Kituyi: Busiest diplomat at UN’s global trade meeting

UNCTAD Secretary General Mukhisa Kituyi (L) is joined by UNCTAD Head of Trade and Poverty Branch Patrick Osakwe addresses a press conference during the UNCTAD Conference at KICC on Thursday 21/07/16. [PHOTO:BONIFACE OKENDO/Standard]

Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, the Secretary General of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was an easy man to spot at the just concluded UNCTAD 14 in Nairobi.

Indeed, if a journalist needed to catch his eye he or she simply had to rush to any of the hundreds of the sessions. Kituyi gave opening remarks to nearly all sessions in the six-day talks.

He was part of the numerous panel discussions. In the afternoon, he was punctual at Shimba Hall for the afternoon Press briefings. After giving his remarks he seldom had time or space to grant an interview. If he was not being grabbed by a certain dignitary, he was in a rush to open another session. He was a busy man. You could tell by his passion that he really wanted, at the end of the talks, the global leaders to seize the opportunity and transition from rhetoric into actions.

Kituyi is a quintessential fusion of academia and policy. Actually, besides being the chief executive of the Kenya Institute of Governance, Kituyi was also a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution Thinktank in Washington before United Nations Secretary General Banki Moon in 2013 nominated him to head UN subsidiary. Both organisations focus on the links between academic and policy research and public policy.

At the conference in Nairobi, his words and ideas never lost their freshness for the umpteenth time that he took to the podium to address the thousands of delegates at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre on some of the salient issues that bedevil the global economy.

If he repeated himself in some sessions, not many people would have noticed. His vast wealth of knowledge and mastery of the English language ensured that everything he said was unique. He hardly had a written speech in some of his speeches as he mesmerised the participants with his oratory skills.

He spoke with ease of how people from all corners of the world had become disillusioned with globalisation; he had an enviable grasp on some of the social, political and economic issues that have conspired to ensure that Africa remained blighted by diseases, hunger and poverty. And throughout the talk, he emphasised the need for Africa to trade with itself if it was to be respected at the global stage. And the manner in which he marinated his speeches with examples from different parts of the world betrayed a man who was well-travelled, or at least knew his geography well. Once in a while, he threw a Kenyan example just to remind all and sundry that he was at home.

The 60-year-old who was born in Bungoma District has no time for academic minions, and is normally quick to point that out. He is arrogant, and unapologetic about it. It is as if he is entitled to a sense of academic impudence. The man who was at some point Kenya’s minister for Trade and Industrialisation says what is in his mind, when he feels like it.

He blasted developed countries for their arm-twisting tactics; he decried Kenya’s increasing appetite for debts, especially in the last two years. And he spoke with a sense of finality.

And with a year remaining to his first term, his re-election might be hinged on the success or failure of the Nairobi talks. As to whether the talks were successful or not, the jury is out there. But as he seeks to extend his stay at the United Nations subsidiary, Kituyi might be reminded of an open letter leading academics and public officials wrote to Ban Ki Moon as the latter prepared to nominate UNCTAD’s Secretary General. “The growing weight of developing countries in global matters requires an intellectually outstanding personality as the new leader of UNCTAD.” Has Kituyi been this leader that the world of academia wanted at the helm of UNCTAD? Time will tell.