Oversight Authority for inclusion in the
Market Price Index.
7. The Government will liaise with all relevant
government agencies to require that all new
commercial and private developments are
designed and adequately provided with
facilities for high-speed connectivity
8. The Government will be open to, support
and encourage the development of new
business models that provide for
infrastructure sharing or the provision of
services in under-served and unserved
areas. The government will design
incentives, or provide funding on such
terms and in such manner as will best
achieve ubiquitous broadband access.
Internet Exchange Points: Internet
Exchange Points (IXP) help strengthen the local
Internet ecosystem, develop the local Internet
industry. Their benefits include:
Improve Internet quality and affordability
in local communities;
Improved local Internet connectivity;
Improve competitiveness;
Serve as a hub for technical activity; and
Encourage local service hosting and local
content development and applications.
The Government encourages partnerships
that seek to enhance peering and
interconnection through deploying additional
IXPs and use of deployed infrastructure,
including national and international fibre
cables, and local data centre development.
Data Centres: The Government will
develop guidelines for current and future data
centres to avoid inefficient public and private
ad-hoc investments.
With the mandated requirement for the
licensing of county based last-mile service
providers,
County
governments
are
encouraged to create shared data centres for
local peering and internet traffic exchange. In
support of this policy objective:
1. All government Ministries, Departments
and Agencies shall share and optimise data
centre infrastructure. All government data
centres, not specifically designated for
national security purposes, shall be
Ministry of ICT, Kenya
approved by the Ministry of ICT, which will
not permit new investment where there is
available capacity in any other ministry that
may be used, thus providing a cost efficient,
scalable and secure environment for
government data and information storage;
2. The government will promote, encourage
and license private sector investment in
neutral data centres by companies
incorporated for that purpose;
3. Encourage Kenyan businesses and County
governments to share data centre
infrastructure to minimise network
duplication;
4. This policy mandates the development of
standards for data centres, providing legal
and regulatory coherence with Kenyan
safety and environmental protection
standards. The standards will take
cognisance of national disaster recovery
and resilience frameworks, and the
constitutional requirements of devolution
and diversity;
5. Regulations and laws will be enacted that
specifically ensure that data is processed
fairly and lawfully in accordance with the
rights of citizens and obtained only for
specific, lawful purposes, and that clearly
establish that all data on a person is owned
by the person;
6. The government will ensure the availability
of basic infrastructure for approved data
centers, such as reliable grid power,
subsidised or discounted electric power
costs, access to the national publicly-owned
data transport backbone, security within
the context of the national cyber-security
framework, physical policing plans, and the
national data classification guidelines. All
centres that hold public data must be a
minimum of a level 2 Data Centre.
Rights of Way/Way Leaves: Rights of
way, way leaves, permits and clearances have
been a persistent and recurring challenge to the
deployment of cabling plant, towers and other
infrastructure. The Government will:
1. Work with County Governments to develop
harmonised way leave guidelines and
charges that protect the ICT infrastructure,
optimise usage, protect the environment
and roads, and prevent multiple charges;
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November-2019