Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, in addition to being a GODAN partner, is one of 15 national agricultural ministries to have signed the Nairobi Declaration in June 2017.  Kenya is moving towards ratifying its commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s); developing an Open Data policy in agriculture and nutrition, understanding how Open Data can play a leading role in agricultural transformation by making data available, accessible and useful to smallholders and farmers. This will provide farmers with insight and tools to improve productivity and profitability. 
GODAN is working with the Government of Kenya to support this initiative by providing guidance, tools, legal advice and a general framework through which to assist Kenya to prioritize more open, responsible and transparent datasets. This is an important step for Kenya as it recognises the key role of Open Data in achieving better solutions to food security, and the Government completely supports the concept beginning with one of its primary sectors, agriculture and nutrition.

The Head of the Legal and Intergovernmental Liaison Office of the Deputy President’s Office, in a meeting with a GODAN expert, communicated that the agricultural sector will be a champion, and set an example for other sectors on the privacy and security issues linked with Open Data.

Making agricultural data open facilitates the development of solutions to improve food security in ways that would otherwise be expensive, time intensive or even impossible. It enables more efficient and effective decision making by stakeholders at all levels, fostering innovation that everyone can benefit from, and driving organisational and sectoral change through transparency in food production chains.

GODAN is supporting this important action by working together with the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, the ICT Ministry and the Department of Statistics, providing input on Open Data policy.