Varsities missing from change talk

In November 2007, then-President Mwai Kibaki convened a meeting of Kenya diplomats in Mombasa and one of his most memorable statements to them was: “Get it out of your heads, Kenya is no longer a Third World country.

Your attitudes and approaches out there should not be of one from just another Third World country.”

Mr Kibaki meant that change was not just political sloganeering but a real aspiration and resolve towards rapid modernisation in socioeconomic and political realms to improve the fortunes and lives of the people, and that change began from mind, attitude, mindset and language.

A groundbreaking survey later reported that policies pursued in the previous 10 years (2006-2016) had resulted in pulling more than 10 million Kenyans out of poverty, whose prevalence dropped from 46 per cent in 2006 to 36 per cent in 2016.

The first ever national welfare status report based on the Kenya Integrated Household Survey, done by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and international experts, says over 10 million Kenyans escaped poverty then.

However, this rare feat and most enviable success story in Sub-Saharan Africa is hardly subject of national conversation in media spaces.

Experts, including development partners like the World Bank, say the rate of poverty reduction and impact in employment creation would have been much higher had policymakers focused on revamping mega capital project completion rate from 15-20 to 25-30 per cent.

Kenya has changed in leaps and bounds but one can hardly tell this from a casual gleaning of media reports.

Only authentic scholarship can exorcise a pervasive negative mindset afflicting many in a generation raised on a media culture and content that is heavy on sensationalist adrenalin and devoid of informed analysis and perspectives.

Evidence of positive change in the past two decades is hard to miss, hide or deny. This is captured in consistently expanding GDP growth figures, increasing foreign direct investment (FDI), expanding public investment in social development sectors, among others.

The room and opportunity for improvement is unlimited.

International development partners have hailed Kenya for the most rapid deepening of connectivity in infrastructural development in the region, opening up the country for further exploitation of enormous untapped potential.

The heavy investment in the development of signature railway and harbours, energy and modernisation of roads network attest to this.

The Financial Times of London reported last December that 2019 alone was a “blockbuster” season for FDI inflows into Kenya that topped $3 billion (Sh300 billion) in one year.

It reported data from FDI Markets that indicating that 54 new projects worth Sh290 billion ($2.9 billion) had flowed in by 2019.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2018 hailed Kenya as being poised to assume top leadership in human capital development in Africa in a decade when current investments in education start bearing fruit at the workplace.

However, the national discourse is dominated by sceptical doom and gloom narratives most based on distorted and false premise. An example is a sensational narrative by local media and political partisans about the country wallowing in a “debt crisis”.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. This will be shortly be debunked when The National Treasury and Kenya Roads Board float a Sh150 billion ($1.5 billion) infrastructure bond in June. I foresee the bond being snapped up like hot cake, just like Eurobond I and II.

One oft-repeated falsehoods is “unsustainable indebtedness”, based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.

However, the investors who write big cheques to invest in Kenyan sovereign bond instruments and their financial advisers do not base their evaluation of borrowing ability on GDP but export earnings.

The global threshold is 25 per cent of export earnings and diversity of the exports mix. A diversified one, like Kenya’s, is a major factor in hedging against overdependence on a dominant revenue stream.

Kenya’s debt is at 13-15 per cent of export earnings, boasting a lot of legroom for more healthy borrowing for infrastructure development.

Universities are missing in action in defining Kenya’s transformation conversation. There is a need for the institutions of higher learning to bring their credibility and intellectual resources to bear in helping to glean the wheat from the chaff in the vital conversations in the media.