Kenya ropes Chinese tech company to drive digitisation agenda

Kenya has brought on board China's leading technology corporation, Huawei to drive Kenya Kwanza's digital transformation agenda.

On Monday, President William Ruto witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Kenya and Huawei that will accelerate Kenya's digital transformation. 

"Collaboration is essential for the achievement of our digital transformation agenda," he said.

The Head of State further said that Kenya's partnership with Huawei will advance our ICT infrastructure and drive digitisation across key sectors like transportation, e-government, education, and health.

"This partnership is vital for Kenya's Digital Superhighway and the components of the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda," Ruto added.

Digitization of government records and digitalisation of services is one of President Ruto's agenda in earnest.

The objective is to give Kenyans the comfort of accessing services virtually from wherever they may be.

The strategy is to place all government services on the e-Citizen digital platform, something that the State proposes to realize by the close of this year.

The target for the end of June 2023 was 5,000 services, however, the government said it surpassed this to reach 5,084 services as of August 4, 2023.

Digital skilling is another fundamental goal. which the government is driving through Ajira and Jitume programs, equipping citizens with digital skills.

The government has collaboration with technical and vocational training institutes under the Ministry of Education.

The State proposes to equip one million learners with ICT skills.