The Civic Voices Project

Inequality in public resource distribution has kept the local poor in deeper poverty. It has denied a majority of them the chance to utilize available public goods as tools out of poverty. In Kenya, by law, distribution of public goods is determined through public participation. However, inclusive and meaningful public participation has been difficult to achieve, putting both rural and urban poor at a great disadvantage, in an already dire situation where less than 0.1% of the population (8,300 people) own more wealth than the bottom 99.9% (more than 44 million people), and the richest 10% earn on average 23 times more than the poorest 10% (Oxfam). More than 90.5% of the country's adult population is excluded from public participation because of limited access to public participation information, cost constraints, and limited channels for people to directly engage with their governments. Their voices are not represented in the distribution of public goods, directly or indirectly, denying them an equal opportunity to develop, grow and prosper. 

Consequently, social accountability has also become difficult to achieve. Bills, policies and development initiatives proposed, therefore, fail to address the needs of the poor majority, favoring instead those with power and resources, thus deepening inequality and propagating conflict. Rural and urban poor are running into deeper poverty, public resources are lost in billions per year in run-away unaccountability and resource-based conflict is brewing every day.

The Civic Voices Project is an initiative towards digitized and inclusive public participation in Kenya. The project works through Civic Voices, an online platform for public participation. Currently available through a mobile application, the goal is to makes public participation easier, inclusive and more effective, through digitization.

Digitization of public participation. Digital public participation eliminates limitations of physical participation, resolving the challenge of inclusion of traditionally disadvantaged communities, including youth, women, people with disabilities and marginalized communities. It enables timely and unrestricted access to information on and about public participation, with the potential of breaking down complex information into languages and formats suitable for access by the different audiences.

Civic Voices is a digital tool for public participation. It provides an intuitive and easy-to-use mobile platform where citizens can learn about proposed policies, laws and development initiatives, and submit their opinions on them. It empowers the public to have their say in decision-making processes in governance, ensuring that their voices are heard, and enabling duty bearers to make informed decisions based on real public opinion. Discussion reports are automatically generation for records, reference and to facilitate learning.

The Civic Voices Project is working to create a future where every voice is represented in the distribution of public goods, and every Kenyan has an equal chance to maximize public resources as tools out of poverty, develop, grow and prosper.

Kenya’s poverty headcount ratio is at $6.85 a day (2017 PPP) (% of population) according to world bank statistics is at 86% (2015). According to Statista.com, 17% of Kenya’s population live below 1.90 U.S. dollars per day (2022). This meant that over 8.9 million Kenyans were in extreme poverty, most of whom were in rural areas. On the other hand, poverty incidence in Kenya contrasts with the country's economic development. Its gross national income per capita increased to 1,760 U.S. dollars over the last 10 years, a growth above 80 percent. A steep income inequality.

Our target beneficiaries are urban and rural poor, who are mostly marginalized communities, women and youth. We want their voices represented in the distribution of public goods, directly and indirectly, to bring their development baseline at per with the rest of the country, and provide them with equal opportunities to grow and prosper.

By digitizing public participation, we aim to achieve greater reach with public participation information, more inclusive public engagements, informed public decision-making based on real public opinion, and easy follow up and accountability at low costs. The Civic Voices Project targets a double impact of reducing poverty in Kenya by increasing inclusivity and accountability in distribution of public goods, and reducing resource-based conflict.

If the Civic Voices Project is successful, poverty will be reduced in Kenya, inclusivity and accountability in distribution of public goods increased, and resource-based conflict reduced. With more meaningful public participation and continuous learning about public participation and how best to participate in public discourses, we hope to build an environment of reciprocal trust and mutual understanding between people and their communities, their local and national governments

and the multilateral system that is essential to building and sustaining peace and development, by transforming political and social systems to meaningfully engage citizens in decisions and processes that affect them.

