The following article is by Professor Bitange Ndemo, former Permanent Secretary of Information and Communications, Kenya, who was largely responsible for Kenya Open Data‘s emergence in 2011. He is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Nairobi Business School. We were honored to have him in attendance at the launch of Open Schools Kenya in Nairobi on February 24. Following the event, Prof. Ndemo published this column in the Daily Nation newspaper, republished with permission:

Speaking Truth and Unveiling Opportunity: How Map Kibera Brought Hard Facts to Bear

In the past week, I attended three unrelated conferences. If they had been mashed together, a ground-breaking innovation would have emerged.

The first meeting on Monday morning was the launch of school data by Map Kibera, an initiative to map Kibra (formerly known as Kibera) and make it easier for residents to locate social services. 

On Wednesday morning, I chaired a session at a regional conference of postal organisations trying to find ways to cope with technology and save themselves from extinction. One of their needs is a postal address system to start home delivery of parcels in the growing e-commerce industry. 

On Thursday afternoon I was giving a keynote speech to creative artists trying to find their role in the emerging digital space. Had we combined these conferences, the outcome would have been a better solution to the problems facing our country.

It emerged that all the three conferences needed a great deal of data if they were to succeed.

In Kibra, data was essential in engaging policymakers with hard facts. For example, data from the mapping shows that primary operators for Kibra schools include NGOs or CBOs at 37 per cent, private owners at 29 per cent, religious organisations at 27 per cent and government at 4 per cent. 

So when the policy statement of the Education ministry on Form One admissions is biased towards government schools, they should understand who they hurt most.

Postal corporations need data on trade and movement of goods for better logistical planning. They also need ways of reaching customers wherever they are. 

Finally, creative artists need data on media and entertainment consumption patterns as a basis for developing new business models and meeting customer demands.    

Whilst Map Kibera has the perfect solution for Posta to reach people they have never reached before, Posta is hedging its bet on a policy process to allow them reach the unreachable.

TOILET-TO-PEOPLE RATIO

Let me confess that I started the process of street numbering with the hope of using Global Positioning System (GPS) in informal settlements. However, bureaucracy took many turns and by the time I was leaving, we had only covered the Central Business District (CBD). 

My thinking was to create addresses for the entire country first, then create a law. However, that has changed. The law will be created first, before we create the addressing system. Innovation in my view precedes legislation.

Meanwhile, residents of Kibra and other marginalised areas are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous people. “They are stealing from the poor,” area MP Kenneth Okoth says. 

The MP was particularly livid with Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s latest book, A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity, in which he says numbers had been exaggerated to portray Kibra negatively.

The MP wondered what logic Kristof, a New York Times columnist, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and co-author, used in stating that Kibra had a toilet-to-people ratio of 1:1,300.

The MP rightfully said that if that were to true, given that the entire day has 1,440 minutes, then every morning you would see queues of people waiting for their turn in the toilet, that they must use it very quickly indeed to enable others to use it.

Curiosity forced me to buy the book. It reads like a global green party manifesto, profiling social-justice individuals and groups, and describing concerns that range from environmental issues such as clean energy and reduction of deforestation to social issues such as battling foetal alcohol syndrome, sex trafficking, malaria, clubfoot, cleft palate, sexual assault against children and women, Aids, lack of potable water, illiteracy, child malnutrition and poverty. 

OPEN DATA, OPEN SOURCE, OPEN ACCESS

In Kibra, they profile my friends, Kenneth Odede and Jessica Posner. Like many people before the census data came out to confirm the Kibra population, Kristof was largely relying on guesswork that later could be mistaken for exaggeration.

Anyone reading the book could perhaps criticise Kristof and WuDunn for neglecting to mention some of the prominent NGOs working to mitigate these maladies. They also fail to bring out the impact of climate change. 

However, Mr Okoth and the co-authors Kristof and WuDunn agree that some of the resources meant for the poor get stolen. Indeed, if every shilling raised to alleviate poverty in Kibra were to be used for its intended purpose, every one of the close to 400,000 residents will be on a comfortable monthly salary for at least five years.

