The government is banking on chiefs and their assistants to provide accurate, real-time data from villages to guide national policy, resource allocation and drought response in Samburu County.

This emerged during a three-day capacity-building workshop on Grassroots Data Management and Planning Systems organised by the State Department for Economic Planning for National Government Administration Officers (NGAO) in Samburu.

Chief Economist at the department, Judith Sarange, said NGAO was the ideal channel for grassroots data because of its well-established structure.

She said the training targets NGAO officers as well as other officers who interact with data in their line of duty.

Sarange said the officers will be equipped with skills on data ethics and how to seal existing loopholes in data collection.

She noted that the data will range from socio-economic and demographic information to security status, births and deaths, and weather patterns.

“The data that will be collected is diverse from social economic, demographic, security status, number of births and deaths in a location and so on.” She said.

She added that digitisation will allow information collected at the grassroots to reach the national level in real time, enabling the state to make decisions that are specific to Samburu and other counties.

Samburu County Commissioner Isaac Keter welcomed the initiative, saying chiefs are the foundation of administration at the local level.

Keter said data collected from households will ensure government interventions are based on reliable, ground-level information.