Safe and Smart Cities 6.4 SELECTED CASES KENYA Kenya is the biggest economy in East Africa. Its capital, Nairobi, was ranked“the most intelligent city in Africa” in 2014 and 2015 and then again in 2019 by the Intelligent Community Forum. 278 Huawei’s substantial presence in the country certainly played a role in this ranking. In 2014, Ken­ya’s Information Communication and Technology Authori­ty, a department under Kenya’s Ministry of Information and Communication, signed a Memorandum of Under­standing with Huawei to act as an ICT architect for the Kenyan government and for Huawei to advise it on Kenya’s ICT Master Plan and Vision 2030, 279 and to conduct(online) trainings for civil servants on information and communica­tion technologies, e-government, smart city, the Internet of Things, and cybersecurity. 280 Thus, Kenya was one of the first African countries to imple­ment Huawei’s Safe City. Huawei launched a Safe City pro­ject in cooperation with the Kenyan mobile network opera­tor Safaricom, covering the country’s two most densely populated cities of Nairobi and Mombasa. 281 By 2016, Hua­wei had built a communication network that links 1,800 surveillance cameras with 195 police bureaus and 7,600 po­lice officers. 282 It has provided the National Police Service Commission with a high-speed private broadband network that relies in part on Huawei’s proprietary wireless eLTE solution. The infrastructure links its command centres with over 1,500 high-definition cameras in downtown Nairobi, more than 200 cameras at city checkpoints and any number of wireless devices in the hands of officers in the field. Hua­wei claims that Nairobi authorities now have panoramic vid­eo surveillance of Nairobi’s urban centre and a highly agile command and dispatch setup running on satellite-based GPS and software-based GIS, the geographic information system designed to store and manipulate GPS data. An in­telligent video analysis platform has been established to manage video resources and meet a variety of service needs, including real-time surveillance, video browsing, data shar­ing and evidence collection. 278 C.(2021). The Failed Promise of Kenya’s Smart City. Rest of World, 1 June. https://restofworld.org/2021/the-failed-promise-of­kenyas-smart-city/ 279(2021) . Huawei Sustainability: Kenya. https://web.archive.org/ web/20211026003619/https://www.huawei.com/us/sustainability/ win-win-development/social-contribution/seeds-for-the-future/kenya 280 O.(2020). Huawei Deepens Africa Push With Partnerships. China Daily. Hong Kong, 6 November. https://www.chinadailyhk.com/ article/148576#Huawei-deepens-Africa-push-with-partnerships 281(2017) . Safe City Extra, The Road to Collaborative Pub­lic Safety. ICT Insights, 52–53. https://web.archive.org/ web/20170716020451/https://e-file.huawei.com/-/media/EBG/ Download_Files/Publications/en/Safe%20City%20Extra.pdf 282(n. d.) . Safe Cities: Using Smart Tech for Public Security. BBC. A Better Connected World. https://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/ specials/connected-world/government.html; Huawei Awarded for Kenyan Smart City(2016). Hi-Tech Security Solutions, June. http:// www.securitysa.com/54735n Huawei on the Kenya Safe City project As part of this project, Huawei deployed 1,800 HD cam­eras and 200 HD traffic surveillance systems across the country’s capital city, Nairobi. A national police com­mand centre supporting over 9,000 police officers and 195 police stations was established to achieve monitor­ing and case-solving. The system worked during Pope Francis’ visit to Kenya in 2015, where more than eight million people welcomed his arrival. With Huawei’s HD video surveillance and a visualised integrated command solution, the efficiency of policing efforts, as well as de­tention rates, rose significantly .283 Huawei argues that the new system has enhanced police collaboration, coordination, decision-making, and response times. It claims that its deployment led to a 46 per cent drop in the crime rate between 2014 and 2015. 284 However, to what extent Huawei’s surveillance technologies really con­tributed to crime reduction is disputed. A report by Kenya’s National Police Serves reported a smaller decrease in crime rates in 2015 in Nairobi and a slight increase in Mombasa; moreover, in 2017, Nairobi saw an increase in reported crimes to higher than pre-installation levels. 285 The Safe City project also turned out to have a downside for China’s rep­utation in Kenya, after Chinese nationals were reportedly caught on camera behaving negatively towards African workers on the Kenyan railway. 286 Huawei is also involved in the construction of the Konza Technopolis. Located 60 kilometres southwest of Nairobi, Konza was planned as Kenya’s first smart city in 2008 and is a key project of Kenya’s Vision 2030 initiative. 287 Though planned to open in 2020, the construction was significantly delayed; by 2018, the city consisted of only one unfinished eight-story building. 288 In a step likely to advance the pro­ject, Kenya signed an agreement with Huawei in 2019 to build a data centre, smart city, and surveillance for Konza worth USD 172.9 million. 289 It includes a National Cloud Da­ta Centre, Smart ICT Network, Public Safe City, Smart Traf­fic Solution, and Government Cloud and Enterprise Services, all financed by China Exim Bank concessional loans tied to the purchase of Huawei equipment. 290 283 S.(2020) Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Se­curity Review Commission Hearing on China’s Strategic Aims in Africa, 8 May. https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Feldstein_Testimony.pdf 284(2016) . Huawei Unveils Safe City Solution Experience Center at 2016 Mobile World Congress. Huawei, 23 February. https://www. huawei.com/us/news/2016/2/unveils-safe-city-solution-experien­ce-center 285 & McCalpin(2019). Watching Huawei’s“Safe Cities”. 286 Interview with FES Kenya representative. 287 Baraka(2021). The Failed Promise of Kenya’s Smart City. 288 oss, S.(2019). Huawei to Build Konza Data Center and Smart City in Kenya, with Chinese Concessional Loan. DCD, 30 April. https://www. datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/huawei-build-konza-data-center­and-smart-city-kenya-chinese-concessional-loan/ 289 Ibid. 290 Ibid. 51