[kictanet] Is Kenya Really Going Digital and Open?

Fri Jan 8 17:46:55 EAT 2010

Dear All.

Happy new year.

The post from Ms Adera is what I would term as critical to success of any
Digital Initiative that any company or country wishes to undertake.

But I'd like to let Dr Ndemo off the hook this once.

There are obviously many layers to going 'digital' many of which lie outside
of the technical realm per se.

To every employee in the ministry of tourism, promotion of local as well
international tourism should permeate every employees conscious to a point
where, CD, brochures etc should to dished out to all visitors in the
ministry as a matter of course not of a conscious plan to 'go digital'. Its
why the ministry exists!SO obviously going digital is not to blame. I would
go as far as saying lack of initiative and fear of doing some work are the
culprits right there!

I do believe that Dr Ndemo has his work cut out for him in a few ways, but
the real challenge is not his per se.

It would be a mockery of the system if as a result of Ediths post some
'action' to put the librarian in place was achieved. Knee jerk reactions
wont solve the problem.

As long as the Public officers do not see themselves as needing to work for
a living, we will always face red tape which if you were to look for the
procedures of the ministry might not even exist in the first place.

I bring this up to illustrate the 'special' status that the public officers
are often given ( or give themselves) in this whole going digital
discussion. There is often a lot of talk on the need for seminars, training,
over the top procurement of simple equipment etc in their corridors as part
of a 24 month implementation initiative. There is also a lot of talk of
internet access to public offices etc. with bandwith subsidy almost choking
the finance departments!

But is this the crux of the matter?

Isnt it time that we looked at the whole issue differently? We need to
realise that there needs to be real attitude shifts talking into account
that although processes will not change just move faster, that the digital
world will mean faster decision making ( on simple commonsense items like
promotional CD's at the very least?). More awareness of ones role in their
work places and A real customer orientation as information access has
expanded exponentially already?

We also need to take into account that there is real technophobia leading to
techno-rejection and even in some cases techno-sabotage albeit
subconsciously.

As an example to support my wild assertion in the above paragraph. Note how
slowly ICT related activity and projects are implemented? One may say this
is the norm but I work intimately with one public office that has been in
the media a lot lately, and I have watched with amusement how all ICT
related projects are treated with a real sense of fear like they are an
epidemic about to happen specifically to Ministry staff only.

As a last note I would like to point out that going digital is not as
expensive both financially and Human resource wise as it will always be made
to look by our public offices. It also has little to do with age of the
digital convertees - so to speak-

It is really about change in attitude and the need to put a price on public
jobs - and creative some service orientation in the systems.

I never heard of Nokia or samsung holding classes anywhere for their soon to
be users. Nor did I ever go to a Nokia shop and wait for the sales person to
get permission to let me try out a new phone or get a brochure. Is this
commons sense or consciousness of role?

Are we really dealing with the real issues here?

I'll bet that the librarian who 'assisted' Edith's representative has
a mobile phone which she uses very confidently - is that not a huge step in
going digital ????

regards

Faima

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Edith Adera <eadera at idrc.or.ke> wrote:

> Bwana Ndemo,
>
> I trust this finds you well in the new year.
>
> Today, I patriotically sent someone to the Ministry of Tourism to pick a
> promotional DVD, Video or other digital products on Kenya for use in an
> event that will include foreigners so as to portray Kenya in good light
>  thinking I'm being the good Kenyan that we should all be.
>
> The librarian asked to speak to me and told me that I must first "write a
> letter" to the Ministry formally requesting the materials!, then it has to
> be discussed with the boss and a formal approval given before I can get a
> copy, which she has. I could not believe my ears! Are we back to the snail
> mail era where you receive no reply?
>
> What will become of your efforts on local content? how about access to
> information (which in this case is surely far from secret!). They proudly
> pay CNN millions of dollars to advertise Kenya, while Kenyans making an
> effort to promote their country, for free, have no access to the materials!!
>
> Could you advice me how best I can access the materials I need!
>
> Edith
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