What is Open Government

Maturity models have existed as a concept for at least two decades. This chapter demonstrates the use of two models to assess the institutional readiness for open government at the Kenyan judiciary. Kenya has gone through a series of constitutional reforms, the latest being the promulgation of a new constitution in 2010 whose key pillar is continuous engagement with citizens, which led to a launch of the Kenya Open Data Initiative in 2011. In response to this initiative, the judiciary launched its transformation framework in 2012 with an aim of inculcating a culture of openness. Against this background, a study was undertaken on records-management readiness for open government in the Kenyan judiciary. This chapter reports some of its findings, specifically the status of open-government readiness at the judiciary, assessed using the IRMT E-Readiness Tool and the open government implementation model (OGIM). The chapter describes the methodology used, discusses the findings, and states a conclusion as well as recommendations.