How technology can help fix teething problems in counties

Technology transfer remains an untapped resource for public service administration. Despite the huge investments made by technological firms in Kenya in improving efficiency and customer experience, the only meeting point between these firms and governments is through regulation. It’s about time policy makers recalibrate this relationship. Technological absorption in government has been slowed due to its bureaucratic nature, corruption and the lack of political goodwill. County governments however, face a much daunting task as they put systems into place in the face of dwindling revenue streams and decrease in government allocations.

Various communities such as business, academia and government are routinely involved in these initiatives including across international borders, both formally and informally.

Technology transfer has been predominantly employed in the higher education sector, with developed countries such as the UK and the US investing hugely in this resource. In public service however, this hasn’t been given the attention that it rightly deserves.

Myriad opportunities

Technology transfer offers county administrations the opportunity to harness technologies used by private contractors in areas such as agriculture, revenue collection, Artificial Intelligence as well as infrastructure development. Counties can adopt the technologies utilized in the above fields at a reasonable price to deliver on large and complicated projects. Technology transfer allows county governments to retain knowledge and the expertise which in the long term, proves a more viable return on investment as opposed to allocating huge contracts to private entities without any retention of knowledge and expertise of its staff.

In adopting this approach, the county governments must put in place measures to ensure that both the internal staff and external partners clearly understand the rationale and purpose behind this initiative.

This will not only enable the right solutions to be developed by the right staff, it will equally achieve the necessary buy in from all stakeholders. It is important to note that this approach could be viewed both as a short term and long term fix depending on the needs of each county government. It is equally worth mentioning that technological companies should be strive to be reasonable when setting financial demands as the primary purpose of technology in government is to serve people.

County administration should be encouraged to invest more in developing local technologies by partnering with the local technical training institutions which offer the necessary technical manpower and expertise. Achieving this will require a pragmatic approach to professional staff training and development of policies that will guide the adoption and implementation of technology transfer and collaboration.

The localisation of technology transfer is of great importance as there cannot be a one size fit all solution. This requires collaboration with external partners to develop technology transfer protocols that are relevant to the needs, challenges and capacity of the county governments. In my opinion, Collaboration between the county government, the technical training institutions and the private sector is the only viable option if the devolved governments are to maximize socio-economic development in the face of depreciating resources.

It is important to note that county governments and the public sector in general have the ability to scale demand in areas such as infrastructure development, education, health. This is aptly pronounced through the Big 4 Agenda. However, the large scale investment in technologies to spur these areas will emanate from the private sector players. This goes to highlight the symbiotic relationship that exists between these two players.

In my understanding, counties should not only contract a private entity for their professional service, but should go further by contracting the firm to transfer their technical skills and competency to county staff and locals as one way of developing capacity and skills for future use. It is important for county governments to retain expertise as well as data if they are to avoid the pitfall of becoming preys to the whims of private business through regulatory capture.

 This issue is however a local governance concern, which with the necessary political goodwill, can be remedied devoid of unnecessary delays.

Technology transfer has immense potential to solve problems facing devolution.

It however requires huge investment of capital, time and highly trained staff, all of which come in short supply to county governments. This requires out-of-the-box thinking. A structured technology transfer and collaboration could be the key enabler to unlocking the huge untapped potential that resides in the 47 county administrations.

Mr Mwenda is a Policy and Communication Specialist