Press Release CEOs Develop Recommendations for Leveraging ICT to achieve the Big Four and SDGs

On Tuesday October 18th, 50 CEOs and experts in Kenya from government, development partners, businesses and academia met to develop a set of recommendations on how to leverage ICT to achieve the Big Four Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The roundtable was organised by the SDG Partnership Platform Kenya at the United Nations, the ICT Authority, Huawei and GlobeScan. It was held under the auspices of the Ministry of ICT, with the Principal Secretary, ICT and Innovation, overseeing the event. It was organised as a precursor to the Connected Summit taking place next week in Nairobi that will bring over 500 participants together to further discuss these issues.

Prior to the roundtable discussion, the participants completed a survey sharing their greatest challenges and opportunities for using ICT for the Big Four and SDGs. The survey found that:

• ICT could most contribute to Universal Health Coverage (UHC (75%), Food Security and Nutrition (63%), Manufacturing (58%), Affordable Housing (8%).
• Biggest challenges are High financial costs (53%), difficulty managing in parallel with main business (32%), and ICT infrastructure is not good enough (32%).
• National government, Intergovernmental, and non-profit organisations were the most important new partners that organisations need.
• Lack of focal point/organisational structure, lack of clear business model, and uncertainty on return of investment were the three biggest challenges in partnering.

Key recommendations developed during the event include:

• SDG 9: Manufacturing, innovation and research: Better and more accessible data to enable businesses to understand potential markets and business opportunities, as well as to build research centres;
• SDG 3: Develop and disseminate clear ICT norms and standards for UHC solutions to guide providers and investors and co-design integrated/holistic ICT solutions which are interoperable, user-friendly and fit for Kenya purpose.
• SDG 2: Agriculture and food security: Improve data at a local level to direct more investment and ensure it is efficient, as well as to develop new financing and business models that can be more suitable for engaging youth in agriculture;
• SDG 11: Housing and sustainable cities: Develop policies and guidelines that can enable more sustainable and safer cities using technology;
• SDG 4: Education: Cross-sector partnerships to implement more applied science and technology in curriculums throughout the education system.
• SDG 8: Decent Work and employment: Collect and share comprehensive research and data that can identify job and investment opportunities, enable a better understanding of job markets and build on the Ajira platform.

During the roundtable, John Sergon, Acting CEO, ICT Authority, representing the Principal Secretary for ICT and Innovation stated: “It is very important to bring together important stakeholders related to ICT and the BIG Four and SDG agenda to drive momentum and create opportunities for partnerships. This is why events such as this and Connected are so important. All of us in the industry and the ecosystem welcome the recommendations that have come out today and hope to forge new partnerships. Kenya is already a leading light in Africa for our progress in ICT infrastructure, ICT ecosystem and e-government and now we must build on this to bring further social and economic benefits to our citizens. We look forward to taking these recommendations forward into Connected taking place at Bomas of Kenya next week.”

Ruben Vellenga, Partnership Specialist at the SDG Partnership Platform of the United Nations Office in Kenya agreed, saying that “ICT can be a critical enabler of the Big Four agenda and this roundtable has developed some clear recommendations for what we can all do, working in partnership together. We will bring these forward into the SDG Partnership Platform’s work with stakeholders across the Big Four Development Agenda”.

Senior Director of Public Affairs at Huawei, Adam Lane, emphasized on the importance of multinational companies to utilize their high-tech innovations to work with local partners in government, academia, start-ups and non-profits to bring real tangible benefits to local people: “The Big Four agenda and the SDGs are a strong guiding framework for us in developing and implementing solutions to transform Kenya and Kenyans. Our recently launched Sustainability Report shows how we are partnering to contribute where we can and we continually seek to do more.”

About ICT Authority

ICT Authority is a State Corporation whose mandate is to rationalize and streamline Information and Communication Technology (ICT) functions of the Government of Kenya. The ICT Authority is mandated to enforce ICT standards in government and enhancing the supervision of its electronic communication. The Authority also promotes ICT literacy, capacity, innovation and enterprise in line with the Kenya National ICT Master plan 2017 along with the Vision 2030.

In line with the achievement of its mandate the Authority has partners with the private sector to execute ICT projects country wide.The projects include NOFBI and DLP.These are efforts to ensure digital connectivity countrywide and so make get all citizens access government services and make it easy for those in business.

The ICT Authority ,in line with SDG goals of integrating ICTs into public service delivery for greater efficiency and access to opportunities by all.We aim to use ICT to transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens by 2030 through ICT Hub and globally competitive digital economy.With regard to the Big 4 agenda On Manufacturing, we are the Lead agency for the Digital Literacy Program (DLP) whose main objective is to enhance learning by incorporating digital technology in primary schools. DLP has among other components, the setup of two local assembly lines for laptop tablets and other digital devices. On Food security, the ICT authority provides ICT infrastructure and services to the government of Kenya MDAs using a common platform as ICT shared service platform or Government cloud. This platform consists of the optic fiber connectivity and internet services to various government offices as well as e-Government services and Application. On Housing, ICT Authority has been involved in many Government digitization projects at the Ministry of Lands, Companies’ Registry and Judiciary, among others. Our initiatives in the area of housing are:On Universal Healthcare, we have undertaken to enable seamless access to services health facilities need to be connected to each other as well as the institutions underwriting the treatment e.g. the National Hospital Insurance Fund and Medical insurance providers. Our initiatives in the area of universal of Universal Healthcare are:

About SDG Partnership Platform

The SDG agenda is marked by solidarity participation and universality, with a fundamental shift expected in the development finance architecture. Improving the effectiveness, quality and impact of development co-operation in this context will require inclusive partnerships, innovative approaches and the application of lessons at country level.

The Government of Kenya and UN System in Kenya established therefore in 2017 the SDG Partnership Platform in collaboration with development partners, private sector, philanthropy, academia and civil society including faith-based stakeholders.

The Platform has become a flagship programme in the UNDAF (2018-2022) and will take leadership on overarching facilitation, coordination and demonstration of how public private partnerships and collaborations can effectively translate the SDGs into action on the ground and thereby guide and accelerate impact, maximize investments and optimize innovation and resource utilization.

The Platform will create diverse SDG accelerator windows. Primary Healthcare (PHC) - contributing to the SDG 3 cluster – is the first Window established in support of the attainment of UHC in Kenya. Subsequently, the Platform will open additional windows to support thematic SDG clusters in support of Kenya’s “Big Four” such as agriculture, manufacturing and affordable housing.