The 2024 Kenya Budget Policy Statement identifies digital superhighway as one of the key pillars of the economic transformation agenda. It specifically identifies digitisation and automation of all critical government services throughout the country to bring greater convenience to citizens.
Economies that have engendered digitalised services, the world over, have realised tremendous growth in citizen access to services, transparency, accountability, cost efficiency, protection of human rights amongst other benefits.
And so, the case of digital transformation cannot be overemphasised. Success stories can be learnt from countries like Estonia, Singapore, South Korea, the US, Sweden, China, Japan and UAE; which continue to provide global benchmarks.
Government sources show that the drive to digitise services has hitherto on-boarded 16,000 services to digital platforms, from about 320 services two years ago.
The impact of these developments to the economy is immense. Increased efficiency in service delivery, accountability, revenue generation, citizen connection with government, access to information, are some of the top benefits that manifest.
However, in the concerted efforts to realise full benefits of digitalisation and to ensure effective transition from manual to digital services, there is one critical ingredient that is often overlooked- records management.
Records management plays a central role in service delivery, transparency, accountability and protection of citizens’ rights in all facets.
Symptoms of poor records management manifest in ways like loss or misplacement of files, forgeries of critical documents like educational certificates, long times taken to retrieve records, evident poor storage and security of records, dysfunctional management information systems, unjustifiable high costs of maintaining records systems and unauthorised access to information.
In fact, a clear hallmark of digital ecosystems is the paperless services. And this speaks directly to records management and its subsequent transition from the dominant paper-based documentations to the digital capture, management and preservation of evidence.
A look at many digital transformation strategies in the developing economies, reveal a tendency to focus on technology infrastructure with less emphasis on the seemingly softer side of records management. An analysis of the various policy, strategy and master plan documents on digital transformation in Kenya points to the same challenge of marginal integration of records management as a critical success factor of the visions espoused in these plans.
The author is the chairman of the Kenya Association of Records Managers and Archivists
