Foreign relations key to development of Kenyan sport

Seattle Senatla of South Africa and Dennis Ombachi of Kenya (right) shake hands after their game on day one of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in Dubai on December 1, 2017. PHOTO | MIKE LEE |

What you need to know:

  • In these exchanges, for instance, Kenya can also offer training and mentorship in our forte of distance running to nations deficient of such prowess.
  • We could also gain from nations such as Bahrain and Qatar who spirit away talented athletes from the Rift Valley to run under their flags.
  • Or indeed France who have enlisted quite a number of Kenyan athletes in their foreign legion.

Last weekend, President Uhuru Kenyatta completed a busy, three-day official visit to South Africa where he held talks with senior Pretoria officials including President Jacob Zuma and his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa besides celebrating the Africa National Congress’ 106th anniversary with the duo in East London.

The visit further cemented the already strong relations between Kenya and South Africa.

With developing countries facing serious socio-economic challenges, reaching out to well-heeled nations is imperative in mitigating against the cash crunch.

Kenya has benefitted heavily from its sober relations with nations such as the United States of America, Germany, United Kingdom, South Africa, France and Japan, inter alia, with such tours as the president’s last weekend to Mzansi crucial in the development agenda.

I would hasten to add that as State House continues to engage friendly nations on the development agenda, sport needs to feature prominently in these exchanges.

I’m not privy to the president’s roster down south, but I can hazard a guess that sport was nowhere near the agenda in Durban and East London. Rather, the Kenya-South Africa talks titled heavily towards infrastructure development, trade and security, besides Jubilee-ANC party affairs.

While there’s no gainsaying the fact that such focus is crucial to President Kenyatta’s “big four” action plan targeting food security, affordable housing, manufacturing and affordable healthcare for all, we also need to cash in on such bilaterals to seek additional avenues that would fund Kenya’s sports development.

Especially given the paltry allocation sport gets from the exchequer each financial year.

For instance, with Tokyo hosting the Olympic Games in 2020, exchanges between Kenya and Japan could help yield sports scholarships and training opportunities for our athletes in the build-up to these important Games.

It was somewhat reassuring to see slight focus on such partnerships in the joint statement issued by President Kenyatta and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when the latter visited Kenya for the 2016 TICAD (Tokyo International Conference on African Development) summit.

While Abe announced that Japan would extend its grand aid to Kenya for economic and social development to one billion yen (almost Sh1 billion), the two heads of state offered to further promote vocational training and exchanges such as Tokyo’s “Sport for Tomorrow” programme.

Meanwhile, recently, Paris won the rights to host the 2024 Olympic Games, taking the flag from Tokyo. This means we also need to start engaging the French government now on how Kenyan youths can achieve their Olympic dream with help from Paris, especially through technical and financial support to develop our young athletes who will compete for gold in 2024, and also in the development of sports infrastructure.

Such engagement should feature prominently on the diaries of President Kenyatta, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and their advisors.

The National Sports Fund, in its infancy, is unable to meet all financial requests from federations.

Thus, close co-ordination between the Sports and Foreign Affairs ministries can yield considerable support for our country’s sports programmes from friendly nations.

As President Kenyatta weaves together his new Cabinet for the legacy term, he and his team also need to take a critical look at the role the Foreign Affairs ministry and our diplomatic missions can play in enhancing global sporting links, because these are crucial in the future progress of our sporting stars.

It’s been reassuring seeing Kenya’s High Commissioner to Australia, Isaiya Kabira, take personal interest in preparations for April’s Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast by making regular trips from his base in Canberra to the games’ venue to make sure Kenyan interests will be well taken care of.

Learning from Kabira’s enthusiasm, perhaps its time the government considered giving more teeth to the positions of sports and cultural attaches in our missions abroad, or creating such posts where they don’t exist, because these officials can help forge better sporting relations.

“In short, sports exchange programmes need to be more prominent, and the sports agenda must be driven higher up the national discourse.”

In these exchanges, for instance, Kenya can also offer training and mentorship in our forte of distance running to nations deficient of such prowess.

We could also gain from nations such as Bahrain and Qatar who spirit away talented athletes from the Rift Valley to run under their flags. Or indeed France who have enlisted quite a number of Kenyan athletes in their foreign legion.

These nations could reciprocate by building stadiums in our counties, financing the construction of distance running training camps in high altitude regions of Kenya and also training our coaches and sports managers. These are win-win partnerships!