[kictanet] Crowd Sourced Citizen Report Cards + strategic inefficiency is what creates a large number jobs

Tue May 7 13:48:27 EAT 2019

Jimmy

Yes. We must own our own narrative. Your passion for this subject is
telling and I'm happy to jump on your bandwagon and assist any which way I
can.

Regards

*Ali Hussein*

*Principal*

*AHK & Associates*

Tel: +254 713 601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>

13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing,

Chiromo Road, Westlands,

Nairobi, Kenya.

Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
organizations that I work with.

On Tue, May 7, 2019 at 11:28 AM Jimmy Gitonga <jimmygitts at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ali!
>
> Thank you ndugu. As for your sentiments about the sugar growing
> difficulties in Kenya, I agree completely with your assessment.  I am of
> the opinion the day we get progressive leaders, we, as citizens, should
> have prepared to work with then at that time.
>
> So with those words, is it possible for us to find or put together data
> on the sugar industry in Kenya in particular about this? Your Kenana case
> study link is a perfect example.
>
> 1. The first factories were established in Kenya in the early 20’s were
> private in Miwani, Nyanza and in Kwale. Sugar was initially planned in
> Kenya using the Swynnerton Plan of 1954. But it was for settlers only.
> The Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 was for “African Socialism” as a
> guiding principle to agricultural produce. The problem with Kenya is that
> we still use “Kenia” plantation plans and once those in civil service were
> allowed to do business through the Ndegwa Report of 1972, any idea of
> “Socialism” died. With data, the fixation wth western Kenya should and must
> end for the sake of those Kenyans in the region.
>
> 2. With data, we can show that the Tana Delta, that currently is in an
> area that the initial settlers and the latter colonial chiefs “elite” were
> not part of, is good for producing sugar. It will benefit those areas that
> were initially and currently marginalised and would work into making Kenya
> a viable “nation”.
>
> 3. With more data, new laws for COMESA trade would be established because
> now Kenya would no longer be afraid of a “free market” in sugar. Barons
> would be the people who can create business in the region not just "rent
> seekers” with inroads of favouritism and corruption.
>
> I am interested in using cases like this to build models that can be used
> later to build and help make data-driven decisions, and not just for
> governments, national or county but all the way to village/sub location
> level.
>
> We need to make decisions for ourselves on how we want to live.
>
> Best Regards,
> *Jimmy Gitonga*
>
> *Web Software Design and Development *
> *LinkedIn: Jimmy Gitonga | Twitter: @Afrowave*
> ______________________________________
>
> *Web*: afroshok.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7 May 2019, at 5:39 AM, Ali Hussein <ali at hussein.me.ke> wrote:
>
> Jimmy
>
> Great post! Thanks for sharing and double thanks for that Atlas of Kenya.
> The possibilities are immense.
>
> On the sugar issue. Let me add my two cents.
>
> It's not that sugar cannot be sustainably grown in Kenya. Three reasons I
> know of that make it impossible to grow sugar sustainably in Kenya.
>
> 1. It is grown in the wrong region!! This may not be the politically
> correct thing to say here but here goes. The coastal region of Kenya can
> grow sugar in about half the time it takes to grow it in the western
> region. Political expediency and environmentalists opposed to the Tana
> Delta project has made this impossible to achieve.
> 2.  Leadership and Diversification is another one. Take a look at the
> Kenana case study in Sudan.
> https://www.ide.go.jp/English/Data/Africa_file/Company/sudan04.html
> 3. Sugar barons. Need I say more?
>
> @Jimmy, information like what you have shared will debunk some of these
> issues and make for better exploitation of resources in this country.
>
> Regards
>
> *Ali Hussein*
> *Principal*
> *AHK & Associates*
>
>
> Tel: +254 713 601113
> Twitter: @AliHKassim
> Skype: abu-jomo
> LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
> <http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>
>
> 13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing,
> Chiromo Road, Westlands,
> Nairobi, Kenya.
>
> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
> mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
> organizations that I work with.
>
>
> On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 11:47 AM Jimmy Gitonga via kictanet <
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>
>> This is what I think about the two issues.
>>
>> We need Citizen Report Cards. We need to find a way to do this by crowd
>> sourcing not just the information, but the funding as well. At some point,
>> Kenyans who are wealthy enough to offer patronage to citizen worthy causes
>> and projects. This is the same for the seed funding required to develop
>> local, indigenous ideas that have a potential to benefit all of us.
>>
>> The first obstacle we must get rid of is the “get rich quick” mentality
>> in the “startup" fad. Sadly, we are mostly suspicious of one another in
>> this country so few are willing to give money to a visibly worthy cause
>> because the said startup entrepreneurs will probably line their pockets and
>> not succeed in fulfilling the “social contract”.
>>
>> But if we went past these small issues, we can build web portals that
>> visualise a lot of public data such as the KNBS census and household data.
>> I did some work with Mzalendo Trust where a report was done on the Women
>> representatives in the 11th Parliament. It was released as an infographic
>> that really was a score card -
>> http://info.mzalendo.com/media_root/file_archive/WP-Contributions_11th_Parliament.pdf
>> .
>>
