Kenya is one of more than 190 countries supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) initiative, also known as the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Successful implementation of the SDGs will complement Kenya’s socio-economic development blueprint for the period to 2030. All 17 SDGs address global challenges and social issues, including those related to poverty, climate change, environmental degradation, prosperity, peace and justice. Moreover, they are intended to bolster government efforts to implement national development plans and to revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.

In Kenya, as in most other countries, implementing the goals successfully depends on contributions from various stakeholders, including the government, the private sector, civil society, international organisations and technical experts in a variety of fields. Data are generated through surveys and through operational and administrative systems, and statistics are collected and aggregated to measure multiple indicators for each goal. Records are essential to documenting the processes that generate data and statistics. If well-managed, they can help to ensure the integrity and trustworthiness of the processes by making it possible to hold those who create the data and produce the statistics accountable for their decisions and actions. The reliability of the measurements depends fundamentally on the quality of the data, statistics and records produced.

The purpose of the chapter is twofold. The first purpose is to use examples from the public and private sectors in Kenya to illustrate the distinct perspectives that each brings to the quality and integrity of the data, statistics and records needed to support the SDGs. The second is to suggest that the quality and integrity issues the various sectors are facing can best be addressed by drawing on their different strengths and by working together to develop strategies for ensuring that each contributes to measuring the SDGs reliably in a manner that is consistent, comprehensive and multisectoral.

The public sector experience in Kenya

Across Africa, including Kenya, public demand for information and access to official government records is at a new high. This can be attributed to many factors, including, but not limited to, new access to information laws, which have encouraged citizens to seek legal access to information held by government agencies in the form of datasets or official government records. It is also a consequence of the growing widespread use and affordability of computers and other related technologies, a fast-growing elite of young middle-class professionals hungry for information, an increasingly educated and informed general public, an aggressive and proactive civil society and an active media network.

Unfortunately, not all countries take the management of public records and/or public information as seriously as others. Western countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have tended to recognise that information must be well-managed if it is to remain useful through time and have embraced information and communication technologies as modern tools for managing records. Records, in particular, have tended to be neglected in Kenya and across Africa. Many African countries still are burdened with challenges associated with poor filing systems and with a lack of capacity and skills in records management. Often, they must deal with wasteful and cumbersome traditional paper systems that tend to result in volumes and volumes of poorly organised records.

In Kenya, officials tend to regard records management as a routine clerical function associated with lower cadre staff. Most officials do not yet recognise it as an essential business function that provides a basis for developing and implementing reliable and trustworthy policies that inform planning, provide services for citizens and support organisational efficiency and effectiveness. Nor do they realise that digital records, just as do paper records, should provide essential evidence to protect the rights of stakeholders, including citizens, government employees and the government itself.

Other challenges include dwindling resources from government, the absence of a champion within government to drive forward an agenda for records management reforms, declining opportunities for professional training in core competencies, the lack of organisational plans for managing records, the tendency of public servants to willfully destroy records to hide crucial evidence and lacklustre performance by the Kenya National Archives and Documentation Service, which has yet to provide informed guidance to ministries and departments on the requirements for creating and keeping high-quality records. As a result, the management of public sector records has deteriorated to worrying levels in recent years.

Despite these significant challenges, there are signs that the situation may be changing. The government of Kenya recognises that well-managed records and information are key resources for efficient and effective public services, transparency and accountability. It is well aware of the challenges presented by cumbersome manual filing systems, inadequate staffing and lack of top management support, and it is exploring strategies to address these challenges. Recently, faced with issues of corruption that have been exacerbated by the poor management of records, the government has taken steps towards improving public sector records by developing a national records management policy.

According to the foreword to the Draft Public Records and Information Policy (June 2019), adhering to the guidelines will go a long way towards streamlining the management of public service records. If approved by the cabinet and the national assembly, the policy will provide guidance and direction on how current and semi-current records are managed across government, throughout the country. The government envisages that the policy will support strategies for improving the quality of records and data generated and maintained in public offices and for using them efficiently to support objectives that include sound decision-making, improved service delivery, management planning and protecting rights, transparency and accountability.

