Sources & Attribution
Gombea is an independent information aggregation platform.
We bring together publicly available information from multiple sources and organise it into a format that makes Kenya's political representation easier to discover, understand and explore.
Gombea is not a government service and is not affiliated with, operated by, sponsored by or endorsed by any government institution, political party, politician, candidate or campaign unless a specific relationship is expressly stated.
This page explains where our information comes from, how we use it and how attribution works.
1. Where Our Information Comes From
Information displayed by Gombea may come from a range of publicly accessible sources.
We prioritise authoritative and primary sources wherever they are available.
Sources may include:
Parliament of Kenya
Parliamentary information may be used to identify and describe:
- Members of Parliament
- Senators
- Woman Representatives
- Speakers and Deputy Speakers
- parliamentary constituencies
- committee membership
- parliamentary roles
- education history
- employment and professional history
- parliamentary activity
- official biographies
Where available, information is linked or attributed to the relevant Parliament source.
Electoral Authorities
Electoral information may be sourced from Kenya's electoral authorities and official election publications.
This may include:
- electoral areas
- candidates
- election results
- elected representatives
- political-party affiliation at an election
- by-elections
- voter statistics
- election dates
- constituency and ward information
Election information may represent a particular election rather than the current political affiliation or office status of an individual.
Gombea therefore distinguishes between historical election information and current representation where possible.
Office of the Registrar of Political Parties
Information concerning registered political parties may be sourced from official political-party registration information.
This may include:
- party names
- abbreviations
- registration information
- party symbols
- official party details
Political affiliation can change over time. Gombea therefore aims to record affiliation in the appropriate historical context rather than assuming it is permanent.
County Governments
County government sources may provide information concerning:
- Governors
- Deputy Governors
- county officials
- county administration
- public programmes
- public projects
- county publications
- public notices
Gombea may use information from individual county-government websites and publications.
County Assemblies
County assembly sources may provide information concerning:
- Members of County Assembly
- wards
- assembly leadership
- committees
- assembly proceedings
- official biographies
- public notices
Availability and format may differ considerably between counties.
Kenya Gazette and Official Publications
Official gazettes and government publications may be used to verify important changes including:
- appointments
- resignations
- election notices
- vacancies
- by-elections
- official declarations
- legal or administrative changes
Where different sources conflict, an appropriate official publication may be given greater evidential weight.
Government Agencies and Public Institutions
Other Kenyan public institutions may provide information relevant to particular Gombea features.
These may include official:
- websites
- datasets
- registers
- reports
- publications
- notices
- APIs
- open-data resources
The particular source should be identified where practical.
2. Political Parties
Gombea may obtain information directly from political parties where appropriate.
This could include:
- official party name
- abbreviation
- logo
- leadership
- official website
- candidate information
- public announcements
Information published by a political party represents information from that party and should not automatically be treated as independent verification of a disputed fact.
Where appropriate, Gombea may seek confirmation from an electoral authority or other independent source.
3. News Organisations
Gombea may identify and organise relevant reporting from reputable news organisations.
News information may include:
- headline
- publisher
- publication date
- article URL
- representative or organisation mentioned
- topic
- short summary
Gombea does not aim to reproduce complete news articles.
Users should visit the original publisher to read the full story.
The appearance of an article within Gombea does not mean that Gombea endorses the article, publisher or opinions expressed within it.
Similarly, inclusion on Gombea does not imply that the publisher endorses Gombea.
4. Other Public Sources
Some information may be obtained from other publicly accessible sources where an authoritative primary source is unavailable.
Examples may include:
- recognised research organisations
- public databases
- universities
- civil-society organisations
- election-monitoring organisations
- reputable reference sources
- publicly available professional biographies
- credible media reporting
Where practical, Gombea identifies the source and distinguishes secondary-source information from information obtained directly from an official record.
5. Source Priority
Not every source has the same authority.
