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In recent years, Kenya’s digital landscape has witnessed a remarkable transformation propelling the nation into Africa’s silicon savannah. The landscape is built on the Digital Economy Blueprint which is based on Kenya’s Vision 2030 that seeks to make Kenya a globally competitive and informed society that effectively participates in the knowledge-based economy.
Vision 2030 identifies information, communication, and technology (ICT) as a key enabler in improving the country’s economic, social and political development. The Digital Economy Blueprint lists digital government, digital business, infrastructure, innovation-driven entrepreneurship, and digital skills and values as its key pillars towards seizing the socio-economic opportunities that digital technologies provide in the realization of economic transformation.
On the other hand, the government’s Bottom-Up Transformation Agenda prioritizes, among others, the digital superhighway and creative economy to spur economic and social growth. Prioritization of the digital superhighway and creative economy is aimed at unravelling the opportunities of the digital economy such as digital access by every citizen, enterprise, and organization of government services.
The ICT sector contributes more than 2% of Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP) compared to some developed nations such as Canada and Russia. To show its commitment to the sector the government allocated Kshs. 1.9 billion in the 2023/2024 financial year towards rehabilitating and expanding the existing cyber network.
The digital superhighway and creative economy thus hold tremendous potential to create job opportunities for millions of Kenyan youth and further contribute to Kenya’s GDP. The potential has, however, not been fully exploited. This article thus sightsees the impact of the digital superhighway on Kenya’s creative economy and its implications for economic turnaround and social progress.
Leveraging emergent technologies to create, manage, and use information that could be of strategic importance to Kenya, the Kenya Kwanza administration has launched an ambitious initiative known as digital superhighway. A Digital Superhighway is a telecommunications infrastructure or system (such as television, telephony, or computer networks) used for widespread and rapid access to information.' It is also known as the information superhighway, national information infrastructure, or infobahn.
The project is a collaboration between the government and its development partners and is anticipated to enhance internet access, e-government as well as mobile connectivity. On top of the government's agenda is to expand the fibre optic grid by 100,000 kilometers from the current 9,000 kilometers and increase e-government services. The expansion of the fibre infrastructure is meant to support ease of access by citizens, enterprises, and organizations of online government services as well as enhance revenue collection through the automation of Value Added Tax (VAT) systems.
As of July 2023, more than 5,000 government services were available on the e-citizen portal. According to the Digital Economy Blueprint, e-government will improve service delivery to citizens, increase productivity within the government structure, increase revenue by reducing leakages, reduce costs of service delivery, and improve the business environment by making it easier for businesses to register, digitizing land records and payment of tax through an electronic system.
Despite the continuing transformation of Kenya’s information superhighway, several critical challenges are emerging. First, many Kenyans such as the marginalized communities, are left unconnected due to the relatively high cost of internet access, lack of devices, and low connectivity.
Second, the superhighway should be rights-centric in that it must protect users' privacy and ensure data security if it is to provide critical communications services to manufacturing, health care, and other business sectors. At present public networks are mostly indiscreet and are susceptible to mutilation from intruders, realizing security and privacy calls for careful and thoughtful design.
Third, it should achieve interoperability to guarantee a continuous flow of features and services to users. Interoperability is the ‘ability of two or more components of a system or network to interact with each other in a meaningful way’. Accomplishing it demands cooperation between builders and standards-setting bodies to create collective protocols and interfaces.
Besides, the superhighway must integrate end-to-end encryption between service providers and users to prevent network failures. Contemporary outages on the current networks that form the foundation for the superhighway have raised concerns about achieving this goal.
The creative economy has been much discussed, but the precise definition of the term remains a moving target. Rather than a specific item, creative economy is more akin to an assemblage of activities. The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development defines it as ‘cultural assets in which creativity is applied to generate economic growth and development.’ The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in contrast, defines creative economy as the “summation of all the components of the creative industries, including trade, labour, and production”. It embodies the creative industry.
The creative industry is a “cycle of assembling, production and distribution of goods and services that use ideas and intellectual capital as the primary inputs”. It encompasses, inter alia, art, film, music, television, design, fashion, poetry and architecture. It has been described as the élan vital of the creative economy and is fundamental in boosting productivity, innovation, employment, and competitiveness.
The creative industry is additionally understood as a panacea for development since it provides the prospect of using the abundance and multiplicity of cultures across the country to create benefits for large numbers of the population. Between 2007 and 2009 the industry was worth above Kshs. 80 billion translating to 5.3% of the GDP. On the other hand, it contributed Kshs. 85.21 billion into the economy in 2013.
Universally, the creative sector is currently worth $985 billion and is set to represent 10% of global GDP by 2030 and will grow by 40% in that period, according to projections by G20 Insights and Deloitte. Locally, the sector can contribute up to 10% of the GDP by 2025, contributing to job creation and sustainable livelihoods for millions of Kenyan youth.
With the pace set for the digital superhighway, Kenya’s creative economy is in for a remarkable boost. Affordable costs of data and increased access to the internet are expected to foster innovation and entrepreneurship by augmenting the set-up of small creative enterprises and startups owing to the rapidly increasing demand for digital service and content thus generating employment.
The digital superhighway is also expected to open up Kenya's tourism and cultural sectors to the global market. Initiatives such as Magical Kenya which showcases Kenya’s tourism and cultural heritage will effortlessly leverage social media and online platforms to attract a broader audience thus deepening the earning potential.
As a subset of the creative sector, the entertainment and film industry is a key medium for socioeconomic and political development. Well-nurtured film industry can be a major source of employment and an effective tool and platform for people to express their culture. With an increased availability of high-speed internet digital distribution platforms are emerging. These distribution platforms will provide content creators with a direct route to their audiences.
Even with the opportunities that the information superhighway will offer to the creative economy, the current state of the industry leaves a lot to be desired. According to artists, the creative sector is not as lucrative as it seems. This situation is blamed on the lack of policy and effective implementation regulations, weak enforcement of copyright laws, and flooding of the local market with foreign content and infringement.
The digital superhighway will indisputably transform the way Kenyans get public and healthcare services, learn, work, communicate, and entertain themselves. On top of that, it will impel the creative economy into a new era of growth and prosperity. With improved connectivity and internet access, traders in the creative industry have found an extraordinary platform to express themselves and reach a larger audience.
It is also expected that both the government and creative entrepreneurs will, amongst others, leverage platforms to expand their earning potential. Alternatively, whereas the current national information infrastructure already supports the existing services even though at relatively high cost and low transmission speeds, much remains to be done to achieve the superhighway's potential to safeguard Kenya’s position as Africa’s silicon savannah.