In support of the policy, the government is developing a change management strategy that will involve hiring new staff at entry level, redesigning existing staffing structures and training, sensitising all staff to key records management issues, reviewing the current scheme of service for records managers and introducing new budget categories for records management. It is expected that this will help to ensure that records management units take their rightful place in the hierarchy of government bureaucracy and assume full responsibility for all current and semi-current records, regardless of the form of media, in line with internationally agreed standards and good practices. Ultimately, this should have a significant impact on the quality of the information available to measure the SDG indicators.

Moreover, the Kenyan government is emphasising the importance of computerising and digitising records across a number of key sectors to deal with the slow pace of retrieving hard-copy records. Currently, it is digitising hard-copy records in departments including lands, civil registration, immigration and motor vehicle registration. This is seen as a first step towards fully automating registries concerned with identity cards, registration of births and deaths, passports, motor-vehicle logbooks, driving licences, among others.

There is another significant challenge for the records management community where action has yet to begin. If the SDGs are to be measured accurately, it will be important to build bridges between the data, statistics and records communities and between the different sectors involved in order to strengthen the quality and coverage of the data. In the example of banking data, the banks generate source data needed to produce statistics for the Ministry of Finance. The ministry then manipulates the data, creates new data and produces statistics to monitor and measure the SDG indicators. The entire process, from collecting banking data to producing statistics, crosses private and public sector boundaries.

The challenge is for relevant organisations in both sectors to come together to design and implement comprehensive, consistent and relevant solutions across the sectors and to document the steps involved. If the quality and integrity of banking data and statistics are to be trusted, the processes for collecting, manipulating and producing them must be trustworthy. The degree to which they can be trusted will depend on how well the various communities involved work together to design and implement integrated policies, standards and technologies and to manage and document the overlap.

Addressing quality and integrity issues in relation to measuring the SDGs involves not only multiple media, such as data, statistics and records, but also multiple sectors such as the private and public sectors. The more detailed case study of mobile banking in Kenya that follows illustrates the importance of recognising that the data, statistics and records of the public and private sectors are parts of a whole.

Mobile banking in Kenya

Mobile banking, one of the first aspects of the mobile applications upon which the Kenyan economy increasingly depends, began as a private sector development but has become an increasingly important aspect of Kenya’s complex banking structure, which cuts across the private and public sectors. The entire mobile banking function is regulated by the Central Bank of Kenya and the Communication Authority of Kenya, so its success is enabled and facilitated by the government. The Safaricom mobile network itself, one of the most profitable companies in East and Central Africa, has 35 per cent government ownership. Moreover, some of the government-owned commercial banks have mobile banking infrastructures, and mobile technology is being used increasingly to deliver relevant government services, for instance payment for parking in Nairobi, driving licence renewal, change of car logbooks and the registration of businesses.

The case study examines the scale of mobile banking in Kenya, its impact on society and the kinds of records generated through mobile computing devices. Issues associated with managing the data, statistics and records generated by mobile banking are highlighted, and ways in which the government and the private sector can start to work together to address them are explored. Through time, smart phones, and even less sophisticated mobile phones, will form a central hub that will allow Kenyan society to access a wide range of public and private sector services, blurring the lines between the two sectors. If the SDGs are to be measured effectively and to have the intended impact, it will be essential that policies, standards and practices developed to address the quality and integrity of data, statistics and records are multisectoral, both in their development and their application.

The Kenya Bankers Association (2014) describes mobile banking as:

Mobile banking is simply the use of a mobile phone to perform banking services. It does not necessarily mean access to a bank account, even though access to a bank account via a mobile is mobile banking. Banking is not necessarily just about financial transactions but also includes access to information on banking matters. Access to information is a two-way street between the banking institution and the customer. Some authors argue that mobile banking requires smart phones, but, in reality, in countries like Kenya, mobile phones do not necessarily need to be smart phones. Non-smart phones use the unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) technology to carry out a transaction. In Kenya, mobile banking services are predominantly offered by commercial banks, mobile telephone network providers, mobile loan providers and savings and credit co-operatives. Ordinarily, commercial banks create an interface between customers and their bank accounts using mobile technologies.

