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UNGA was a great opportunity for ‘Nation’ to bring the world to Africa
President William Ruto addresses the US-Kenya Business and Investment Roundtable meeting, bringing together CEOs of leading American multinationals on the sidelines of Unga 80 in New York, in USA.
The Public Editor’s interest this week was piqued by an article titled, “From marble halls to mobile screens: UN meeting now a digital stage,” written by Chinese news agency Xinhua.
It received the prominence of a page lead in the Daily Nation of October 1.
The piece, one of a handful published on the Nation platforms about the United Nations General Assembly held in New York last week, described how the global meeting had become a digital feed, with speeches “livestreamed in six official languages, clipped within seconds, subtitled by AI and propelled worldwide through algorithms and hashtags”.
It goes on to say that not only heads of state but also ordinary citizens around the world seized the moment to engage in conversations on multilateralism.
The news agency was right. While some commentators have dismissed the UN as a body on its deathbed, the discussions at UNGA were still important enough to warrant the participation of multitudes, and to interest millions.
From Kenya, just about everyone who is anyone in the leadership and development sector made the 15-hour (direct flight) journey to New York last week.
There was the official government delegation led by the President that included Cabinet Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, and scores of government officials, and the Parliamentary delegation, all funded by the taxpayer.
Then there were several representatives of non-governmental organisations.
However, this level of attendance did not receive reciprocal media coverage. Other than the President’s address and the bilateral talks he held with fellow heads of state and senior government officials, little else was reported about the global meeting.
President William Ruto addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the UN headquarters in New York on September 24, 2025.
A social media comment that the Kenyan leaders attending the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had gone in search of ‘unga’ provides some food for thought. ‘Unga’ in Kenya is synonymous with survival.
The simplest way to tell Kenyans about the state of the country’s economy is by quoting the price of a two-kilogramme packet of ‘unga’ or a tin of maize.
So, the comment about UNGA and bringing ‘unga’ could be valid. What difference did, or will, the conversations at the annual assembly of the United Nations make?
The speeches and rhetoric aside, did Kenya gain anything from this annual jamboree? What did the various delegations to UNGA do in the one week they were in New York? What did they say on our behalf? What did they bring back? How do we, as Kenyans, get them to account for the time and money spent on this long and costly outing? Did Kenya gain anything, or were all these people out to tour, take selfies and shop? Unfortunately, Kenyans may never get these answers because our trusted news outlets did not find the issues important and relevant enough to warrant coverage.
Additionally, the Nation missed a great opportunity to fulfil its ambition of bringing the world to Africa. Here was a global story crying to be made relevant to Africans.
A few comprehensive and analytical articles about the big-ticket issues discussed at the UNGA, the African nations’ common positions, if any, and what all these mean to Africans, would have gone a long way to contextualise the meeting for the Nation’s audience across the continent.
This would have been possible even without a physical presence in New York because, as the Xinhua article states, all the information the media needed was available in real time.
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