The Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs is collaborating with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to ensure that the implementation of the National E-waste Management strategy 2019 to 2023/24 is achieved in the country.
State Department for ICT and Innovation Principal Secretary Jerome Ochieng said the strategy which comprises of five thematic areas is aimed at strengthening the country’s E-Waste coordination structures at both the national and county levels.
“Besides raising awareness, the strategy will also put in place a monitoring and evaluation mechanism, as well as promote research and innovation for E-waste management in Kenya,” said Ochieng.
The PS who was speaking during the World Environment Situation Room at UN in Gigiri, Nairobi said the strategy will be used in identifying the best and suitable environmental information system to be deployed in the country.
He said the system is expected to generate a network of databases in areas of pollution control, clean technologies, remote sensing, coastal ecology, biodiversity, renewal energy, desertification, wildlife and mining.
Other thematic areas include improving of ICT infrastructure, accessibility and capacity building which will provide opportunities to disseminate environmental information to help reduce degradation, and use of monitoring and response systems such as satellite images to direct response teams to critical areas.
“The strategy will also harness technology like computer imaging to build land resource database to generate basin-wide map of land use that will indicate forest degradation hotspots. This will help to monitor ecological conditions for prevention and mitigation measures,” he added.
He at the same time assured that Kenya has put in place the Data Protection Act 2018 and various regulation for protection and management of personal data by identifying, assessing, monitoring and mitigating privacy risks in programs and activities involving collection, retention, use, disclosure and disposal of personal data.
The PS while noting that the data will protect children and vulnerable groups, expressed confidence that it will also promote inclusive, digitally enabled and effective action by providing credible and independent information and knowledge on environment.
The Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs has constructed Konza National Data Centre, a state-of -the-art Tier III Data Centre which offers diverse high end cloud services to government and private enterprises.
By Bernadette Khaduli
