The convention was held in Nairobi, Kenya at the end of March over a 3-day period and was funded by  Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and had received endorsement from the highest  office in the country, with a minister from the Office of the President presiding over the opening ceremony.

Taking a close look at the profile of the organizers of the convention, observers could not help  thinking that the presence of a large numbers of private sector organizations coming together to talk  about ICT policy and strategy would be enthusiastically supported by the government, which has been  focusing its ICT policy strategy on the support of private sector initiatives. However, not even the  business groups present were happy with the government’s ill-coordinated, non-inclusive attempts to  draft a national ICT policy and the recent piecemeal introduction and haste to move towards  implementation of scattered, under-resourced ICT projects.

Few of the groups present –particularly the civil society and community groups whose interests and  efforts have been ignored in government plans- were convinced by the organizers calls not to get bogged  down in analysing the current policy position and instead to focus on developing a strategy for  implementation.

Will the current ICT policy draft please stand up?

As various speakers talked about the current national policy, many were surprised to hear that the  draft national ICT policy released in late 2020, just prior to the World Summit on the Information  Society in Geneva had in fact been updated and reviewed and that a ‘new’ draft was in circulation. The  ‘new’ draft had been issued sometimes in February but only circulated to a select few on the ‘need to  know’ basis said Charles Nduati, the Executive Secretary of KIF. Delegates demanded to know why they  had come to a forum intended to provide a platform to develop a comprehensive national ICT strategy  when the latest draft of the policy document had not been made public.

Demands to have the new document copied and distributed were turned down by the conference organizers  who indicated that since the document was labelled ‘confidential’ they could be arrested for  distributing a document that had not been officially released for public distribution. Efforts to query  the government representatives present at the convention as to the status of the latest version of the  ICT policy did not bear fruits either and incredulous delegates were advised to contact the relevant  ministry and demand a copy as “tax-paying citizens who have the right to access public policy  documents”.

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