ICT Secretary Joe Mucheru (second left) takes a selfie with members of
the Distributed Ledger and Artificial Intelligence Task Force during the
release of the Blockchain report at Telposta Towers in Nairobi on
Thursday last week. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU
A team tasked with looking into ways Kenya can fully tap
emerging technologies to improve service provision, address various
challenges and foster economic growth has released its findings.
The
report highlights Blockchain and AI as key realms of technology that
are bound to fundamentally transform they way things are done in various
sectors of the economy.
The
Distributed Ledgers Technology (DTL) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Taskforce, which presented its report to ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe
Mucheru last Thursday in Nairobi, also outlined the steps Kenya ought to
take in order to play a significant role in the Fourth Industrial
Revolution in Africa.
Led by Prof Bitange Ndemo, a
former ICT principal secretary and tech expert, the team of 14 came up
with 12 recommendations on how Blockchain and AI can be utilised to
fight corruption, counterfeits and cybercrime. It also details how the
technologies can be tapped to curtail misdiagnosis of diseases, attain
food security and strengthen democratics processes.
Further, the 123-page report covers policy and regulatory framework touching on Big Data, 5G and Internet of Things (IoT).
“Blockchain and AI have emerged as technologies that offer
actual means to fight corruption and ensure that citizens’ interests are
protected, given that they offer transparency and immutability,” the
report reads, citing Spain, Ghana, Georgia and Ukraine as countries that
have gained tremendous success in using the technologies to fight
graft.
To
control government’s huge public debt, the report recommends creation
of a digital asset framework to enable citizens to raise funds through
Initial Coin Offers (ICOs) as a strategy to help local investors put
their resources in cryptocurrencies underpinned by the utility of local
resources.
“Kenya needs to pilot this promising concept
and issue an infrastructure coin or one that deals with the problem of
unemployment,” the report says.
Another key
recommendation by the taskforce is the use of technology to enhance
political democracy and avoid disputes that can degenrate into post-
election violence.
“Last year, Sierra Leone became the
first country in the world to use blockchain in tallying presidential
elections alongside the normal process to demonstrate that indeed
Blockchain can be used in tallying votes,” it says.
The
report advocates for a gradual adoption of the technology by the
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission of Kenya (IEBC) starting
with election of Members of County Assemblies in order to build
confidence before it is ultimately rolled out for presidential vote
tallying.
As part of the financial inclusion drive —
using India as an example — the taskforce recommends the creation of a
National Payment Gateway using a public-private partnership model. This
payment gateway becomes the central point for all digital payments. This
will ensure, the report says, a reduction in the cost of transactions
and the beginning of the journey from a cash-based economy to a full
digital economy.
However, for this to happen the
government has been advised to conduct awareness campaigns and education
to foster citizen’s financial literacy and capability. It will also
need to leverage citizen ID for ‘Know Your Customer’ for opening bank
accounts and providing credit, establish robust financial consumer
protection frameworks and implement a Financial Technology (Fintech)
Legal and Regulatory Sandbox.
“To reduce transaction
costs, Kenya should leverage Blockchain and AI to identify fraud
indicators and conduct a public awareness campaign. It should also
introduce legislation to compel financial institutions to report fraud
incidents and encourage CBK to leverage Blockchain and AI to verify
institutional reporting,” says the report.
State should
also use Blockchain to increase transparency of land transactions,
calling for reviewing and amending the land title regimes under the Land
Registration Act and the Community Land Act to formulate guidelines for
electronic land titling.
As the starting point, the taskforce recommends automation of all land records throughout the country.
To
improve public service delivery, the team recommends adopting
Blockchain to provide “a single source of truth” for all government
documents and services. This will be powered by a digital identity
service (Huduma Namba) and a digital fiat (surrogate) currency.
The
report also covers the all important question of food security and
safety, stating that Kenya needs to apply AI and analytics to detect
fraud, trace unsafe products and deliver training to farmers to improve
quality.
The country also needs to consider
distributing farming subsidies, including those for fertiliser, through
“a Blockchain controlled Agri-token” that reduces fraud and ensures
farmers receive the needed assistance by leveraging citizen ID.
The
government, the report says, also needs to introduce a citizen service
that tracks the origin of food products and reports those which are
unsafe.
The taskforce also recommends aggressive use of
technology to improve integrity of medical records, in consent
management for greater patient privacy, and in setting up reward systems
for patients who avail their data for medical research.
The
government, it adds, should tap Blockchain to enable customers trace
the supply chain of medication, help tackle counterfeit medication and
augment the skills of medical professionals.
To
eliminate counterfeits in the wider manufacturing sector, the
technologies should be used to create an electronic, interoperable
system to identify and trace outputs and inputs as they are distributed
in Kenya.
"In reducing cyberthreats, the Computer
Misuse and Cybercrimes Act of 2018 should be operationalized and ensure a
national computer and cybercrime co-ordination committee is in place
together with regularized enforcement."
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