In 2008, only 19 per cent of Kenya’s 35 million people had bank accounts.² When M-PESA, the first money-transfer service, was launched in March 2007, there were only 1.5 bank branches per 100,000 people and only one Automated Teller Machine (ATM) per 100,000 people. As of March 2019, there were 50.36 million mobile banking accounts in Kenya, with a total of 161.38 million transactions being conducted through these accounts.³ The total value of these transactions was US$3.68 billion. Each transaction was captured by the various Kenyan mobile banking platforms and reported to the Central Bank, the regulator. Today, mobile banking in Kenya is a predominant mode of transactions, especially in microtransactions.

These statistics imply that, on average, every Kenyan has an active mobile money account that he/she uses for the day-to-day activities of sending and receiving cash and making payments for goods and services. It is important to note that a mobile money account does not mean a bank account, but rather a mobile-based wallet that in some cases interfaces with bank accounts. The low cost of mobile phones has made it possible for almost every Kenyan to own a mobile phone. This makes it easier for the banks to penetrate the market through mobile banking. Mobile banking can be used even in the most remote areas because all one needs is a mobile phone. People in the rural areas have benefited greatly from this service and are now able to pay bills and make purchases without needing hard cash and without the need for long journeys to get it.

Relationship to the SDGs

The Kenya Bankers Association has noted that the use of mobile banking in Kenya is an increasingly important component of national and regional economic development. In this respect it has a direct impact on the achievement of several SDGs. As mobile banking has enhanced the ability of people at all levels of society to access financial services, even in the most remote areas of the country, banking has ceased to be the preserve of the well-to-do, whether through conventional banking or through mobile money wallets. Even the poorest in society have equitable access to financial services, a development that is viewed as a major contributor to the achievement of SDG 10 (reduced inequalities).

Mobile banking also plays a role in achieving SDGs 1 (no poverty) and 2 (zero hunger). M-Shwari offers a good example. A paperless banking service that enables account holders to open and operate bank accounts through their mobile phones, M-Shwari was launched by the Commercial Bank of Africa and Safaricom in 2013. In 2013, 19 per cent of M-Shwari users were below the national poverty line; a figure that increased to 30 per cent by the end of 2014. According to FSD Africa (2016), by the end of 2014, M-Shwari boasted 9.2 million savings accounts, having disbursed 20.6 million in loans to 2.8 million borrowers.⁴ What this implies is that the M-Shwari platform is affording more and more access to financial services to the poor. Out of the 9.2 million account holders, 7.2 million were individuals. Thus, through M-Shwari alone, millions of Kenyans are now able to tap into mobile banking for savings, credit and transactions to improve their livelihoods.

Finally, mobile banking has had a direct impact on the achievement of SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure). Mobile banking has become a major contributor to economic development and to establishing an infrastructure that is both innovative in design and effective in promoting the country’s economic growth. In fact, statistics indicate that almost half of Kenya’s GDP in 2018 was moved through mobile phones: a total of 3.98 trillion shillings or 10.92 billion shillings per day, or the equivalent of 44 per cent of Kenya’s GDP.⁵

These developments would not be possible without the resilience of technological innovations in the country. Safaricom’s M’Pesa has won Kenya many accolades and is rated the best mobile money platform worldwide. Continued innovations by Safaricom in mobile money technologies and capabilities have fostered significant innovation by other financial sector players, including commercial banks, mobile loan providers and other telecommunication companies, the results of which are evident in the economy and people’s livelihoods. They also have catalysed the Kenyan government’s investment in ICT infrastructure across the country, which has enabled 43.3 million Kenyans, out of a total population of about 51.58 million, to have access to the internet.⁶ Digital connectivity is playing an important role in transforming and improving lives by opening doors to employment, financial opportunities and access to knowledge, and the information professions must respond to this development.

