Kenya’s digital diplomacy amid COVID-19: New tools in an old toolbox?

ABSTRACT

Digital diplomacy has become indispensable amid COVID-19-imposed travel restrictions, social distancing and stay at home guidelines, causing many African countries to increasingly utilise social media platforms for the conduct of diplomacy. This study examines how the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) practises digital diplomacy, and specifically ‘social media diplomacy’. It analyses the MFA’s posts on Twitter and Facebook in terms of content, in addition to a network analysis of connections. The study aimed to determine the government’s tactics and strategies, and to consider its challenges. Findings indicate that the number of social media connections have not changed significantly relative to the pre-COVID-19 period, suggesting that while the MFA is equipped to deploy social media diplomacy to conduct public diplomacy, its tactics and strategies are not optimal. This article proposes alternative tactics and strategies, such as networking and coalition-building with other actors, to achieve the country’s overall foreign policy objectives.

KEYWORDS:

• Africa
• Kenya
• digital diplomacy
• COVID-19
• Twitter
• Facebook
• content analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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17 Bjola and Holmes, Digital Diplomacy, 71.

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21 Philip Seib, Real-Time Diplomacy: Politics and Power in the Social Media Era, 1st ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2012).

22 Amy Zegart, ‘Spies Like Us: The Promise and Peril of Crowd sourced Intelligence,’Foreign Affairs, July/August 2021, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2021-06-22/spies-us?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fatoday&utm_campaign=Spies%20Like%20Us&utm_content=20210705&utm_term=FA%20Today%20-%20112017.

23 Hocking and Melissen, ‘Diplomacy in the Digital Age,’ 41–2.

24 Hocking and Melissen, ‘Diplomacy in the Digital Age.’

25 Bjola and Holmes, Digital Diplomacy.

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30 Zaharna, Arsenault, and Fisher, Relational, Networked, and Collaborative Approaches to Public Diplomacy.

31 Zaharna, Arsenault, and Fisher, Relational, Networked, and Collaborative Approaches to Public Diplomacy; Fisher, Collaborative Public Diplomacy, 212.

32 Hocking, ‘Reconfiguring Public Diplomacy,’ 62–75.

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35 Zaharna, ‘Network Purpose, Network Design.’

36 Zaharna, ‘Network Purpose, Network Design.’

37 Zaharna, ‘Network Purpose, Network Design.’

38 Wekesa, ‘COVID-19 Heralds the Era of Digital Diplomacy in Africa’; Ayodele, ‘Lessons Learned in the Fire’; Kampf, Manor, and Segev, ‘Digital Diplomacy 2.0?’; Adesina, ‘The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM).’

39 Wekesa, ‘COVID-19 Heralds the Era of Digital Diplomacy in Africa.’

40 Manor, ‘Digital Diplomacy in Africa.’

41 Kampf, Manor, and Segev, ‘Digital Diplomacy 2.0.’

42 Manor, ‘Digital Diplomacy in Africa.’

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47 On July 6, 2020, the MFA tweeted that as of July 4, 2020, 3 199 Kenyans had been facilitated to come home with the latest arriving from Bahrain, Kuwait, South Africa, Burundi and Somalia. The same tweet reported that a total of 10 153 foreigners had been evacuated from the country. Foreign Affairs Kenya Twitter post, July 6, 2020, 12:40 pm, https://twitter.com/ForeignOfficeKE/status/1280074250360164352.

48 Cabinet Office, Office of the President, ‘E-Government Strategy: The Strategic Framework, Administrative Structure, Training Requirements and Standardization Framework,’ The Government of Kenya (2004) 1.

49 Christopher Ipu, ‘E-diplomacy in East Africa: Case Study of Kenya,’ Master’s degree thesis, Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies, University of Nairobi(2013).

50 VSAT refers to ‘very small aperture terminal’, which is a small-sized earth station used to transmit/receive data, voice and video signals over a satellite communication network.

51 I Wambura Waithaka, ‘Digital Diplomacy: The Integration of Information Communication Technologies in Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1963–2014,’ Master’s degree thesis, Department of Diplomacy and International Relations, Kenyatta University(2018).

52 Waithaka, ‘Digital Diplomacy,’ 82.

53 Waithaka, ‘Digital Diplomacy.’

54 C Bjola and I Manor, ‘From Digital Tactics to Digital Strategies: Practicing Digital Pd,’ CPD Blog, 2018, https://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/digital-tactics-digital-strategies-practicing-digital-pd.

55 B Ngugi, ‘Kenyans Stranded Abroad Put Foreign Officials on the Spot,’ Business Daily, April 21, 2020, https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/opinion-analysis/ideas-debate/kenyans-stranded-abroad-put-foreign-officials-on-the-spot-2287512.

56 Bjola and Manor, ‘From Digital Tactics to Digital Strategies.’

57 Zaharna, Arsenault, and Fisher, Relational, Networked, and Collaborative Approaches to Public Diplomacy.

58 Ushahidi is a Swahili word that means ‘to witness’. The Ushahidi platform was effectively used in Kenya during the post-election fall out of 2008 as a crowd-sourcing information platform where individuals shared information via mobile phones that was used to map hotspots by others as well as the authorities to respond appropriately. Frontline SMS is currently in use in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe to aggregate opinions and coordinate action through text messages with other groups of people. See Zaharna, Arsenault, and Fisher, Relational, Networked, and Collaborative Approaches to Public Diplomacy, 209–26.

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Cliff Mboya

Cliff Mboya gained his PhD from the School of International relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA), Fudan University in Shanghai, China. He holds an MA in Development Communication from the University of Nairobi and a BA in International Relations from the United States International University-Africa. He has experience in diplomacy and international relations, combined with journalism.