Mtwapa, Kenya 28 September 2015-- UN-Habitat and its partner Future Policy Modeling (FUPOL) are at the closing stages of a ground breaking pilot project in Kenya’s Kilifi County at the coast. UN-Habitat entered into a partnership with FUPOL in 2013 to use the experience it has gained in the use of latest ICT and to address the issue of e-participation in developing cities.

This research project funded by the European Commission is composed of a consortium of 17 partners (private sector, academics, and cities) from 9 countries and it aims at creating a comprehensive ICT model to support public policy design and implementation. One of the main results of this demonstrative project is the development of an e-participation pilot tool in Mtwapa, Kenya.

Embedded in the PSUP programme, it aimed at enhancing community participation in upgrading slums and to develop a mechanism to engage and sustain multi stakeholder participation in all stages of the project. The community embraced the idea and is now using various electronic media to give its opinion.

UN-Habitat also released a publication “E-governance and urban policy design in developing countries” that highlights case studies, tools, methodologies, all reflecting current challenges and potential for the use of ICT in governance processes in cities. There is the hope of building on the complementarity of visions of e-governance, gathering the urban community, IT developers and policy-makers.

Consequently, UN-Habitat has said it is looking forward to follow-up on the new opportunities that were made possible by this project and to use ICTs as a tool to make local policies more accountable and increase the communication between citizens and leaders.