Kenya Should Learn from the World, But Policies Should Come From Reality

By Fred Waithaka

Kenya’s digital economy is no longer an aspiration but a measurable force, and the numbers behind that claim are worth stating plainly. According to the Communications Authority Q3 2025/26 sector statistics, mobile money penetration now stands above 100% of registered accounts, with active subscriptions reaching 53.4 million and an agent network that grew by over 100,000 outlets in a single quarter, from 501,399 to 602,470. GSMA’s 2024 Driving Digital Transformation of the Economy in Kenya report projects that this digital economy will contribute KES 662 billion to GDP by 2028, alongside 300,000 new jobs and KES 150 billion in additional tax revenue. These are not incidental numbers; they are the output of a policy environment that let Kenyan digital services develop on Kenyan terms before it tried to regulate them, and that sequencing is the lesson worth carrying forward.

That history matters as Kenya writes its next chapter, because technology, artificial intelligence, satellite-enabled connectivity, and other emerging technologies will define the country’s next phase of growth, which means the policy environment governing them must be enabling, forward-looking, and locally grounded. As that environment takes shape, Kenya is drawing heavily on a global regulatory landscape built by mature digital markets, from the EU’s AI Act and ETSI standards to the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act. These frameworks are useful reference points, but they should not be adopted wholesale. Suffice to say, the point is not to reject global experience as in today’s connected world, that would be self-defeating.

As the Swahili saying tembea uone teaches, there is wisdom in learning from the world around us, but learning does not mean surrendering to all that our eyes perceive, or our hands lay hold of. This caution matters more in Kenya than it might elsewhere, because Kenya’s legal and administrative systems, rooted in British common law, make European and other external frameworks feel familiar and therefore easy to import. Familiarity, however, is not fitness for purpose, particularly in a digital economy built on a different pattern of use.

Start from Kenya’s Realities

Kenya’s digital economy was built mobile-first, shaped by mobile money, a large informal enterprise sector, affordability constraints, uneven infrastructure, and a young, entrepreneurial population operating across a mixed-device market. That context stands in sharp contrast to Sub-Saharan Africa’s broader picture, where GSMA’s State of Mobile Internet Connectivity research finds that 60% of the population living within mobile broadband coverage still does not use mobile internet, largely due to cost, literacy, and device barriers. A policy framework built for a market with near-universal broadband and high-end device penetration will not translate cleanly onto Kenya’s terrain, however coherent it looks on paper elsewhere.

Mobile money remains the clearest proof of concept for a better approach. Rather than force it into a pre-existing banking template, CBK let the product develop under oversight while its risks and use cases became clear, then followed with formal safeguards through the National Payment System Act, 2012, so that regulation caught up with practice instead of pre-empting it. The same discipline should now apply as Kenya finalizes its Draft Artificial Intelligence and Other Emerging Technologies Policy 2026, which proposes a National AI Council, risk-tiered classification, and regulatory sandboxes built on exactly this test-and-learn logic. This is not an argument for lighter regulation but one for better-fitted regulation, drawn from evidence rather than borrowed wholesale from elsewhere.

Policy should also weigh reciprocity, since wholesale adoption of mature-market frameworks can ease market entry for established foreign firms while Kenyan innovators still face high barriers abroad. The better course starts from Kenya’s own evidence and objectives, kwa ground, as we say, drawing on global experience where useful, to design rules that protect local interests while letting local solutions scale regionally under the EAC and AfCFTA digital trade agendas.

Match Policy Tools to Digital Ambition

Fiscal choices, tax policy, infrastructure planning, energy access, and regulatory experimentation should all be judged by one test: whether they expand broadband adoption and investment. The Universal Service Fund, properly deployed by the Communications Authority, can direct resources to close the connectivity gap, but only if County Governments and the Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation are brought in to harmonize wayleave charges, build access roads, and extend rural power, since connectivity cannot outrun the infrastructure beneath it.

Regulatory sandboxes, already in active use at the Communications Authority, the Capital Markets Authority, and the Central Bank, remain Kenya’s most reliable tool for testing new models against local evidence before locking in permanent rules.

Build Capability to Shape Policy

Kenyan regulatory institutions have real technical depth, and what has been missing is not capability but commercial confidence, the willingness to weigh how compliance costs affect licensee sustainability and how policy certainty in turn accelerates investment. That capability, more than well-drafted rules alone, will determine whether Kenya converts its mobile money experience into a repeatable policy advantage or lets it become a historical footnote.

The drumbeat is clear: start from Kenya’s own realities, learn globally with discernment, regulate locally, and use regulation to unlock innovation and scale rather than merely manage risk. Done right, this positions Kenya not only as a domestic success story but as an anchor for Africa’s digital integration agenda.

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The writer is Director, Regulatory and Public Policy at Safaricom Plc.