According to the Bible, God prohibited such theft in Proverbs 22:22-23 (KJV): “Rob not the poor, because he is poor: Neither oppress the afflicted in the gate. For the Lord will plead their cause and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.”

But before God makes the sinners repay, we can prevent this through building open data platforms like Map Kibera.

Before I tell you more about what Map Kibera is and how it converges with Posta and the creative economy industry, let me first explain the concept of open data because it cuts across the interests of these three groups. 

Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use without any mechanisms of control. For example, information on who is providing social services to the poor, who funds such activities and how much is funded, should be in the public domain. 

The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other “open” movements such as open source and open access. It is critically important for stakeholders to know how much of the money raised for Kibra comes to Kibra. 

Residents can also ask the right questions, for example, how much Constituency Development Fund (CDF) their MP received, and where it was spent.

PARCELS TO ‘UNREACHABLE PLACES’

Map Kibera was officially launched at Eastlands Hotel on Tuesday last week. The low-key event was witnessed by the area MP, Ken Okoth, Nairobi County Education Minister Christopher Khaemba, Erica Hagen of Groundtruth and many other dignitaries from Kibra.  

The project originated with a winning entry to the Gates Foundation Grand Challenge pilot contest on data interoperability, early last year. Map Kibera was a key entrant with partners that included GroundTruth Initiative and Development Gateway.  

Ms Hagen co-founded Map Kibera Trust in 2009 with her partner and a team of youths in Kibera, several of whom are still part of the Trust and worked on this project. GroundTruth Initiative was founded in 2010, also by Ms Hagen and partner Mikel Maron.  

Hagen and Maron live in Washington, DC, and work through GroundTruth (a small consulting firm) to spread more globally the kinds of projects that Map Kibera has become known for, such as citizen-led mapping, data, journalism, etc. They also remain quite involved with Map Kibera itself.

We can now locate assets in Kibra through the generosity of the Gates Foundation and two dedicated Americans. It is incumbent upon us to make the project sustainable. 

A private-public partnership with Posta could leverage this project to develop new businesses, while at the same time meeting postal objectives of universal service connectivity coverage. 

Many of the youths in Kibra can become delivery agents using GPS to take mail and parcels to unreachable places. In similar fashion, the creative society could reach the poor and begin to tell their story through film and bring their plight to the sitting rooms of the rich as well as policy makers. It is an opportunity for the creative to locate the raw talent that lies in Kibra.

Many people like Kristof and WuDunn mean well when they highlight the problems of the poor and vulnerable. We must understand the dynamics of bad reporting on our status. 

HIDING OUR FUTURE

We are partly to blame when we hide data from the public. There is nothing wrong in telling the world the number of the poor in our midst. 

Data is the lifeblood of innovation. We curtail our own creativity and progress when we hide data. Data helps us shape policy to respond to human needs. 

It is such an irreplaceable resource that in hiding it, we would be hiding our future from the pricking eyes of those coming after us.

I submit that Kibra is a problem that presents us with the opportunity to innovate and be part of a global solution in poverty reduction. In bringing together different players such as the ongoing National Youth Project on cleaning up Kibra and not just Posta and the creative sector, we shall be getting closer to a better solution to poverty reduction.

Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

A Daily Diary post by Map Kibera team member, Steve Banner

Steve photographs a school for the Open Schools website

Pictures tell a lot, probably too much for some head teachers in Kibera. They won’t allow anyone to take them in their compound before you explain in detail why you have to take photos, what you intend to do with them and of course how they stand to benefit. Before you pull your digital camera out of your pocket, and press anything, the head teachers, directors, or teachers in charge have a number of questions for you to answer. Forget the journalistic five W and H, theirs probably double or even triple that of journalists.

Me, and my colleague Zack met our first questions at Kicoshep School, where the head teacher wondered why a lot of research was being done in Kibera and what the impact of all these research would be. We took her through the details of the project that entailed collecting new data and coming up with a website that will bring together all the educational facilities in Kibera, and how, not only her school, but all the schools in Kibera stood to benefit from the project outcome. She agreed to help fill the form we had, but then she sent us to their headquarters near Wilson airport to get permission to take photos in her school.

