The rural poor have long been regarded largely as an ignorant, unproductive, and dependent economic underclass.Â

In addition,the country's key developmental challenges, namely injustice, massive regional, social, gender, intergenerational and mass inequalities, poverty, ignorance, disease, are problems generally associated with the Kenya’s rural poor.

Shunned by formal banks for decades, mistreated or ignored by the government since independence because they are difficult to tax; these millions may now get the chance to unleash their massive, untapped power, thanks to mobile telephony, which has aptly demonstrated that they can consume modern services, and are taxable through consumption. Mobile telephony has helped the private sector and government awaken to the reality of the massive economic potential of the rural poor, which microfinance institutions, as well as the makers of soft and alcoholic beverages discovered some time ago.

The government and the multinational banks are therefore coming back to the rural areas in a big way, albeit for different reasons. The former driven primarily by the imperatives of control and resource extraction, and the latter by the pursuit of profit and to get even with the competition for a newly attractive market segment coming from indigenous banks such as Equity, Kenya Commercial Bank and Post Bank. But banking and mobile telephony are not the only uses of ICT in a modern economy. Indeed, ICT portends massive gains for the entire economy and in particular, the majority rural poor.

To its credit, the government has launched a strategic plan for using ICT to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public services, and to unlock the developmental potential of the country and its entrepreneurs. The focus of the strategy, however, needs to be sharper. The Digital Village Project is therefore a welcome development in the right direction. Four key areas are particularly crucial to an ICT-driven socio-political and economic transformation.

E-government, which seeks to enhance communication and information provision within government, with citizens and the business community is the cornerstone, and would make it easier for the rural poor to apply for public jobs. The rural business and farming community can also participate in public tenders, and access inputs through e-procurement such as already practiced by the Kenya Agricultural Commodities Exchange. Through e-monitoring, the poor can participate better in overseeing the effective use of devolved funds such as LATF, CDF, Bursary, Roads fund and so on.

E-commerce is the second key area and it can enable poor rural farmers to access foreign markets for their produce and competitively priced inputs.

The third key area is e-learning, which is particularly important for building a human capital base. It can reduce training and education costs significantly, thereby allowing more poor people to fulfill their potential. Also important is electronic banking and money transfer services- which has already witnessed phenomenal growth courtesy of services such as M-Pesa and PostaPay. With remittances from the Kenyan Diaspora primarily targeting the rural poor, and urban dwellers also using this service robustly to reach their rural relatives, this is an area whose potential is nearly inelastic.

Realizing an ICT-driven social-economic transformation for the benefit of the rural poor and the country at large however should be consciously pursued through policy, legislative, administrative and informational instruments. Supportive infrastructure such as energy and roads should be put in place while service providers should be given incentives to invest in the rural areas.

Relevant institutions such as the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Communications Commission of Kenya and the Development Cooperation Community should better co-ordinate their initiatives and involve the people in the new frontier of sustainable rural development.

Ole Mepukori is a Consultant with Maa Community Foundation.