In Kenya, most streets are not named, and properties are not numbered. Our research showed that addresses are nonexistent in rural areas and informal settlements; in middle-income neighborhoods, you’ll find some houses with names on mostly unmarked roads. Failure to have a working address infrastructure has made it increasingly hard to navigate, affecting the delivery of basic services to communities. It has also contributed to growing insecurity, economic stagnation, inequality, and poor planning.
In the last 15 years, the government of Kenya has explored different ways of creating addresses and developed several policies. Two main obstacles that halted the implementation were building the technology to create and distribute address information. Secondly, the 2010 constitution of Kenya moved the role of planning and mapping to county governments, which are already underfunded and most suffer from poor governance.
`Where` is a solution that creates addresses with accurate geotags to property entrance points. It also gives property owners a chance to create physical signs of their address if they feel it’s necessary. Additionally, organizations that integrate `Where` APIs into their system will also have a chance to analyze usage by geographical location.