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Many more Kenyans are set to reap the potentially life-changing benefits of the information age, thanks in part to an IDRC-supported project that has universal access as its goal.

Most Kenyans who live in rural areas lack basic telephony, let alone the Internet, and risk missing out on the important advantages of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Although major towns and cities are better served by the country's limited ICT infrastructure, national Internet usage is still only 3%.

The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), the industry regulator, has just launched a trio of IDRC-funded initiatives aimed at improving and extending access to ICTs throughout the country.

Presiding over the May 15 launch, Mutahi Kagwe, Kenya’s Minister of Information and Communications, called one of the three ventures, the Geographic Information System (GIS), a “milestone” for Kenya’s communications sector.

The new system makes reliable data on the country’s ICT networks and infrastructure available for the first time, at the click of a mouse, promising to greatly facilitate the design of models for universal service provision, as well as the monitoring of related targets.

It can present information on landline and mobile phone services, postal and broadcasting networks in various formats, including maps, tables, and graphs, and “will provide local researchers and all investors with fast and timely information from a central location,” Mr Kagwe said.

CCK official Susan Mochache observed that investments in the ICT sector could now be based on “factual, geographically categorized information” and that the newly acquired technology was ushering Kenya deep into an era of accessible, reliable, and affordable ICTs for development.

The new system has already been used to plan the route of the National Optic Fibre Backbone, a high-tech cable network that is to extend broadband Internet to all corners of the country. The CCK is also working toward making GIS maps widely available on its Website.

Another system launched on the same day will monitor the quality of Kenya’s mobile phone services. Variables such as sound quality, signal strength, data-transfer speeds, and system congestion can all be tracked, with a view to improving service in the rapidly expanding sector.

Commission official Atieno Ochola said at the launch that some mobile phone provision has been “simply unacceptable,” and that the new Quality of Service Monitoring System will “enhance consumer protection, and also enhance our regulatory roles.”

The two state-of-the-art tools to support ICT decision-making and improve service delivery in Kenya will be run out of a new CCK Information Centre. These three advances all form part of the country’s Universal Access project, supported by IDRC's Acacia program.

Kelly Haggart is a senior writer in IDRC's Communications Division in Ottawa

2007-06

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