Where sources conflict, Gombea generally gives greater weight to sources approximately in the following order:
- Official legal or gazetted record
- Electoral authority or relevant official public body
- Parliament, Senate, county government or county assembly
- Other official institutional source
- Direct political-party or representative source
- Established news organisation
- Other credible public source
- Community report
This is a general framework rather than an absolute rule.
The most appropriate source depends on the information being verified.
For example, Parliament may be the strongest source for current committee membership while an electoral authority may be the stronger source for an election result.
6. Source Information on Gombea
Where practical, individual records may include information such as:
Source
Parliament of Kenya
Last checked
8 August 2026
Status
Verified
A link to the original source may also be provided.
Some records may rely on more than one source.
7. Verification Status
Gombea may use statuses to communicate how confident we are that information remains current.
These may include:
Verified
The information has recently been checked against an appropriate source.
Needs Review
The record has not been verified recently or circumstances suggest that it should be reviewed.
Community Reported
A user has reported a potential issue that has not yet been resolved.
Source Conflict
Reliable sources provide inconsistent information.
Historical
The information describes a previous office, election, affiliation or period rather than the current position.
These statuses are intended to improve transparency rather than imply that information without a particular status is necessarily incorrect.
8. Information Changes
Political information can become outdated quickly.
Changes may occur because of:
- general elections
- by-elections
- resignations
- deaths
- court decisions
- appointments
- removals from office
- changes of political party
- changes in party status
- changes to electoral boundaries
Official websites may themselves sometimes take time to reflect these changes.
Gombea therefore treats data freshness as part of the information itself.
Where practical, we retain the date on which a record was last checked.
9. Community Reports
Gombea may allow users to report information they believe is incorrect or outdated.
Community reports are useful signals but are not treated as authoritative sources by themselves.
A report may trigger a review using:
- official records
- gazettes
- electoral information
- parliamentary sources
- county sources
- recent credible reporting
- other relevant evidence
Information is not automatically changed because a user reports it.
10. Data Normalisation
Different organisations publish information in different formats.
Gombea may therefore normalise information to make it easier to search, compare and display.
Examples include:
- standardising names
- standardising dates
- matching representatives across sources
- connecting wards to constituencies
- connecting constituencies to counties
- normalising political-party names
- categorising qualifications
- categorising professional experience
Where possible, the original source value is preserved alongside Gombea's normalised value.
11. Career and Professional Categories
Public biographies may contain extensive and varied employment histories.
Gombea may organise these histories into broader categories such as:
- Law & Legal Services
- Education
- Business & Entrepreneurship
- Finance & Banking
- Public Administration
- Healthcare
- Agriculture
- Engineering & Technology
- Media & Communications
- NGO / Development
- Trade Unions & Labour
- Security & Defence
- Academia & Research
- Politics
- Other
These categories are Gombea's organisational classifications and may not be descriptions used by the original source or by the individual concerned.
A person may belong to several career categories over their lifetime.
Where possible, users can inspect the underlying career history.
12. Education Categories
Education records may similarly be normalised into categories such as:
- Primary
- Secondary
- Certificate
- Diploma
- Bachelor's
- Postgraduate Diploma
- Master's
- Doctorate
- Professional Qualification
- Other
If reliable education information is unavailable, Gombea should record it as Unknown rather than assuming that a qualification does not exist.
13. Gender, Age and Demographic Information
Gombea may use publicly available biographical information to produce aggregate insights about political representation.
Where a reliable date of birth is available, age may be calculated dynamically rather than permanently stored as a fixed value.
Age ranges may then be used for aggregate analysis.
Where information is unavailable or uncertain, Gombea should use Unknown rather than infer a value without adequate evidence.
Demographic information is intended to describe the composition of political representation and should not be interpreted as an assessment of an individual's suitability for office.
14. Political Party Information
Party affiliation may be displayed as both current and historical information.
For example:
2022 Election — Party A
2025 — Party B
This distinction is important because politicians may change affiliation during their careers.
A party displayed for an election does not necessarily represent a person's current affiliation.
Where possible, Gombea associates party information with a date or period.
