AN ASSESSMENT OF SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF DIGITAL VILLAGES IN KENYA

Abstract

Information Communication Technology (ICT) is quickly changing the conventional way of running business in Kenya. It is upon this foundation that the Kenyan government under the ICT board realized a need to set up digital villages otherwise known as Pasha Centers (Swahili word meaning to inform). The glaring disparities between urban and rural areas in the distribution of ICT facilities necessitated the government of Kenya to set up digital villages whose key functions were to provide a suite of services to the public via computers connected to the internet. This paper therefore aimed to assess the successful implementation of digital villages in a case of Pasha Centers. Mail based questionnaires were used to collect data from the 50 pasha managers in different counties. Key informant interviews were administered to ICT board members in order to obtain their views on why digital villages were facing teething challenges yet it is a government project, secondary data was also used to obtain the needed information. The findings of this study indicated that that successful implementation is faced with immense challenges such as loan repayment, delayed support from ICT-A, lack of inadequate working capital and stiff competition, government had not given its full support in terms of marketing and popularizing the digital villages. The findings further revealed that many people do not differentiate between a pasha center and any other cyber, Pasha Managers on the other hand have made intense efforts to make implementation of this project a success despite the challenges faced. Thus, the discussion part of this paper looks at how digital villages should be branded and given full government support in order to meet its stated objectives and move Kenya into an ICT hub. The study concludes by recommending that there should be two models used for this project, the entrepreneur and business model.