By: Agwanda Saye
The European Union–Food and Agriculture Organization Digital Land Governance Programme (DLGP), spearheaded by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, has commenced a series of capacity-building workshops across Kenya.
Kisumu County, a key beneficiary of the initiative, was among the first to host the high-level delegation for a three-day intensive Geographic Information System (GIS) departmental champions training.
The delegation comprised a diverse team of experts, including trainers from the FAO, representatives from the Council of Governors (CoG), and technical partners from the private sector. This collaborative effort underscores the public-private partnerships driving the programme’s success.
The training was specifically tailored for counties that have received state-of-the-art GIS laboratories under the DLGP. Its primary objective was to equip key personnel with the necessary skills to operationalize the new labs and effectively manage geospatial data for evidence-based decision-making.
A central focus of the workshop was the introduction of fundamental GIS processes, including data capture, spatial data processing, and data visualization.
The curriculum was designed to bridge the gap between raw data and actionable insights by guiding attendees through essential decision-support workflows. Furthermore, the team received comprehensive, step-by-step live demonstrations of the CoG GIS-based open data portal, showcasing its full capabilities as a unified repository for all 47 counties.
The training culminated in a pivotal milestone: the official handover of finalized spatial datasets by private sector partners, which were subsequently uploaded directly onto the CoG portal during the session to ensure immediate accessibility.
The portal is structured with a dual-interface design featuring a public-facing platform for citizen transparency and stakeholder engagement alongside a secure administrative backend.
This backend will serve as the primary workspace for GIS and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) champions to continuously update and manage departmental data. This system ensures real-time monitoring of county projects across Kisumu’s 10 departments and the broader 18 sectors of county governance.
The full implementation of GIS underscores Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o’s commitment to the digitization and digitalization of county workflows, service delivery, and transparency, aligned with the 2010 Constitution and his governance manifesto.
