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Yes—but digitizing a service does not automatically make people trust the government behind it. Platforms can improve perceived competence when they are reliable, transparent and easy to use. They can also shift credit to a private contractor, obscure who is accountable, or exclude people who lack connectivity. A 2026 Kenya experiment shows both effects clearly: information about a county portal raised trust in government overall, while attributing the portal only to a telecom company increased intended use but reduced subsequent trust in government.
What the Kenya evidence actually found
My County Hub and its three attribution messages
My County Hub is an online service developed by Kenya’s 47 county governments with telecommunications company Safaricom. It is intended to let residents request emergency services, pay business-permit and parking fees, and obtain government information.
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MIT Governance Lab and Busara presented more than 11,000 online survey participants with different descriptions of who was responsible for the portal: the county government alone, Safaricom alone, or a public-private partnership. The results were reported by MIT News on 15 October 2026.
Use intentions and institutional trust moved in different directions
Learning about My County Hub increased trust in government overall. However, participants told that Safaricom alone was responsible reported greater willingness to use the portal and more interest in learning about it than people given a government-only message. They nevertheless expressed lower subsequent trust in government than the government-only group.
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Trust did not simply transfer from Safaricom to the government when the partnership was mentioned. Attribution also depended on starting attitudes. Partnership messaging increased trust among people who initially trusted both government and Safaricom. The decline associated with Safaricom-only attribution was driven by people who trusted Safaricom but distrusted government. A 2023 survey cited by MIT News found that 43% of people trusted the Kenyan government, illustrating why the starting point matters.
These were stated intentions and survey responses, not proof of long-term usage or a universal rule for every country. The experiment involved Nairobi-area respondents and cannot establish that every public-private platform will produce the same pattern.
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Why branding changes who receives credit
People infer competence and responsibility from the name, logo and explanation attached to a service. A prominent private brand can signal technical reliability and make adoption feel safer. At the same time, residents may conclude that the government could not deliver the service itself, or that the company—not an elected authority—controls decisions about their data and complaints.
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That creates two separate outcomes to manage:
- Service confidence: whether a person expects the site or app to work and is willing to try it.
- Institutional trust: whether a person believes government is capable, fair and answerable for the result.
A platform can score well on the first while weakening the second if responsibility is ambiguous. Clear explanations of which agency owns policy, which partner supplies technology, who handles personal data and where an unsuccessful user can appeal are therefore part of the service—not optional public-relations copy.
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Choosing an attribution model
| Model | Accountability signal | Likely adoption trade-off | Trust risk to manage | Design requirement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government-only | The public authority is visibly responsible for the service and outcomes. | May build institutional confidence when performance is good, but users may expect slower or less polished technology. | Failures are attributed directly to government. | Publish service standards, ownership and complaint routes. |
| Co-branded public-private | Both parties are named, with roles explained. | Can combine public legitimacy with private-sector usability. | Users may not know who controls data or resolves disputes. | Use a plain-language responsibility map and a government-led appeals process. |
| Private-led attribution | The contractor appears to be the primary provider. | May raise willingness to try the service, as in the Safaricom-only Kenya message. | Credit for delivery can move away from government, potentially lowering perceived government competence. | Keep the public authority prominent and explain its legal and operational responsibility. |
How to design a platform people can trust
Make responsibility visible
Place the responsible ministry, county or municipality on the landing page, receipts and notifications. State what the private partner does and does not control. Give users one named public office for complaints, refunds, corrections and escalation, even when several vendors operate the technology.
Protect privacy and security by default
- Collect only information needed for the requested service and explain each use before submission.
- Set retention and deletion periods, restrict internal access and document data-sharing agreements.
- Provide a breach-notification process, independent oversight and a way to challenge an automated decision.
- Apply human-rights safeguards to identity, location, payment and emergency-service data.
Design for people who are not fully online
Offer accessible interfaces, low-bandwidth pages, local-language guidance and assisted channels at public offices or through trusted intermediaries. Keep telephone, in-person and paper alternatives for residents without a compatible device, reliable connectivity, digital literacy or acceptable identification documents. Accessibility testing should include people with disabilities and users of older phones.
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Explain decisions and invite participation
Publish eligibility rules, fees, processing times, outages and changes in policy. Let users see the status of a request, download a receipt and provide feedback without fear that a complaint will affect future service. Civil-society groups should be involved before launch and during audits, not only after a failure.
Build on shared infrastructure
The OECD/CAF Digital Government Review of Latin America and the Caribbean (2023) recommends digital public infrastructure such as interoperable digital identity, trustworthy data governance, stronger privacy and security protections, user-centred service design, skills development and strategic procurement. Interoperability should reduce repeated form-filling without creating a single uncontrolled database of residents.
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A practical implementation sequence
- Set the public owner. Name the agency legally responsible for policy, data, service levels and redress before selecting a technology partner.
- Map the user journey. Test the complete path from identity or guest access through payment, confirmation, correction and appeal with representative users.
- Write the responsibility notice. On every major screen, distinguish the government decision-maker, the platform operator and any payment or communications provider.
- Complete privacy and security reviews. Document data flows, retention, access controls, threat responses and independent oversight before handling real records.
- Provide inclusive alternatives. Budget for assisted digital service, offline routes, accessibility fixes, language support and help when a person loses a device or credential.
- Publish performance information. Report availability, processing times, unresolved cases, complaints, appeals and material incidents in a format residents can understand.
- Measure trust separately from usage. Track repeat surveys of confidence in government alongside completion rates, repeat use, complaint resolution and other service metrics. A rise in log-ins is not evidence that institutional trust improved.
- Review attribution after launch. If users praise the contractor but cannot identify the accountable authority, change the interface and public explanation rather than assuming the branding is working.
What governments should measure over time
The OECD/CAF review found that, by its 2023 publication, 88% of Latin American and Caribbean countries had a central or federal digital-government organization, 59% had digital-government coordination bodies and 94% had national digital-government strategies. It argues that trust must be an explicit objective rather than an assumed side effect. Its recommendation is: “Make of building trust between citizens and the government a strategic priority of NDGS, including by adopting explicit indicators and strategic objectives related to public trust within national and regional digital government strategies.”
Useful indicators should combine perception and delivery: confidence that government will use data appropriately, confidence that a complaint will receive a fair response, successful completion by different demographic groups, unresolved appeals, repeat usage, accessibility failures and the time required to correct an error. Publishing the measures—and what officials changed in response—makes accountability observable.
The limit of the Kenya lesson
Kenya’s findings identify a mechanism, not a universal formula. The result may differ with the service (an emergency request versus a parking payment), the private partner’s reputation, the visibility of government ownership, the quality of actual delivery and citizens’ previous political attitudes. Governments should therefore test attribution and trust with local users before scaling a platform, then repeat the measurement after launch.
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Digital platforms build government trust when they make the state visibly competent, answerable and protective of residents—not merely when they make an online task convenient. Private partners can improve usability, but the public authority must retain clear ownership, privacy responsibility, inclusive access and measurable accountability. The Kenya experiment shows why adoption statistics alone are an unsafe definition of success.
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