>> We did some research on what the baseline issues should be in the
>> counties these women represent. We found the Kenya Socio-economic Atlas
>> invaluable - https://www.kenya-atlas.org/. We were able to see that
>> Kenya should really be divided around its climatic predispositions and
>> state funding should flow with these conditions in mind.
>>
>> I asked myself, why can’t the Kenya Atlas be made interactive and
>> up-to-date? As it is, it is a fantastic source of data for socio-economic
>> policy development. After talking to the program manager at CETRAD and
>> remembering some conversations with a commissioner at the Commission on
>> Revenue Allocation, I think that this is a worthwhile thing to pursue.
>>
>> This then informs and frames the issue of strategic inefficiency. Just by
>> looking at the Kenya Atlas, one could quickly understand why sugar cane
>> growing in Kenya will never be sustainable compared to the COMESA region.
>> The inefficiencies in the sugar sector do keep a lot of farmers busy but
>> these jobs are not sustainable.
>>
>> We have a lot of the information and most of the tools that we can use to
>> make Kenya strategically efficient in this region for our benefit. If sugar
>> from Sudan and maize from Malawi are cheaper to buy than to grow and the
>> fact that we have a larger source of educated human resource and are
>> leading in financial services means we have things we can trade in with our
>> neighbours, to our benefit. The cheap and unnecessary political animosity
>> we seem to encourage with our COMESA exemptions would be dissipated.
>>
>> These types of information can be disseminated as Citizen Report Cards
>> with the added benefit of civic education that would result from
>> discussions around the reports. After the Women Representatives report
>> card, Parliamentarians began using the Mzalendo score cards in their
>> re-election material.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> *Jimmy Gitonga*
>>
>> *Web Software Design and Development *
>> *LinkedIn: Jimmy Gitonga | Twitter: @Afrowave*
>> ______________________________________
>>
>> *Web*: afroshok.com
>>
>>
>> Indeed, Crowd Sourced Citizen Report Cards could lead to increased public
>> sector accountability. Currently this gap is being filled by Twitter, in a
>> crude way, but the potential is clear.?
>>
>> How do you see the PPP arrangement with MSMEs looking like conceptually?
>> Hopefully not to be financially sustained by Government, keeping in mind
>> the reality of cartels / MNC lobbyists / tenderpreneurs who will quickly
>> hijack it, establish themselves as gatekeepers and turn it into a rent
>> seeking charade?
>> I am of the view that the data should be provided for free to anyone
>> (e.g. via secure government APIs) and MSMEs should find their own ways of
>> "monetizing" it by creating innovative value-add propositions e.g. unique
>> methods of analysis to yield forensic or predictive insights, independent
>> content publishing or journalism.
>>
>> Crowd funding via voluntary donations could also come into play to
>> provide additional financial sustenance and maximize public
>> ownership/goodwill around the initiative.
>>
>> The open model will keep cartels away because there is real work and real
>> value creation involved with no "assured income" and no gatekeepers to
>> collect rent. Incidentally, these difficulties will attract real
>> entrepreneurs, so it's a great way of screening.
>>
>> I think the idea (or different flavors of it) is worth piloting e.g. at a
>> progressive County or Ministry (perhaps in partnership with a local
>> University or TVET institution). Let's see what happens, now that the idea
>> is in the public domain. Great potential for creating new jobs and for
>> inspiring an R&D culture that focuses on solving real-world problems.
>>
>> Have a great evening!
>>
>> Brgds,Patrick.
>>
>> Patrick A. M. Maina[Cross-domain Innovator | Public Policy Analyst -
>> Indigenous Innovations]
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 5:13 PM Patrick A. M. Maina <pmaina2000 at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Noted Muraya & thanks for clarifying.
>> True. Public projects should have public oversight unless there are clear
>> compelling reasons, in public interest, to the contrary.
>> So, if I understand you correctly, the role of MSMEs would be to:
>> 1. Create public information web portals and keep them updated regularly.
>> 2. Collect accurate updates on government projects (e.g. go to project
>> sites take photos and conduct contractor interviews every month; also
>> collect data from relevant agencies) and update the data to the portal.
>> 3. Conduct analyses on data and publish fairly objective
>> scorecard/dashboard reports for all eligible government projects.?
>> Is that similar to what you had in mind??
>> What would the SME business model look like to avoid a rent-seeking type
>> arrangement that in itself would be subject to corruption (which would turn
>> the whole idea into a big mess)?
>> Though I support the idea of initial seed capital from gov, I think the
>> SMEs would have to sustain themselves independently afterwards for it to
>> make sense e.g. through ads or some indirect synergies where the portal
>> adds value to their core business.
>> New Media businesses (independent publishers) for example might use this
>> to boost their traffic/engagement (and advertising revenues).
>> Govenment could spice it up by creating a whistleblower bounty program
>> where people who help identify corruption are paid x% of funds recovered (a
>> graduated scale can be used, with hard capping). There would of course be
>> need for smart rules to ensure the bounty program itself is not turned by
>> cartels into a racket to fleece the gov.
>> I think you're on to something...
>> Brgds,Patrick.
>>
>>
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>
>
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