Why Kenya Should Embrace The Use of Blockchain

Kenya, like many developing countries, has struggled to fight public corruption. Arrests are made but nothing seems to be coming out of them. How can Kenya win the war on graft?

This fight can be won with the introduction of Blockchain and AI that have been heralded as game changers in fighting corruption.

Several governments across the world have embraced the use of technology for improved governance. Blockchain and AI have emerged as some of the technologies that offer actual means to fight corruption and ensure that citizen’s interests are protected, given that technology such as blockchain offers transparency and immutability.

Spain, for example, slid eight points to become one of the EU’s lowest-ranked countries due to a spate of high-profile corruption scandals over the last decade and has had to leverage Blockchain and AI technology solutions to combat corruption.

They have done this through the amendments of their Anti-corruption laws to incorporate these emerging technologies.

Other countries that are using Blockchain and AI to fight corruption include: Ghana, Georgia, and Ukraine are looking to reform land registry by building immutable title systems on blockchain to prevent fraud and enable the banking industry to have confidence in land assets; Some of the Scandinavian countries have built blockchain-powered land registries to make the details of real estate transactions visible to all interested parties including the tax agencies to eliminate tax evasion.

Governments, especially in developing countries, are burdened by the weight of public debt and yet many of these countries have resources that can be leveraged to create local cryptocurrencies to raise resources without necessarily overburdening themselves.

The Kenyan Government should develop a digital asset framework to enable citizens to raise funds through Initial Coin Offers (ICOs) as a strategy to help local investors put their resources in cryptocurrencies underpinned by the utility of local resources.

These will help transform many viable Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups to scale to other countries. Governments too could raise infrastructure resources to locally issued ICOs and minimize foreign debt.