The county governments of Busia, Kakamega and Kisumu are adopting digital technology to strengthen the management of social protection programmes, including scholarship assistance and welfare support for learners from vulnerable households.
The move follows a stakeholder training workshop hosted by the Busia County Government, through its Directorate of Social Services, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
The training focused on a Management Information System (MIS) designed to improve beneficiary registration, programme enrolment, record-keeping and monitoring of social assistance services.
FAO Social Protection Specialist Winnie Mwasiaji said the system will enable counties to register households, enrol eligible beneficiaries in relevant programmes, and track the entire process from initial application to benefit disbursement.
The platform will also support case management, grievance redress and regular reconciliation of programme records. It is meant to replace manual, fragmented systems that make it difficult to track beneficiaries and monitor assistance.
The system will run on a centralised hosting arrangement, while each participating county will get a separate, secure virtual environment. This will allow local administrators to manage their departmental users and beneficiary records without mixing information across counties.
The platform is also expected to improve transparency, accountability and the auditability of beneficiary records in other welfare interventions.
Busia County Director of Social Protection Dr Charles Musumba Wakhaya thanked FAO and the trainers for supporting the initiative. He said the platform would strengthen coordination between county social protection departments and national programmes.
He said the system would link county-level operations with national frameworks, including the Enhanced Single Registry, which is hosted at the National Social Protection Secretariat data centre.
The data centre has been upgraded with support from the World Bank to hold key national social protection registries, including those for cash transfer programmes and the Hunger Safety Net Programme.
The platform is expected to help county departments manage assistance programmes more efficiently, which could benefit learners who rely on scholarships and other welfare support to access education.
Improved digital records could strengthen the administration of bursaries, scholarships and other support initiatives for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. Better coordination of beneficiary information could also help reduce duplication and improve the tracking of assistance.
However, the specific education programmes to be integrated into the system were not detailed during the training.
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