The team is led by Collins, Allan and Alfred. Collins is a social entrepreneur with 6 years’ experience in development work. He is the founder of One Vision Kenya and has successfully spearheaded several initiatives to impact. He brings his entrepreneurial, project management, business strategy and political organizational skills to the project. As a full stack developer, Allan brings both Entrepreneurial and development skills to the project. He has successfully launched 5 impact projects in using tech for development and is an award winning developer. Alfred Arot brings a wealth of data management and analysis, and strategic development skills to the project, with a professional experience of 10 years.

Work on this project started in November of 2021. Following 3 months of research, development of the platform began in February 2022 and the first prototype was ready for testing in April of 2022. In the testing, we partnered with the National Youth Council to carry out public participation on county youth policies. Lessons from first testing with 1000 users helped us to re-engineer the tool to smoothen system processes and better user experience. After 2 more months of development, we were invited by the Senate for a demonstration, where we collected views of 30 senate clerks on the usability of the system in conformity with policy requirements of law making and opinion collection and sharing. We spent 3 more months developing the system, incorporating recommendations from the senate. During this period, Civic Voices was picked for The Hague Institute of Innovation in Law’s Justice Entrepreneurship school where the solution was further crystalized. Today, we have a partnership agreement with Nairobi County for a county-level pilot program, with the support of State Department for Devolution, office of the Deputy President. We have also gained technical partnership of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Kenya Office. 

Civic tech is a fairly new concept in Kenya, and Civic Voices is the first mobile based platform for public participation in Kenya. We, therefore, do not have the privilege of learning from predecessors in user driven Civic Tech. We have a few advantages on our side.

First, digitization is supported by a mobile penetration of 113% in Q2 of 2022, with more than 15 million people active on social media, who can easily reach 45 million people using a reach factor of 5. Further, there are a number of civil society organizations that are working to make public participation more inclusive, including Uraia Trust Mzalendo Trust and The Institute of Social Accountability among others, with whom we plan to partner with to bring the tool deeper into the people.

Secondly, digitized public participation in county governance is already a suggested approach in law and in research. The IGRTC report recommends that for effective public participation to be mainstreamed, institutionalized, developed and sustained, there is need for development of infrastructure for public participation, including: information centers, public communication frameworks, modalities and platforms for participation, petition procedures, referenda guidelines and public complaints systems. Ministry of Devolution report on the state of public participation in counties (2015) proposed, as one of the key policy measures to promote public participation, development of platforms for information sharing and consultation with the public, and development and maintenance of databases on stakeholder analysis to enable targeted

public participation. Section 91 of the County Governments Act, 2012, provides for information communication technology-based platforms as a modality for citizen participation.

A proper digital platform could potentially reach the 50 million Kenyans directly, to complement existing mechanisms of public participation and enable development of policies and laws that speak to the needs of the people. However, none of such dedicated platforms exist, leaving people to depend on newspapers as a source of public participation information, which has penetration of only 9.7% of the country population.

We are basically curving new paths that hopefully those who come after us will be able to learn from. We are applying to solve because we want to set a world class precedence in Civic tech in Kenya, by accessing impact guidance and coaching from experienced leaders, resources that will help us advance our work, and a support network from which we can belong, learn and gain exposure even as we share skills and lessons.  

Currently, public participation is done in town centers in a town hall format. Notices and information on public participation is published in at least 2 widely circulated dailies. With newspaper readability in Kenya standing at 9.7%, information reach and inclusion remains a grave challenge. The larger population that is poor, cannot afford to buy newspapers daily, get regular transportation to town halls, and government agencies are limited in resources to facilitate more people to attend the forums. Exclusion deepens. The Civic Voices approach proposes digitization of public participation. Digitization eliminates limitations of physical participation, resolving the challenge of inclusion of traditionally disadvantaged communities and populations. It enables timely and unrestricted access to information, with potential of breaking down complex information into languages and formats suitable for access by the different audiences. It cuts down cost per reach, saving transport cost for physical public participation, yet still making their voices heard in public goods discussions. Digitization is facilitated by a mobile penetration of 113% in Q2, with more than 15 million people active on social media, who can easily reach 45 million people using a reach factor of 5.

By digitizing public participation, we aim to achieve greater reach with public participation information, more inclusive public engagements, informed public decision-making based on real public opinion, and easy follow up and accountability at low costs.

