When Kenya launched Ardhisasa, it took an important step towards modernising one of the country’s most important public services. Significant aspects of land administration could, for the first time, be undertaken through a digital platform rather than traditional paper files.
Applications that once required multiple physical visits could increasingly be initiated online, making records more accessible and transactions more transparent.
Yet digitisation has revealed the next challenge rather than eliminated it. Anyone involved in conveyancing understands the reality. A transfer is lodged, documents are uploaded and the application enters the system.
Yet advocates and clerks still make phone calls, send emails and make inquiries to establish whether a valuation has been assigned, an assessment completed or a registration executed. The transaction is digital, but monitoring its progress often remains manual.
The challenge is institutional rather than personal. Kenya has made tremendous progress in digitising transactions but has not fully digitised workflow visibility. Participants may know when a file enters the system but struggle to determine precisely where it is, how long it has been there and what is delaying it.
This has economic consequences. Developers, manufacturers, financial institutions, pension funds and families all depend on land transactions being completed efficiently. When visibility is limited, uncertainty increases and investment decisions slow.
Georgia’s property registration model offers an important lesson. Its one-day and same-day registration services are significant not simply because they are fast, but because transactions can be monitored, timelines defined and institutional performance measured against successful completion. Kenya should establish a one-day benchmark for clean, compliant transactions while allowing complex cases involving disputes, succession, fraud or incomplete documentation additional scrutiny.
One practical reform would be a National Land Transaction Dashboard integrated into Ardhisasa.
Each transaction would receive a tracking number, with every stage visible in real time, including where it sits, when it arrived, the applicable service standard and whether it has exceeded the timeline.