Remember the Digital Economy Blueprint drafted by Kenya, for Kenya and the rest of Africa?
It
envisions “a digitally empowered citizenry, living in a digitally
enabled society”, and is built around five pillars: Digital government
(and platforms for public service delivery).
Digital business
as a robust marketplace for digital trade, digital financial services
and digital content. Infrastructure that is affordable, accessible,
resilient and reliable.
An ecosystem of homegrown firms to generate world class products and services.
A digitally skilled workforce. Add Konza Technopolis as the first of Kenya’s future smart cities.
Wikipedia
describes a guided democracy as “a formally democratic government that
functions as a de facto autocracy, is legitimised by elections that are
(ostensibly) free and fair, but does not change the State’s policies,
motives and goals”. I once saw its alternative name, “managed
democracy”, described in an FT commentary on Russia thus: “Democracy is
where the authorities arrange the elections; managed democracy is where
authorities arrange the elections and the result”.
For those wondering about where BBI is taking us, Charles Onyango-Obbo in the Daily Nation
of July 16 teases us that the future of Kenyan politics is such that
the people might call for revolution (and social justice, human rights
and the like), but we’ll always end up with the next best thing – a
“passable bourgeois democracy”. As he posits, the Old Order (and Old
Money) is terribly adept and ruthlessly efficient at neutering calls for
a New Order, leading to “half-loaf outcomes” after years of activism.
Given
the purge now taking place in our political space, amid increasing
complaints about “guided democracy”, that’s useful food for thought at a
time coronavirus recently checked into State House, the Treasury, the
ICT ministry, Public Service Commission and some leading hospitals.
Second, let’s jump to our digital future and pick up four documents from 2019, pre-Covid.
Remember the Digital Economy Blueprint drafted by Kenya, for
Kenya and the rest of Africa? It envisions “a digitally empowered
citizenry, living in a digitally enabled society”, and is built around
five pillars: Digital government (and platforms for public service
delivery). Digital business as a robust marketplace for digital trade,
digital financial services and digital content. Infrastructure that is
affordable, accessible, resilient and reliable. An ecosystem of
homegrown firms to generate world class products and services. A
digitally skilled workforce. Add Konza Technopolis as the first of
Kenya’s future smart cities.
Recall the National ICT
Policy? This document envisions Kenya as “a globally competitive
knowledge-based economy”. It identifies four “policy focus areas’.
“Mobile first”, meaning inexpensive and accessible internet available on
locally assembled devices. “Market”, as raising ICT’s contribution to
10 percent of GDP by 2030. “Skills and innovation” that build world
class research, products and industries. “Public service delivery”
towards making and taking all government services online.
Included
in this policy intent is 20 Kenyan multi-national ICT companies, 300
mid-sized ICT firms, 5,000 ICT-focused SMEs and 20,000 ICT start-ups.
All of these expected in five years, by 2024.
Don’t
forget the Digital Ledger Technology and Artificial Intelligence Task
Force that proposed strategies to eliminate corruption, minimise public
debt, streamline democracy and elections, deepen financial inclusion,
enhance public service delivery and improve our national anti-corruption
rating by 2022.
Add the task force’s recommendations
to support the Big Four agenda through blockchain and artificial
intelligence to streamline agriculture supply chains, lower housing
finance costs, track drug supply chains, provide disease control
analytics, eliminate counterfeits and clean up land titling.
Finally, the World Bank on accelerating Kenya’s digital economy.
Eight
key messages of recommendation were offered. Ensure regulation and
policy keeps pace with rapid market evolution. Move Kenya from startup
to growth. Build human capital. Improve digital public services
offerings and trust in online transactions. Address growing market
concentration (mobile telco market power). Close the digital divide.
Tread carefully on taxation of the digital economy by encouraging wider
access but prioritise downstream (user-level) revenue opportunities.
And,
think regional and global. It was estimated then that an integrated
East African digital market (with single connectivity, data and online
sub-markets) would be the 9th largest in the world, with significant
benefits to Kenya’s digital firms and to consumers.
Summing
up this smorgasbord of ideas, there’s much work to do on multiple “Ps” —
policy, products, people, platforms, private sector participation,
pricing and projects — if we are to develop this digital economy
opportunity. Yes, digital isn’t “the future of everything’, but it will
be a critical cog in our Covid-19 New Normal, Next Normal or Great Reset
(pick your phrase). Today’s buzzphrase is the real time economy.
Let’s
cheekily close the circle. If the beginning (and end) is guided
democracy, this costs money. Fiscal 2020/21 has just begun, so we’re in
“company formation for tendering” mode. ICT is always a juicy target.
Not these high-sounding ideas, but basics like computers supplied at a
200 percent mark-up, or cabling at a 300 percent margin.
In this cynical transactions- not-policy scenario, that’s plenty in deals to keep our guided democracy well oiled.
Might
we one day discover that democratic reform and digital modernisation
aren’t mutually exclusive? Let’s quietly mull this circular message this
weekend. Hell, so too should our BBI and ICT task forces.
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