Kenya's government has launched a blueprint to help establish and sustain a local digital economy.

The blueprint covers five key areas including digital government; digital business; infrastructure; innovation-driven entrepreneurship and digital skills and values, and represents the East African country's contribution towards the Smart Africa Alliance.

This organisation aims to leverage technology to create a single digital market for over 600 million people from the 24 Africa member states.

Speaking at the Transform Africa Summit 2019 in Kigali, President Uhuru Kenyatta said that other member states should adopt the blueprint for their own economies.

"This digital economy blueprint serves as one of Kenya's contributions in championing the growth of an African-wide digital economy for all of Smart Africa Alliance members. It is our hope and wish that all the member states shall peruse this Blueprint and find value in adapting it within their own ecosystems to realise the potential of digital transformation that will leapfrog our economies to prosperous heights."

Population E-register

The blueprint highlighted how the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) or Huduma Namba is being positioned to improve government services.

At the East Africa Com 2019, Dr Bitange Ndemo, Chairman of the Blockchain and AI Taskforce, said the NIIMS platform will offer a starting ground to formulate blockchain-based government services.

"It is important to have one trusted digital identity ... We have made recommendation to develop a digital asset framework. This will help in crowd sourcing for funding once assets have been tokenised," said Ndemo.