The Civic Voices Project targets a double impact of reducing poverty in Kenya by increasing inclusivity and accountability in distribution of public goods, and reducing resource-based conflict. With more meaningful public participation, we hope to build an environment of reciprocal trust and mutual understanding between people and their communities, their local and national governments and the multilateral system that is essential to building and sustaining peace and development, by transforming political and social systems to meaningfully engage citizens in decisions and processes that affect them.

Our pilot program will take place in Nairobi City County. We plan to serve a population of 5.3 million people, directly and indirectly. Over the 3-year period, we plan to increase information reach on public participation from 9.7% to 50%, raise public engagement to 50% of target population and ensure that at least 50% of public participation exercises done are evidence-backed and verifiable. Consequently, this will help raise social accountability to 50%. 

Currently, we have a partnership agreement with Nairobi County to pilot Civic Voices in the City County. The one-year pilot program will help us crystalize our service with a pilot population of 5.3 million people. Nairobi is the capital city and the trailblazer to new technological advancement, which will make it easily and quickly adopted by other counties.  From a successful pilot, we plan to replicate the service to the remaining 46 counties in Kenya, with the support of the government and multilateral agencies, to ensure continuous equity in distribution of public goods to the 57 million Kenyan population for the next 5 years. Lessons from Kenya will help us export the service to other democracies across Africa as a development best practice for inclusive development.

We use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to measure progress towards our impact goals, guided by the following indicators and targets. 

Indicator 1: Effectiveness of digitization in public participation

Target: Increase existing rate of public participation through digital methods by 300%

Indicator 2: Reach of digitization

Target: Increase access to the platform to 70% of Nairobi City County's population

Indicator 3: Quality of information

Target: Increase the number of resources shared through the platform by 25%

Indicator 4: Impact of digitization

Targets: Increase the number of decisions, laws, and development initiatives that have been agreed upon with public opinion collected through the platform by 15% 

If the Civic Voices Project is successful in digitizing public participation, then it will lead to increased access to public participation information, more inclusive public engagements, informed public decision-making based on real public opinion, and easy follow up and accountability at low costs. Increased access and inclusivity in public participation processes will result in increased accountability and more equitable distribution of public goods. Increased accountability in management of public resources which minimizes wastage and misappropriation, and increased access to basic and essential public goods will in turn lead to an increased quality of life for the poor and marginalized communities, and reduce resource-based conflict. Ultimately, this will create an environment of reciprocal trust and mutual understanding between people and their communities, their local and national governments, and the multilateral system, which is essential to building and sustaining peace and development.

Our core solution is powered by a mobile app.

The organization was started off by 2 co founders who are both male. However, we have within our Human Resource policy an equity, diversity and inclusivity clause, which we have started to and endeavor to continue to implement with growth of the organization.

The Civic Voices Project runs on a hybrid model that combines public and commercial funding sources. After the pilot phase, we anticipate that the project will rely on 70% public funding and 30% commercial funding. 

To become financially sustainable, Civic Voices project will focus on developing and maintaining strong partnerships with government, civil society, and private sector stakeholders. These partnerships will be built on a shared commitment to achieving the project's objectives and outcomes.

The project will also leverage existing funding and resources from government, civil society, and private sector actors. This will include developing effective resource mobilization and fundraising strategies that target public and private donors, foundations, and other funders.

The project will also foster strategic collaborations and joint programing with other organizations and initiatives. This will involve engaging with partners to identify areas of mutual interest and opportunities to build synergies and develop joint projects.

Finally, the project will work with local stakeholders to develop and implement innovative financing models, such as the use of customer fees and other mechanisms that can generate revenue and ensure the sustainability of the project and its activities.

In accordance with law and standard procedures, county governments have already existing budgets for public participation. Work needed to channel part of the resources to Civic Voices only remains to proof of value for the money. An additional push effect is that many projects have been stopped by the courts due to lack of public participation before commencement of their implementation. Legal requirement for public participation and evidence therefore, creates a natural demand for better public participation services. 

We are still at the pilot phase, this is part of the assumptions we seek to test.