No shutter was going to be pressed at Shofco School for Girls either. Explanation given was that there are strict rules on photo taking in and around the school. Shutter was pressed at Bethel school, but not until after we had spent two hours trying to convince the head teacher, her deputy and other two teachers who had many questions to ask, including some in vernacular language that none of us could understand. They argued that since we as Map Kibera are the ones who will host the website, Map Kibera stood to benefit more than them, citing past examples where organizations collected data and nothing was ever seen or heard of them again. They were keen to know the most immediate benefit that they’ll see – and fell just short of asking to be paid for the information they were to give. But just when we were giving up on them, they gave in to our request.

Otherwise, I was free to slide the exposure of my Canon and turn on my flash sensor where I felt necessary in all other schools, which was both fun and educative in equal measure.

Every moment I had my lens focused on a signpost, school compound or classroom, most of which were in a very poor condition, I felt like I was doing something that the Kenyan government had failed in: giving the schools a voice to speak on the challenges they face. For instance, some school directors pointed out that the government is not very keen in improving education within the slum itself, and is only doing so in the schools that are on the outskirts of the slum. So by me being there documenting the facilities with my camera, I felt that I was indirectly offering a solution to the problems facing school going children in Kibera slums.

So, as I switched off the camera, I felt an inner satisfaction that I had done what many people, government officials included, had failed to do to the schools in Kibera, and when we’ll see improvement in education within Kibera as a result of the online education directory, my happiness will be complete.

A Daily Diary post by Map Kibera team leader, Joshua Ogure

Meeting with Parents at AIC Church Olympic

I myself am a parent in Kibera. As a part and parcel of this project, having done the survey as well, I must say this project has already been of great benefit to me. I already know what kinds of schools exist in Kibera, where exactly they are, what programs they offer, and indeed how much they charge, because of this project. In fact I have decided which school my baby class daughter will attend come next year.

But it was interesting to see how other parents responded during a gathering we held to introduce them to our project. On Saturday June 7, 2014, the day after the meeting with teachers, we had a similar meeting with a portion of Kibera parents, held at one of the halls of AIC church in Olympic.

Parents too came late – lateness for parents was considered even more normal than for teachers. Anyway, the first ten minutes saw a very bored, non-interested parent, yeah, there were some technical hitches, one computer refused to connect to the internet keeping a section of parents waiting. Maybe it was the reason for low mood, but as the presentation continued, their presence could be felt. They started asking important questions and the house turned lively.

Different parents have different preferences, and in this meeting parents expressed their interest to have something that could help them make informed choices of which school to take their kids instead of relying mostly on the neighbors, or rumors. Parents wanted information on qualification of teachers, availability of scholarships/sponsors, security of their children, school fees, special programs, e.g. many parents prefer a school with feeding program. Parents also are keen on which faith a school is affiliated to, that is whether Muslim or Christian.

But many Kibera parents do not have an access to the Internet, so how would they get the information? They suggested that the information could be made available to them through printed booklets, SMS, Newsletters, Radio, or printed maps. They also preferred that we find a way to disseminate the data through public “Barazas” and parent meetings at schools.

Parents want all the relevant information including fees published online, something that some teachers were not so comfortable about. Teachers were worried that it would be too easy for the public including “bad people” to just calculate what amount of money a school gets monthly or yearly, if the fee verses the population is put public. They feared that this would trigger attacks at schools since most of the parents pay cash. Parents on the other hand want to know how much schools charge versus how populated they are. Many parents would avoid overpopulated schools.

Parents also were so brave to declare that they will not be worried to have their names attached to a comment on the website for fear of victimization. “In fact that one should be encouraged so that schools can be criticized for a positive change,” says Mr. Nyamweya Ngare, a parent at Olympic Primary School. “It will also increase the level of transparency,” he added.

From these two important forums, the questions, the comments, the points, the concerns and the ideas contributed, helped us get a clear direction on what kind of information to go for. Wednesday the following week we were set to roll, taking pictures and asking questions at every school in the field.

By Joshua Ogure

Joshua Ogure, Map Kibera team coordinator