Asianet Pakistan Private Limited

Project funds approved through the annual budget will be sent directly to designated bank accounts for the ventures, if Parliament approves a proposed law.

The Public Finance Management (Amendment) Bill, 2025, seeks to amend Section 83 of the Public Finance Management Act to ensure mandatory exclusive accounts for project implementation funds.

Two recent continental gatherings have sharpened the conversation on the future of healthcare in Africa: The Rwanda Healthcare Technology Innovation Conference and the Second Annual National ICT Summit in Uganda.

Both forums drew leaders from healthcare, insurance, technology, and government to wrestle with one urgent question: how can digital innovation accelerate access to healthcare across Africa?

The answer echoed from Kigali to Kampala: the continent’s healthcare future must be inclusive, data-driven, and digitally enabled. For Kenya, which has often positioned itself as a leader in technology, the lessons from Rwanda and Uganda are not just instructive; they are urgent.

Sub-Saharan Africa continues to face systemic barriers that stall progress toward universal health coverage.

Nearly half a billion people still lack legal identification, excluding them from vital services such as healthcare, insurance, and finance. Without this foundation, even the most advanced digital systems struggle to reach those who need them most.

Uganda illustrates the scale of the challenge. Its doctor-to-patient ratio stands at a staggering 1 to 25,000, far short of the World Health Organization’s 1 to 1,000 recommendation.

Only a third of health facilities are positioned to adequately serve rural communities, and persistent problems such as drug stockouts, weak referral systems, and fragmented patient records hurt effective care. What makes Uganda’s example compelling is the way it has turned to digital solutions to tackle these structural weaknesses.

The introduction of biometric patient identity systems has ensured a ‘one person, one record’ approach, eliminating costly duplication. Automated claims processing has streamlined approvals while curbing fraud.

Rwanda’s success reveals what can be achieved when political commitment, technological innovation, and community needs are fully aligned.

Kenya is no stranger to digital innovation. Its reputation as a pioneer in fintech and mobile communication is firmly established.

Yet in healthcare, the country sits at an inflexion point. To seize the opportunity, five lessons from Rwanda and Uganda stand out.

First, healthcare systems must be anchored on a reliable patient identity framework. Without biometric-based identity, seamless access will remain elusive.

Second, systems must be interoperable from the start. Fragmented silos, whether in facility management, claims processing, or national databases, only breed inefficiency.

Third, inclusion must go beyond urban centres and smartphone users. Rural populations must be reached through simple technologies such as USSD and offline synchronisation.

Fourth, strong public-private collaboration is essential. Rwanda’s progress owes much to its openness to working with innovators who align with national priorities.

And finally, real-time data must drive decision-making, ensuring ministr

Dipti Mohanty, the managing director of Safal Group in Eastern Africa, prefers to work quietly behind the scenes, making things happen without the spotlight. As the boss overseeing the largest producer of steel roofing, he has five CEOs reporting directly to him.

‘The most important thing to unlearn in my position is letting go of control. You will tend to step into the CEO’s shoes, but your job is to guide, not prescribe,’ he says.

Kenya Power posted a net profit for the second successive year at Sh24.47 billion in the year ended June 2025, as the firm rides on a growing customer base, increased sales and improved system efficiency.

Joseph Siror, the firm’s CEO, talked to this publication about the year under review, plans ahead, Kenya’s growing reliance on neighbouring economies mainly Ethiopia to boost electricity supply among others.

This was the case in June 2023, when the State Department for Planning issued the requisite rules to be adopted by ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs), introducing a new section on learning that was tethered to the existing monitoring and evaluation (M and E) framework.

The M and E stages provide insights that enhance the authority’s operations. These lessons are synthesised and shared across the organisation to enhance responsiveness, innovation, and efficiency, achieving the set objective of creating efficient markets for consumers. To support this, the authority has developed a knowledge management framework, which incorporates various principles that the government agencies can adopt to enhance MEL.

First, put in place robust systems for capturing and documenting knowledge from projects and programmes. These are developed through standardised templates, digital tools and platforms to facilitate data collection, analysis, and dissemination.

Thereafter, collate and store reports in a centralised digital repository that is accessible to staff members. In line with the rapidly evolving digital landscape, ensure that the systems can be enhanced using appropriate artificial intelligence and data visualisation tools for efficient analysis and presentation of the data.

Secondly, promote timely and structured information exchange across departments by leveraging knowledge-sharing platforms, including townhall sessions/plenaries and webinars.

At the authority, every staff member, within days of resuming work from a local or international training session, is required to disseminate key learnings to all colleagues in plenary.

A softcopy report is also curated for future reference, with a special focus on actionable insights that can enhance the execution of our mandate. To enhance transparency and accountability in the authority’s operations, MEL insights are also incorporated into the authority’s public communication strategies. Third, the integration of knowledge into policy and decision-making processes fosters a culture that prioritises learning, accountability, and continuous improvement. Senior management must champion knowledge sharing and continuous learning.

This commitment is demonstrated through attending and presenting at knowledge-sharing sessions, moderating discussions, and monitoring the application of MEL recommendations in decision-making.

Finally, agencies should institutionalise evaluation processes by involving diverse stakeholders and, preferably, collaborating with academic and research institutions for independent evaluations and evidence generation.

This would also be enhanced by facilitating public feedback mechanisms to incorporate public insights into MEL frameworks.

Fitting contextualisation is available in a seminal article by Sarah Evans titled Why so many clean water projects fail.

Sarah opines that 60 percent of water projects in Africa fail despite well-laid strategies and objectives, further asserting that this failure is partly occasioned by donors, leaving communities the requisite training on how to maintain and manage the new systems.

This, unfortunately, forces communities to default to the known-their unsafe water sources! Such botched projects highlight the risk of failing to implement a robust monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) system.

This got me thinking. While organisations may deploy the best strategies to meet their objectives, there is inadequate learning borne of evidence-based evaluation. So, let’s look at each of the three elements of a MEL system.

Monitoring entails tracking progress within a pre-determined period by identifying the outputs from each activity.

For instance, the Competition Authority of Kenya monitors activities in its plans every quarter, identifying the immediate outputs during each cycle.

Evaluation, on the other hand, determines the level of impact actualisation.

This process is longer. In the authority’s case, implementation of its five-year strategic plans is evaluated twice: at mid-term (two and a half years in) and at the end of the term.

Evaluation does not present the outcomes of an activity, and enables us to decipher and process the underlying factors supporting each performance metric.

The podium that stood at the centre of Uhuru Park for many years is no more. For the average Kenyan adult, it occupied a space of gathering for political, civil, cultural and religious purposes.

The promulgation of Kenya’s new Constitution was celebrated here on August 27, 2012. Presidential inaugurations have been held here and numerous political and social rallies hosted at the Park.

The government has shaken up the board of Consolidated Bank of Kenya Ltd (CBKL) amid the pending privatisation of the State-owned lender that has been grappling with falling deposits, a dwindling loan book, increased impairment costs and capital constraints.

CBKL and another State-owned lender, the Development Bank of Kenya, are lined up for sale as the government attempts to cut reliance on the Exchequer, with the recouped money being channelled into development projects.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has lowered its target for inflation in the coming months to below the 5 percent midpoint, mirroring its view of less pressure on consumer prices than previously expected.

The lender, which had seen the inflation rate breaching the midpoint by March next year, now expects changes in consumer prices to stick below the threshold through August 2026.