[Daily Nation]
‘Digital villages’ to be set up all over Kenya to speed up access to data
Story by NATION correspondent
Publication Date: 2007/04/30
The Government plans to set up ‘digital villages’ throughout the country,
to ease access to information for its citizens.
Information assistant minister Mr Koigi Wamwere said during the weekend
that the villages to be set up in all the 210 constituencies, will facilitate easy
access to information that would trigger economic development in those areas.
Commissioning
The minister was speaking in Kisumu during the commissioning of the Od
Mikayi satellite information centre, where the project by the Government also
received a major boost with the approval of a Sh8 billion grant by the World Bank.
This will see local communities exposed to new technologies such as the internet
and SMS banking.
“We intend to roll out the first of these projects in August,”
said Mr Wamwere.
He added, “The laying of fibre optic cables throughout the country is on course
and when completed, Kenyans are going to enjoy the benefits of high speed
internet connectivity.”
This initiative is intended to double the number of people having access to
such services from 2.7 to 6 million, he said.
Also targeted will be telephone subscribers, whose numbers are expected
to rise significantly from the current 8.5 million to 15 million before the year
ends.
Learning centres
“We also intend to set up E- learning centres in all schools in addition to
computerising all Government departments in the country.
"This will enhance transparency in the running of Government affairs,” said
the minister.
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?premiumid=0&category_id=3&newsid=97056>
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Alex Gakuru <alex.gakuru@yahoo.com>
wrote: Alice,
Thanks for this wonderful news. Please send me the link.
Alex
alice <alice@apc.org> wrote:
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From Balancing Act
MPS SUPPORT E-GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION IN KENYA
Kenya's legislators have surprisingly added their voice in support of
the transformation to electronic governance in their operations, both
within parliament and in at the constituency level. During a two-day
meeting held in Nairobi recently, the members of parliament (MPs)
discussed various issues related to Kenya Information Society including
e-government and ICT strategies in the country and what
should be the
role of parliamentarians in the process of implementation and monitoring.
The meeting with theme: "Empowering Kenya's MPs and National Assembly
staff on Building the country's Knowledge Economy," was organised by the
UN's Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the Canadian e-Policy
Resource Network (ePolNet). e-PolNet aims at supporting the
implementation of the African Information Society through the provision
of various kinds of expertise.
The participants, who included 15 MPs, discussed how ICTs can accelerate
the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and various
applications like e-health, e-learning, e-commerce and open platform.
This is in response to the eighth goal of MDGs, declared during the UN's
Millennium Declaration in 2000, which aims to develop a global
partnership for development (including a target to make available the
benefits of ICTs to all the world's
inhabitants).
The participants resolved that there is need to take advantage of the
on-going restructuring of all parliamentary committees in order to have
ICT either accommodated in one of the committees or set up an
independent committee on the subject.
In his opening address, Mathioya MP, Joseph Kamotho, said that through
the use of ICT, governments become less bureaucratic, and more
efficient. "With deployment of ICTs, several opportunities that corrupt
public officials normally use for their private gain are eliminated or
greatly reduced therefore increasing transparency and accountability in
the management of public resources," said Kamotho.
Kamotho said that governments in Africa must, therefore, invest in ICT
so that the public is able to monitor the performance of their
representatives through the establishment of websites where citizens can
get information about their institution, leaders and the laws
made.
On electoral processes, participants gave the example of Zambia where
the voters register bears the holder's photo to stem vote rigging.
(SOURCE: East African Business Week)
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