15. Maps and Geographic Data
Gombea may use geographic data from:
- official electoral boundary sources
- government open-data sources
- OpenStreetMap
- other openly licensed geographic datasets
Different geographic datasets may have different licences and attribution requirements.
Gombea will provide attribution required by the applicable licence.
Electoral boundaries displayed by Gombea may be simplified for performance and visualisation.
For legally authoritative boundary information, users should consult the relevant official authority.
16. OpenStreetMap
Where Gombea maps use OpenStreetMap data, appropriate attribution will be displayed in accordance with the applicable OpenStreetMap licence requirements.
OpenStreetMap contributors provide geographic map data used by many mapping applications.
Use of OpenStreetMap data does not imply endorsement of Gombea by OpenStreetMap or its contributors.
17. MapLibre
Gombea may use MapLibre and related open-source mapping technologies to display interactive maps.
MapLibre provides mapping software and is separate from the geographic datasets displayed through Gombea.
Use of MapLibre does not imply endorsement of Gombea.
18. Images and Photographs
Representative photographs and other imagery may come from different sources.
These may include:
- official government publications
- Parliament
- county institutions
- political-party sources
- appropriately licensed media
- Wikimedia Commons
- other sources where lawful use is permitted
Image attribution and licensing information will be displayed where required.
Gombea does not assume that an image is free to reuse merely because it is publicly accessible online.
19. Logos, Party Symbols and Trademarks
Names, logos, political-party symbols and other trademarks displayed on Gombea may belong to their respective owners.
They are used where appropriate for identification and informational purposes.
Their appearance does not imply sponsorship, affiliation or endorsement.
20. Automated Processing
Gombea may use software and artificial intelligence to help process public information.
This may include:
- matching names between datasets
- extracting structured information
- identifying representatives in news
- summarising articles
- categorising careers
- categorising education
- identifying topics
- analysing sentiment
- generating statistical descriptions
Automated processing can make mistakes.
Where an automated output materially differs from the original source, the original source remains important for verification.
21. Gombea-Generated Insights
Some information displayed on Gombea is calculated from source data rather than directly published by another organisation.
Examples may include:
- percentage of seats held by a party
- gender composition
- average representative age
- age distribution
- professional-background distribution
- first-term representation
- geographic political composition
These are Gombea-generated statistics derived from underlying source information.
Where practical, the methodology and population being measured should be clear.
For example:
“42% party representation”
should identify whether this means:
- 42% of MCA seats
- 42% of MP seats
- 42% of governors
and should not be presented as 42% voter support unless it actually represents election vote share.
22. Corrections
We welcome corrections.
If you believe information on Gombea is:
- incorrect
- outdated
- attributed to the wrong person
- associated with the wrong party
- linked to the wrong geographic area
- based on an unreliable source
you can use the Report incorrect information feature where available, or contact us about a data correction.
Providing a source supporting the correction can help us review the report.
23. Attribution Does Not Mean Endorsement
Gombea attributes information to help users understand where it came from.
Attribution to an organisation does not mean that organisation:
- endorses Gombea
- sponsors Gombea
- has reviewed Gombea
- agrees with Gombea's presentation
- is affiliated with Gombea
Likewise, Gombea's use of a source does not mean Gombea endorses every statement made by that source.
24. Our Principle
Gombea aims to preserve a simple chain:
- Source
- Original information
- Gombea normalisation
- Gombea presentation
- User interpretation
Whenever possible, users should be able to understand where a fact originated and distinguish original information from a classification, summary or calculation created by Gombea.
Our role is to organise the information — not decide what users should think about it.
25. Contact and Corrections
Questions concerning Gombea's sources, attribution or methodology can be directed to:
Gombea
Email: [email protected]
For incorrect information about a particular representative or electoral area, please use the Report incorrect information feature where available, or send a data correction.
Independent Platform Notice
Gombea is an independent information aggregation platform.
Gombea is not affiliated with, operated by, sponsored by or endorsed by the Government of Kenya, any county government, Parliament, electoral authority, political party, politician, candidate, campaign or other public institution unless a specific relationship is expressly stated.
We aggregate the information. You explore the picture.