How The Media Can Amplify Sustainable Development In Kenya

When 17-year-old high school student Darnella Fraizer filmed the last moments of George Floyd’s life under the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin, she could not have imagined that her footage would reignite the explosive global question of racial inequality and the subsequent clamour for reforms in policing.

This act of filming validates the force of the media globally, we need a similar drive for urgent action in Kenya. We need the country’s media to help ensure the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are achieved and the life of every African afforded the opportunity they deserve.

Around the world, success in achieving the SDGs will ease global anxieties, provide a better life for women and men and build a firm foundation for stability and peace in all societies, everywhere. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, a wave of demonstrations was sweeping across countries. This was a clear sign that, for all our progress, something in our globalized society is broken.

The COVID-19 pandemic has struck the world like a bolt of lightning exposing the contours of deep inequalities. Media reports have helped reveal the interwoven threads of inequality and health, with poorer people suffering a strikingly disproportionate share of the fallout from the virus, either through infection or loss of livelihoods.

Media can do the same for the SDGs. Achieving the SDGs, and so improving the lives of millions of Kenyas, depends heavily on increasing public awareness, and on the focused action and funding that such awareness ignites.

We must look to the media to push the SDG discourse; what is reported and how it is reported helps shape policy and has implications for the millions of people whose lives are affected. Knowledge is power and if citizens are aware of the issues, they are empowered to help determine the national response. Development experts have failed to explain the relatively new concept of sustainable development to influencers such as educators, politicians, and the media.

Doing so is key, so that easily understood narratives are developed to raise public support. We are already a third of the way towards the 2030 Agenda deadline. But at the current pace of change, notwithstanding the global pandemic, Kenya is likely to miss out on the time-bound targets in key sectors – including health, education, employment, energy, infrastructure, and the environment.

Development is never far from the media agenda in Kenya, so the opportunity to build understanding of sustainability is there. Business as usual in development is no longer viable in the face of increasing populations and climate change.

What is reported, how it is reported, and on what channels helps in shaping policy and has implications for the millions of people whose lives are affected. To this end, the media must be brought into the conversation and be made to understand the role they can play towards the greater good.

The SDGs pledge that “no one will be left behind” and to “endeavour to reach the furthest behind first.” In practice, this means taking explicit action to end extreme poverty, curb inequalities, confront discrimination and fast-track progress for the furthest behind.

The media can shine a spotlight on those left behind, for example by using COVID-19 to examine the wider issue of universal health coverage, the subject of Big 4 agenda and SDG 3. It also plays a critical role in holding governments to account for their Agenda 2030 commitments.

Though these commitments demand that Kenya has a clear reporting and accountability mechanisms, most nations still have no reliable data on their progress towards specific goals. Rapid mobile penetration in Kenya offers unparalleled opportunities for content sharing on digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Kenyas’ problems are the world’s problems and solving them is the world’s responsibility. If Kenya fails to achieve Agenda 2030, the implications will be felt across the country through conflict, migration, population growth and climate catastrophe.

The media in Kenya is a stakeholder in the achievements of the SDGs. Let us support the media and enlist their help in the quest for economic, environmental, and social justice across the world.

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