Citizen Data:
Putting Evidence Directly Into Citizens' Hands
Maono Space enables community leaders and organisations to collect, verify, and use evidence to influence government decisions and strengthen local accountability.
3,764
Development projects mapped
35
Wards covered
47
Counties targeted
The Challenge
Communities Cannot Hold Governments Accountable Without Evidence
Citizens are often asked to participate in development decisions without access to reliable information about what government has planned, funded, or delivered.
Citizen Data addresses this gap by helping communities generate and verify the evidence they need to engage government from a position of knowledge—not guesswork.
What We Did
From Community Knowledge to Verified Evidence
We trained youth leaders and community-based organisations to map county development projects, from schools and health facilities to roads and county programmes and verify the information directly with communities on the ground.
The evidence was consolidated into open dashboards, giving both citizens and government officials access to the same information.
What Changed
The work moved beyond data collection. Youth leaders presented ward-level priorities directly to the Governor and full county cabinet, putting community-generated evidence into the county’s decision-making process.
Kilifi County subsequently formalised citizen engagement as a core responsibility of ward administrators, while its open data dashboards were publicly launched for citizens and officials.
The impact
From Data to Accountability
Trusted Local Data Leaders
Youth and community leaders became trusted collectors and validators of local development data.
Stronger Public Participation
A shared evidence base helped move participation from tokenistic consultation toward genuine accountability.
Institutional Commitment
Citizen engagement was formalised as a core responsibility of ward administrators.
Open Access to Evidence
Public dashboards made development information accessible to citizens and government officials.
Why This Matters
A Model Built to Scale
Citizen Data demonstrates how communities can generate credible evidence, organise around shared priorities, and use that evidence to influence government.
The Kilifi experience provides a foundation for scaling the approach toward Kenya’s 47 counties.