How do data and records management support mobile banking?

Mobile banking is anchored entirely by data management. The fact that 161.38 million transactions were conducted by 50 million mobile accounts as at March 2019 illustrates the amount of data generated on these mobile banking platforms. Moreover, the fact that these 161.38 million transactions had a value of US$3.68 billion, shows the significance and potential risk levels associated with the data and the importance of managing it carefully. The statistics generated using the data that have been transacted over the years have been fundamental to supporting government development plans. This is why entities like the Communication Authority of Kenya, the Central Bank of Kenya and the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics consistently provide trend analysis reports to help inform development policies and strategies.

Records management and data intersect at this point. What would happen if the data were not well-managed? Would records extracted from the data be available to present in court to support litigation? According to a 2016 report on cybersecurity in Kenya in 2016 by Serianu,⁷ mobile money in Kenya has been attacked repeatedly through social engineering, the use of malware and identity theft; hackers are exploiting the weak security controls around the mobile money platform to steal millions. The Central Bank has observed, in a 2017 report, that cybercrime targeting the financial sector is a significant risk that is expected to increase in sophistication and frequency. According to another report by Serianu, in 2018, KSh230 million was lost through computer fraud, KSh100 million through business emails, KSh70 million through fake cheques and KSh66 million through identity theft.⁸ In early 2018, there were social media complaints that customer accounts at the Kenya Commercial Bank, Kenya’s largest bank by assets, were under attack and were incurring unauthorised deductions.⁹

Once a fraud is reported and forensic investigations are sanctioned, the data have to be extracted, usually by court order, certified as authentic and admitted in court to support the litigation. The data must then be preserved as evidence of the court proceedings, in whichever form the court admits it – digital or physical. In addition to its importance in securing customer financial resources, data generated through mobile banking help authorities in criminal investigations to identify criminals. For instance, in early 2019, during investigations in the ‘Dusit D2’ terror attack in Nairobi, data from M-Pesa transactions were used by the investigating agencies to unravel the identity of the terrorists.¹⁰

These cases illustrate the need for robust mechanisms for managing data safely so that they can serve the purposes for which they were captured and maintained, including for security purposes and to support investigations. The mechanisms must be carefully designed if the quality and integrity of the data as evidence is to be ensured. Kenya’s Evidence Act (Chapter 80 of the Laws of Kenya) provides for the admissibility of electronic/digital evidence in litigation. The Act, under Section 78A, Subsection 3, states that in estimating the weight to be attached to the evidence, regard shall be given to the reliability of the manner in which the electronic/digital evidence was generated, the reliability of the manner in which the integrity of the evidence was maintained, as well as the manner in which the originator of the evidence was identified.

These requirements under the Evidence Act help to illustrate the relationship between data management and records management. There is a growing appreciation that banking data cannot be viewed in isolation from other forms of information generated by the processes supporting mobile banking. For instance, the processes controlling the transactions for depositing funds in a bank account generate data that represent money being deposited; the result of the deposit is reflected in the bank account. Statistics can be produced from the bank account data to describe, for instance, the amount of money deposited over a given time period. Records documenting the transactions involved in depositing the money are captured to enable both the individual and the bank to prove that the deposit was made. If evidence of the deposit is required, then the data, the records and even the statistics may need to be presented. These data, statistics and records all need to be managed based on a framework of policies, standards, practices, technologies and qualified professionals to provide evidence of sufficient quality and integrity to support accountability.

The overall design of the processes supporting mobile banking is similar to those supporting other processes in other sectors, such as the public and academic sectors. A transaction initiates a process (for instance completing a form to initiate the deposit of funds to an account or applying for a licence), and subsequent transactions carry out the process (such as depositing the funds or processing the application). The last transaction confirms that the process has been completed (notification that the deposit has been made, notification that the application has been approved or rejected).

