The existing Kisii County ICT policy was developed in the year 2014. Over the years the ICT sector has changed with marked technological growth and advancements. There have also been changes to legal frameworks at the national level which have influenced on the operations of the sector at the County levels. The sector has also witnessed emerging issues like cyber-security, IT enabled services, Quality of Sevices (QoS) demands, Internet of Things (IoT), among others.This policy is aimed at addressing these potential gaps in the previous policy document so as to provide the citizenry with the much-needed services. The Policy has been developed through an all-inclusive, participative and consultative process. The guiding principles adopted in this policy are reflective of the vision and mission statements for the County Government of Kisii. These guiding principles include; Data protection, Privacy and Security; ICT as tool for social-economic development of the County; ICT as an integral driver for Research and Innovation in the County; enhanced services delivery using ICT enabled platforms; promotion of Sustainable social-economic development by leveraging on ICT; adoption of open standards for enhanced open governance and ICT for value creation.Based on the these principles, the ICT Policy aims at providing a roadmap for the alignment of programs and projects towards the realization of broad social-economic development in Kisii County. It states broad parameters upon which ICT standards and procedures will be derived from. The general policy objectives are to:(1) Create ICT infrastructural conditions that will act as a bridge between the residents and the County Government, (2) Provide an ICT framework that will promote creativity and use of ICT platforms as developmental tool by all the resident of Kisii County, (3) Accelerate investment in human resource development and capacity building in ICT, (4) Promote Research and Innovation as integral in the provisioning of services and product differentiation through local value creation and fostering start-up ecosystem that are scalable, (5) Use of ICT as a tool to position and empower the residents of Kisii County to take advantage of emerging trends in sectors like education, agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and health, and (6) Adopt technology neutral approach in the deployment and regulation of ICT systems and services to promote equity and competitionfor a prosperous, free, open and stable county.These objectives will be actualized through the following five focus areas: ICT infrastructure 7and Accessibility: working with the National Government the CGK will ensure every residentcan access a reliable Internet; Public Service Delivery and Information Access: most County Government services are offered online, this calls for a reliable online access platforms and adoption of effective ICT technologies to delivery services and information at the most convenient manner to the residents of Kisii County; Research and Innovation: the County Government will craft guidelines to promote innovation and to promote value creations; Data Protection and Cyber Security: it institute measures aimed at the protection of the user data and ensuring no security breaches are committed; ICT Skills Development: the level of utilizations of ICT technologies is dependent on the skills level of its users and therefore development of the capacities of the staff and residents of the County will be key in the realization of the potentials presented by ICT.Besides, the CGK working in a collaborative manner with the National government will play a significant role in the provision of necessary infrastructure to support its implementation. Furthermore, an establishment of a Monitoring and Control framework within the ICT department will be critical to track on the implementation of this policy.

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