• Kenya plans to create a national marketplace for anonymized public-sector data under a draft National Data Governance Policy published in late May by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy.

• The proposal would establish a National Council on Data Governance and Emerging Technologies and make at least 1,000 datasets available through a dedicated national platform over the next five years.

• Officials say the initiative aims to support innovation and generate new state revenue while excluding directly identifiable personal information in line with Kenya’s data-protection law.

Kenya continues to expand its digital-economy strategy. The government plans to create a national marketplace for anonymized public data that would be accessible to companies, researchers, non-governmental organizations and innovators.

The initiative appears in the draft National Data Governance Policy that the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy published in late May. The draft policy calls for the creation of a National Council on Data Governance and Emerging Technologies. The council would centralize information produced by public administrations and supervise the release of eligible datasets.

Authorities aim to make at least 1,000 datasets available over the next five years through a dedicated national platform.eCitizen as a Primary Data SourceMuch of the data would come from eCitizen, which supports a wide range of administrative services. The proposed datasets would include aggregated statistics on business registrations, passport applications, land transactions, vehicle registrations and selected agricultural and demographic indicators.

Direct identifiers such as names, telephone numbers, addresses and identity-document details would remain excluded from the marketplace in accordance with Kenya’s data-protection legislation.Data as a Strategic Asset. The proposal reflects a broader policy shift in Nairobi, where authorities increasingly treat data as a strategic economic asset. Government preparatory documents argue that public institutions hold large volumes of underused data because systems remain fragmented, standards differ across agencies and information sharing between institutions remains limited.

Innovation and Revenue GoalsOfficials say the marketplace would pursue goals beyond direct revenue generation. Structured access to public datasets could support new digital services, analytics tools, artificial-intelligence applications and financial products tailored to different sectors of the economy.

The government identifies agriculture, transport, healthcare and urban planning as among the sectors that could benefit most from broader access to standardized public data.Privacy Concerns and Reidentification Risks. The proposal has already raised questions about confidentiality safeguards and the risk that supposedly anonymized data could be reidentified once commercialized.

Those concerns are fueling public debate in Kenya, where some observers are calling for stronger oversight mechanisms before any national data market becomes operational.A Potential First in Africa. If implemented, the initiative would place Kenya among the first African countries to build a structured national marketplace for public-sector data.

The move would underscore a broader shift in digital policy across the continent, where governments increasingly view data as an economic resource in its own right.

Samira Njoya