.”

KODI makes available large data sets from the Kenyan government (e.g., census, public expenditure, data from health and education ministries) and the World Bank (e.g., development indicators) in a user-friendly website for the public and data access via APIs for software developers, all developed on the Socrata platform.

These initiatives allow Kenya to take large strides in fulfilling its constitutional promise of access to information as a citizen’s fundamental right. It is now in the hands of community groups and software developers to analyze, visualize, make meaning, create knowledge, trigger civic actions, and enable social change with the available data. If not, open data and access to information will remain empty promises without any social impact.

Kenya has a vibrant technology for social development community (case in point: ushahidi and M-PESA) that is already stepping up to the challenge. It has only been a few months since KODI launched, but there already are a few projects that are using this data in innovative ways for the benefit of the community. A sample:

• Kenya Public Expenditure Portal: Review spending of Constituency Development Funds (CDF) at county level
• Virtual Kenya: Visualization of MPs (Member of Parliament) who are willing/unwilling to pay their taxes
• Msema Kweli: Mobile application to track Community Development Funds (CDF).
• Google Public Data Explorer: Trends in government expenditure for social spending, physical infrastructure, and other spending based on data from Kenya National Bureau of Statistics
• Huduma: Fix my constituency platform for citizens to demand social services from the government.

We will keep an eye (a very-excited-eye to be precise) on developments in this front and bring more news to this blog. Stay tuned!

For More Information:

[EXPAND Kenya Gazette Notices]

1. National Law Review: Open Access to Public Legal Information: Online Archive of the Kenya Gazettes
2. Google Kenya Blog: Over 100 years of the Kenya Gazette goes live on Google

[/EXPAND] [EXPAND Kenya Parliament Hansards]

1. Google Africa Blog: Kenya Parliament Hansards now available on Google Books
2. Africa Technology & Transparency Initiative: Public to get parliamentary debates via mobile phone and Internet
3. Business Daily: State goes hi-tech with launch of online data

[/EXPAND] [EXPAND Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI)]

1. Guardian: Kenya opens its books in revolutionary transparency drive
2. White African: Africa’s First National Open Data Initiative: Kenya
3. AfroInnovator: Kenya Open Data Initiative: A Developer Perspective

[/EXPAND] [EXPAND Article 35 of Kenya’s Constitution]

35. (1) Every citizen has the right of access to–
(a) information held by the State; and
(b) information held by another person and required for the exercise or protection of any right or fundamental freedom.

(2) Every person has the right to the correction or deletion of untrue or misleading information that affects the person.

(3) The State shall publish and publicise any important information affecting the nation.

[/EXPAND]

 

cross posted on Appropriate IT