Jane Marriott, the UK High Commissioner to Kenya, recalled being criticised after hosting content creators, influencers, and entertainers on Wednesday, March 1, to discuss Kenya's food security.
Marriott, on Saturday, March 4, in an interview with Spice FM, indicated that a section of Kenyans insinuated that she was misinformed in inviting entertainers to discuss measures for tackling Kenya's acute food shortage.
She thus clarified that she settled on content creators and influencers to help the UK amplify messages aimed at averting the crisis.
The UK and other stakeholders, Marriott argued, wanted to tap into their huge following to send different messages.
"But Twitter which I think is a different demographic, people absolutely hated it. I got all of these tweets about why I met entertainers to talk about farmers?" Marriott recalled.
"It is part of doing things differently, so we saw, let's get some social influencers. We talked about how you bring together the influencing piece with the content," she added.
Further defending their engagement, the UK ambassador stated that influencers and content creators briefed the UK Commission on new ways of engaging different stakeholders and using their platforms to set food security agenda.
"I think they fundamentally misunderstood my guests. People are interested in what they say on a whole range of topics ... I was nervous but they came up with great ideas," she stated.
Artists who attended the meeting included Azziad Nasenya, musician Kennedy Ombima (King Kaka), Delvin Mudigi (Savara), comedian Timothy Kimani (Njugush), and Tiktoker Salim Gori (Dance General), among others.
Following the meeting, Marriott indicated that the UK was keen to use the artists' ideas to meet the needs of the 3.5 million people facing high levels of food insecurity.
The drought situation in the country has been attributed to failed rains that have exposed a lot of Kenyan families to food insecurity.
However, President William Ruto announced plans to provide subsidised fertilisers and import maize to alleviate their suffering.
