(Nairobi) – The Kenyan government has announced plans to extend Huduma Centre-like services to the diaspora to provide critical government services to the estimated 3.5 million Kenyans living abroad. This initiative is part of a broader strategy led by President William Ruto to digitize public services and improve their accessibility.
Prime Cabinet Secretary and Foreign and Diaspora Affairs CS Musalia Mudavadi stated that the initiative will focus on enhancing consular services and establishing one-stop service centres in key international cities. The diaspora community, particularly in the United States where the largest number of Kenyans reside, has long expressed challenges in accessing essential government services.
This announcement follows concerns raised by Kenyan senators, including Kericho Senator Aaron Cheruiyot, about the lack of accessible services for Kenyans abroad. Cheruiyot suggested setting up help desks at consular offices to reduce the inconvenience of traveling long distances to access services.
Since President Ruto’s 2022 directive to digitize government services, over 50,000 services have been integrated into the e-Citizen platform. However, questions remain about making these digital services easily accessible to the diaspora, with some, like Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna, pointing to delays in issuing national identity cards.
Sifuna criticized the manual process for issuing IDs, which forces diaspora citizens to visit embassies for procedures similar to those used in local government offices in Kenya. He called for automation similar to passport services, emphasizing that delays and inefficiencies undermine the purpose of the Diaspora Affairs Department created to address such issues.
Mudavadi acknowledged these challenges, attributing delays to resource constraints stemming from budget cuts. However, he noted that consular services have managed to issue about 2,500 IDs in various cities and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to leveraging technology to improve efficiency.
The Kenyan government is also exploring public-private partnerships (PPPs) to enhance healthcare services across the country. In a bilateral meeting with GE HealthCare, Mudavadi discussed expanding partnerships to drive sustainable growth in Kenya’s healthcare system.
GE HealthCare, a long-standing partner in Kenya’s healthcare sector, has been instrumental in initiatives like the establishment of the country’s first public-sector comprehensive cancer centre at Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral, and Research Hospital. Dr. Haroun Mohammed, GE HealthCare’s CEO for Africa, expressed the company’s readiness to bring advanced medical technologies and innovative solutions to scale up healthcare delivery across Kenya.