- People who have ignored communication, especially those targeting mass audiences, whether in public or private, are seeing their brands diminishing as they struggle to find ways of sharing their impact with citizens and communities.
- While it has been easy and easily manageable for the private sector to adopt and streamline their communication and massaging, for again they target niche audiences, it’s not been as smooth as required in the public sector.
Image: HANDOUT
The communication landscape in Kenya just like in the rest of the world has tremendously changed, demanding players in both the public and private sectors to quickly adopt.
People who have ignored communication, especially those targeting mass audiences, whether in public or private, are seeing their brands diminishing as they struggle to find ways of sharing their impact with citizens and communities.
The changed communication landscape requires prioritization of strategic communication, investment in both human and media spending resources adept at quickly helping clients including the government maintain touch and communicate what they doing to get the critical mass required to support national development.
While it has been easy and easily manageable for the private sector to adopt and streamline their communication and massaging, for again they target niche audiences, it’s not been as smooth as required in the public sector.
With a huge staff across the public sector and stressful budgets, the communication vote in the public sector has drastically reduced, and streaming government communications that required training of cabinet and principal secretaries, public communication officers, purchase of critical infrastructure, and a working formula on formally engaging with citizens and the media delayed.
I am sure lessons have been learnt and attention is being given to structured and very targeted engagement with the media, both traditional and new media.
Away from the normal and historical tensions between the media and government, which is global, inclusivity in managing the affairs of the nation requires engagements between all sectors of the country without choosing who to like or dislike.
In public service, you don’t choose who to work with, you find many times, national interest overriding personal interests. Differing on principles and professionalism is very healthy.
While the larger perception within the government is that the media isn’t an important player in the process of the realization of public sector investments, it’s important that a serious communication and massaging strategy engage the media and update the public on the progress.
Public support is very critical; professional engagement and prior information disclosure are very important; especially for the presidency-presidential spokesperson, government spokesperson, massaging team and presidential delivery team.
The achievement of these legacy projects will not benefit from unnecessary and unwanted distractions.
The provision of clear, timely and continuous information flow with the public is a critical aspect of governance anchored in the Constitution and the media is critical.
The plans to activate a functional press centre and streaming government communication to be hosted at and coordinated by the Ministry of Information, Communication and Digital Economy expected host journalists all the time and public officers including Cabinet Secretaries and their Principal Secretaries to brief Kenyans on government interventions sounds very good.
That we will have the national communication secretariat and strategy guiding government engagement with the citizens through the media holistically is surely going to change the national conversation and enhance inclusivity in national issues.
The government's voice especially on what it’s doing has been lost and many times even those working for the government have responded to issues touching on the Government through the political parties/affiliation prism.
While the government re-organises message delivery, the media has also a responsibility to re-organise the way to seek information from the Government, and professionally share it with the public.
The watchdog role must be done with responsibility and with the public interest at heart.
Media should find an innovative way to engage and keep track of the implementation of the legacy projects/presidential commitment, by, seeking factual information from respective government offices, using the right to information legal provisions, applying data mining and analysis tools to keep track of progress, releasing periodic in-depth analysis on government performance, and publicly name specific individuals frustrating their work.
Kenyans need in-depth public interest content that helps them track progress on government implementation, expose wrong and track performance on the four issues the president outlined in his speech.
In this era of the Constitutional requirements of Articles 33, 34 and 35, information sharing, and for this matter credible and information released on time is central to managers including those in Government.
The government is a signatory to the Open Government Partnership and has many times indicated its commitment to open governance and adhering to the Constitution.
Times are changing and the changed environment calls for new ways of doing business. It’s laudable that the government has realised this and is working on the official communication strategy.
We encourage dialogues and engagements on national issues devoid of the sector we work for as we hold the government to account, demand of ourselves to remain professional and make contributions to the growth of our country.