Dear Walu,
I am sorry I did not have time to contribute to the discussions. Please pardon me for raising a few issues as you consolidate comments. I have the following observations which should be integrated into the consolidated:
1) Evaluation of the 2006 ICT policy. No attempt was made to evaluate how useful the 2006 policy was in guiding the industry. What was achieved/not achieved? What did we learn? There was a section 4.2 on rationale but it is too weak. I propose a substantive section on this in the Introduction.
2) Reference to other policy documents. There are a number of documents that could be considered at policy level, e.g. the National ICT Master Plan and the National Broadband Strategy. No reference is made to these documents yet they have very key policy statements, outcomes and targets. For example, in the National ICT Master Plan, there is a recommendation to create ICT as a stand-alone sector with its own ISIC classification standards. This is something I would have expected the policy document to pick up because it is so important for growth of ICT in this country.
3) Section 6 is derived from the draft Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policy. No reference is made to this document, which unfortunately was not formally adopted because it was presented just before the last election and everyone was in a hurry. At the same time, most of the material in this section 6 comes from the STI policy document without value addition. Given that the draft STI policy was developed in 2011/12, I propose we make amendments to the proposed Kenya National Innovation System (KNIS) given that a lot has changed since then and a lot is likely to change in the life of this document. The Ministry of ICT, ICT Authority, the various tech innovation hubs and KoTDA are key actors now or in the future and should be recognised in the KNIS.
4) Policy outcomes. The document contains policy objectives, which is fine. However, it is very difficult to evaluate the accomplishment of objectives. I propose that for each area, we develop policy outcomes. This way, we can measure the achievement of this new policy. We would also be providing direction to the various strategy documents that would need to be developed at a lower level.
5) Hurried. Reading through the document, one gets the impression that it was hurriedly put together. If it is going to serve us for > 10 years, we need to give it time and produce a good document. So let us not be in a hurry to push it for approval when there are glaring problems. In any case, we have a policy that still continues to guide us, approximately.