New web platform seeks to map out counties

By Lillian Kiarie

Kenya: Counties are set for a radical shift in the way they plan their development. This follows the unveiling of a new smartphone-driven and web-enabled GIS platform that maps all county resources.

The National Taxpayers Association (NTA), LocateIT Ltd and Kakamega County Monday unveiled a GIS pilot platform that provides real-time information from various county sectors.

The platform, designed to run on smartphones and other web-enabled devices, provides up-to-date information on county resources, public facilities and staffing in such facilities.

Other information captured by the device includes progress of county development projects as well as distances between one county facility to another.

According to the County Government Act (2012), all counties are expected to create a GIS database for integrated planning.

“In this respect, NTA is taking a timely intervention to help make this a reality,” Mr Kennedy Masime, NTA National Secretary said.

Speaking during the unveiling of the platform at a Nairobi Hotel, Masime said the intervention is well timed to provide counties with reliable and accurate information.  The information will be used for sound planning, informed decision-making and improved service delivery.

 The platform funded by Pact Kenya, can easily be replicated in any of the 47 counties capturing different details including priority needs directly collected from residents of a particular county.

“Feeding their needs directly into the web portal, residents can for instance choosewater sanitation and health, agriculture, environment and energy; education; roads or any other projects important to them,” Masime said. “This way, devolved units can develop plans and programmes that are responsive and central to their people’s actual needs.”

 Erick Khamala, the platform architect and Managing Director of LocateIT said the platform can be scaled up to accommodate any number of aspects.

This includes showing the state of infrastructure in a county to school enrolment, staffing, physical facilities as well as the state of sanitation at a particular institution.

The platform can also show the state of the environment, for example forest cover, as a percentage of total land in a county, people’s economic activities, distribution of government-funded projects, population distribution as well as the state of roads across a county.

“County governments can leverage this technology to cut costs, increase physical space and improve revenue collection,” Khamala said.

NTA National chairman Mr Peter Kubebea said the GIS platform has a great potential to help devolved governments raise more revenue as it involves resource mapping and tracking within each county.

“Counties are grappling with the question of generating more revenue to supplement the allocations from the National Government and to fill the budget deficit,” Kubebea said.

Unit planning

“This is the time when structure in county governments is being set up and it is therefore very important that we get it right from the word go,” he said, adding that governors can take advantage of the platform to get a head start in county planning.

Martin Napisa, the NTA National Coordinator said the GIS platform is a database ofresources and challenges upon which county planning should be based.

The platform allows tracking of government funding of public projects. “This platform is meant to help counties plan and budget better and rope citizensinto direct governance by participating in monitoring of public-funded projects,” Napisa said. He said the project reinforces the role of technology and innovation in public planning.

 “This information will help county governments incorporate into their development plans the key requirements of their public education and health facilities,” he said.

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