Kenya and China governments have opened discussions on enhancing bilateral partnerships to boost cooperation in the media sector.
State Department for Broadcasting and Telecommunications Principal Secretary (PS), Prof. Edward Kisiang’ani, said Wednesday that the collaboration will be geared towards economic empowerment, as well as information and knowledge sharing.
The Kenyan government’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation (BETA) agenda focuses on five core pillars: Agricultural Transformation, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Economy, Housing and Settlement, Healthcare, and Digital Superhighway and Creative Economy.
Speaking Wednesday when he hosted the Deputy Chief of Mission of China to Kenya, Zhang Zhizhong, together with Kenya Broadcasting Cooperation CEO Agnes Kalekye, accompanied by Director of Information Joseph Kipkoech, Prof. Kisiang’ani said it was time that the media graduated from reportage of the obvious and write stories that would assist in the economic and social transformation of the two states.
“China and Kenya both have a lot to share, be it on matters of cultural diversity in their respective countries but also in terms of access to modern technologies in the media industry, such as Artificial Intelligence,” he said.
The platform for the exchange of ideas, the PS said, is critical through the media collaboration of sharing information that can go on radio and also the internet.
The PS noted that China’s investments in Kenya are enormous, and in the media space, the Ministry of Information, together with Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC), can benefit through training, capacity building and an upgrade of infrastructure.
He gave an example of the national broadcaster that needs upgrading of its facilities, saying, “If you have an inferior technological setup, news will not be of good quality, and thus support should not just be about human resource development, which has been happening between the two countries, but also about collaborating in terms of getting the right equipment in an environment of fast-changing technology.”
“The biggest challenge is the equipment range from cameras: how to deal with artificial intelligence applications to process news and get information that is authentic and information that can be verified very quickly within the shortest time possible,” the PS said.
Prof. Kisiangani said that the Directorate of Information has people who need capacity building, considering it was set up on an analogue philosophy of writing articles by hand, but now there is a generation that is developing and would be more interested in working on digital platforms, adding that the partnership will focus on training, equipment and tools.
Minister Counsellor Zhang Zhizhong said that the cooperation in the media sector is extremely important because it is the best way and maybe one of the most important ways for the peoples of the two countries to get to know each other.
“Kenya is one of the emerging economic powers in Africa. That means we have a huge potential for future collaborations, and I feel that it’s very important for our media sectors to establish direct links and to have further cooperation to let the two people know better about each other,” he added.
Zhizhong noted that through the produced news and documentary segments, journalists in KBC and Xinhua correspondents in Beijing will have joint reports on shared priorities like climate change and even cultural diplomacy.
KBC CEO Agnes Kalekye said that there have been several proposals already with Xinhua and China Media Group on technology transfer and acknowledged that Xinhua is already training KBC on Artificial Intelligence and capacity building.
“We are looking at equipment; when you look at our equipment, it’s quite obsolete. They have promised we are going to work together, especially in getting us to the 5G broadcasting,” she added, noting that this is the time to leapfrog into the digital age and that China is an opportunity to prove that partnerships can be equitable.
China and Kenya’s diplomatic relations were established in 1963, suspended ties temporarily in 1967, but ultimately re-established diplomatic relations in 1978.
By Wangari Ndirangu