It’s not every day in the open technology space that the opportunity to be the very first at something arises. But last week, we were a part of the launch of the Government of Makueni County’s Open Contracting Portal – Kenya’s first sub-national open contracting portal.

Since November 2018, Development Gateway (DG) has led the Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) program, a four-year partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

VIFAA Kenya implementation began in April 2019. Across VIFAA, we see cross-stakeholder partnerships as a key entry point to meet country and regional fertilizer needs. In Kenya, we are leveraging these partnerships to co-develop work plans that specifically address key data – and data use – gaps. Our approach to strategic decision-making starts with addressing those data gaps. In consultation with country stakeholders each step of the way, we will also identify data sources and co-design fertilizer dashboards.