Kenya Open Data Initiative (opendata.go.ke), was Africa’s first online open government data portal, launched by the by the former President Hon. Mwai Kibaki on July 8^th 2011. Its major intent was, to maintain a website that would make Government development, demographic, statistical, expenditure, health and education datasets available in a digital format for researchers, policymakers and the general population. This initiative is in support of the Government’s drive to consistently inform and be accountable to its citizens. And also in view of promoting transparency, accountability, efficiency, greater citizen participation and sharing of information between government agencies.

The Challenge

The initiative has faced quite a few challenges since its adoption leading to its Re-launch in July 2015. The inability to visualize all the data correctly especially with regard to statistical information of county and constituency boundaries has been one of the major challenges faced. This has been due to the fact that the provider then, was more US-Centric thus, lack of local mapping support.  This meant that local Kenyan insights and perspectives could not be seen directly on the portal. “There wasn’t enough localization in terms of providing local Kenyan boundaries at local scales”. Says Sifa Mawiyoo, Open Data Geospatial Technologist.