The framework of policies, standards, practices, technologies and qualified professionals for ensuring the quality and integrity of banking data, statistics and records should not be restricted to a single sector, such as the private sector, nor should it be specific to a single discipline such as data management. It should apply to all sectors of society, including the public sector, and its design should draw on multiple disciplines, such as data management, the management of statistics and records management.

Processes should be the reference point for measuring the SDG indicators. Processes can extend beyond a single sector, as in the case of the close relationship between processes that the banking sector uses for managing banking transactions and processes that the government follows to manage the review of the banking sector. Measuring the relevant SDG indicators reliably will require an understanding of the processes followed in both the banking sector and the government, and a common framework of policies, standards, practices, technologies and qualified people will be needed to address the data, statistics and records that these processes generate. The challenge is to bring together representatives of the disciplines involved to develop such a framework and to ensure that it is in place.

Building bridges between the sectors

The examples from the government of Kenya and online banking in Kenya demonstrate that the lines between the public and private sectors are blurring in relation to the processes for measuring the SDGs. Many, if not most, of the domains covered, such as the environment, social and economic development, poverty reduction and health are supported by not one but multiple sectors. Frameworks for managing the quality and integrity of data, statistics and records need, therefore, to cut across sectors and across the information professions.

An important first step will be to bring together like-minded individuals from different disciplines, such as data management, the management of statistics and records management, as well as from different sectors, with each bringing different strengths, weaknesses and biases. Those from the banking sector in Kenya, for instance, would bring their knowledge of the management of financial data and statistics but probably do not have substantial knowledge about how to capture and maintain records documenting the processes that generate data and statistics or that document their characteristics. They may also lack knowledge and expertise about how data and statistics can be preserved through the long term, for instance through the life of the SDG initiative. Here, gaps in knowledge and expertise would be likely to be filled by records managers.

Conversely, records managers might lack sufficient knowledge of what it means to ensure the quality and integrity of data and statistics, especially those generated in complex financial information systems, such as those supporting online banking. This is where the knowledge and expertise of data management specialists and statisticians would become important in filling the gaps. In the case of online banking, for instance, data management specialists from private sector organisations working to protect valuable banking data from criminal activity could be brought together with records managers from relevant ministries, such as the finance ministry, to develop strategies for blending the knowledge and expertise of both sets of professionals. By collaborating, the different disciplines would be able to:

The framework should reflect the integration of policies, standards, practices and technologies developed in support of the management of data, statistics and records. The result would be a set of processes that generate data, statistics and records with sufficient quality and integrity to meet a wide range of requirements, including measuring the SDG indicators through time. It would respect the cross-sector scope of the processes and present an integrated view of data, statistics and records.

Achieving this is no longer just a nice idea to consider: it is becoming an imperative. Poor quality information can seriously undermine the success of national and international development initiatives, as the SDG initiative demonstrates. It is not just a question of not meeting the goals; it is a question of not knowing whether or not the goals have been met. Not knowing, as a result of poor-quality data, can leave a nation vulnerable to poor resource allocation decisions, missed opportunities and corruption.

Building on the public and private sector examples set out in this chapter, the following steps could provide a practical way forward:

Conclusion

This chapter has drawn on examples from the public and private sectors in Kenya to illustrate the extent to which issues associated with managing the quality and integrity of data, statistics and records are common across different sectors. Common issues need to be addressed through a common framework of policies, standards, practices, technologies and people. Rather than build solutions separately, the chapter suggests that organisations from the various relevant sectors could work together to build common solutions and strategies that both use resources efficiently and support quality and integrity.

This is especially important in the case of the SDGs, because measuring, and ultimately achieving, many, if not most of the goals, will depend on how effectively the relevant organisations can manage their data, statistics and records as a whole. Collaboration based on a shared understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each sector and on a willingness to work together to develop shared strategies and solutions, will contribute enormously to achieving the SDGs.