As a professional critic, I am not famed for my tact and diplomacy. But recently I took coffee with someone who is. Indeed, it is her business to be so.

I refer to Her Excellency Dr Laetitia van den Assum, Ambassador of the Royal Netherlands Government to the Republics of Kenya, Somalia and the Seychelles.

Yet I am here to tell you that the lady, while utterly disarming, can also be disconcertingly direct.

We met in her crisply modern office at the embassy in Nairobi’s Kileleshwa suburb —a double height room flooded with light from a window that takes up most of one wall and runs from floor to ceiling.

The room is softened by a painting, largely pink and as big as two doors. By the contemporary Dutch artist Ronald Zuurmond, it is called The Canary and the Sparrow and it speaks of light and space — a perfect match for the room.

“I find it very calming,” said the ambassador, motioning me to a low sofa by the window.

She sat opposite, an elegant lady of a certain age who apparently needs calming, wearing for our meeting a fine lavender jumper and grey slacks; a slate-coloured shawl thrown over one shoulder.

She toyed with it as we talked, plucking at the puckered silk and smoothing down the fringes.

My reason for calling was to find out why exactly the Dutch are so determined to support the arts … at a time when it could be argued that a greater focus on alleviating starvation, addressing the clogged road network and providing fresh water and sanitation might be of more immediate benefit to those her government wished to help.

“If you have to choose between feeding seven million hungry people and the arts, you know where the priorities are,” Ms van den Assum briskly agreed.

“But we do have a role here to ensure the arts are not overlooked. It’s critical we continue with this; it’s something few other donors do.”

Which is true.

The French have the Alliance Francais and the Germans the Goethe Institut, which as Ms van den Assum points out, are “important meeting places and showcases; providing space to gather.”

The Ford Foundation is also a generous arts sponsor, as is the United Kingdom through the British Council, but it is to the Dutch that people turn for serious, cash-in-the-pocket, help for artists, musicians, dancers and events.

Three of Kenya’s major arts centres are backed by various Dutch sponsors, either singly or in combination: The GoDown, the Kuona Trust and the Sarakasi Dome, formerly the Shaan Cinema in Ngara.

In addition, the Dutch government through the Nairobi embassy supports AfricanColours, a pan-African visual arts website based in Nairobi, plus the National Museums outreach programme, computer training for slum children, the annual European film festival and exhibitions of award-winning press photography.

Funding from the culture and development programme of the embassy alone now runs at roughly $372,000 (Sh26 million a year) and they spent around $2,377 million (Sh166.4 million) in the five years from 2003-2008.

Cultural exchanges, music festivals, literature and visual arts magazines… it’s all grist to the Dutch windmill.

Ms van den Assum is here for a further 18 months to complete her four-year term.

Dutch support for various cultural projects in Kenya is assured for the next two years, because it is a part of a development programme driven from The Hague.

As well as culture, the Dutch government sponsors various water and sanitation schemes through Unicef to the tune of $40 million (Sh2.8 billion) over the past six years.

Other sponsors from the Netherlands include the Doen Foundation, which distributes money from the national postcode lottery (Doen is a Dutch verb meaning “Do it!”) Hivos, a development NGO, and the Prince Claus Fund.

Prince Claus, who died in 2002, was the husband of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and he was given an endowment to spend on the arts, as a present from the government to mark his 70th birthday.

Born in Tanzania, Prince Claus, says the Ambassador, “was very active in raising the bar in the whole area of cultural development.”

He used his endowment, among other things, to set up the Prince Claus Prize, which in Kenya has been presented to the dancer and choreographer Opiyo Okach, to publisher Henry Chakava, and latterly to Godfrey Mwampembwa, better known as Nation cartoonist Gado.

The Dutch are also sponsoring Gado to hold a series of puppetry workshops at the GoDown — starting around now.

Cartoons? Puppets? Oh yes, the ambassador is a great believer in the power of satire to produce change.

Pomposity and rule by diktat can hardly survive when a nation is laughing its head off at the antics of its politicians… already, we are edging closer to the links the Dutch see between the arts and good governance.

An open, liberal people, famed for their relaxed attitude to such matters as abortion, prostitution, homosexuality and drugs, the Dutch boast a model democracy, in so far as a hereditary, constitutional monarchy is compatible with government by the people for the people.

They have one of the few, if not the only, embassies in Kenya to have one desk dealing with both culture and governance, so closely do they see that link. That fascinates me, and I ask why.

“The Netherlands government puts emphasis on the importance of culture as an integral part of development,” explains Ms van den Assum.

And indeed, the Dutch embassy is itself a showcase for contemporary Dutch culture with silkscreen prints, stunningly framed, hanging in every corridor, office and meeting room. All are on the theme of nature, and staff are invited to choose the pictures they want in their rooms.

Herself a lover of music (“I was made to learn the piano when I was a little girl, but please don’t say I’m accomplished”) and fine art, the ambassador is also an enthusiastic collector of beads, particularly admiring those fashioned from seeds and small bones.

She is also quick to point out that Amsterdam was a famed centre for the export of glass beads to West Africa, which were subsequently traded on to the East.

“Artists,” she tells me, “are part of the avant garde and sometime are able to express thoughts that many feel but are themselves unable to express.”

Then a key point: “They raise awareness.”

She continues: “You find this in music, in literature and in painting. One of the best ways for people to affect development is through cultural expression.”

Asked for examples, Ms van den Assum remarked on a recent visit to the RaMoMA galleries to see the exhibition of paintings by Jes’se Ng’ang’a.

While there, she noted the satirical paintings of Bertiers — real name Joseph Mbatia Njoroge —which showed Kofi Annan and Bill Clinton among other unlikely subjects in various inappropriate situations, sharp and witty.

“You find this sort of sharpness too in street culture, in the slogans and paintings on matatus,” she says.

A number of matatus showed a rapid reaction to the post-election violence with pictures of “Kofi the Mediator,” and to more recent events with a general glorification of Barack Obama — “Our Son.”

“They latch onto political trends very quickly and make them a part of popular culture,” the ambassador points out.

Other examples she gives are hairstyles, kinyozi signs (offering the look of street heroes like 50 Cent and Michael Jordan), and the khanga culture, which enables women to wear mottoes expressing thoughts they might prefer not to say out loud.

Ms van den Assum is acutely aware of the many problems facing Kenya and reveals a willingness to speak out strongly about them. She fears Kenyans are losing hope — and blames our politicians.

“What is lacking is an overall sense of duty to Kenya as a whole,” she comments; dry to the point of acidic.

Unused to interviewing diplomats, I was taken aback by the strength of her comments. Nothing quite so forceful as former British high commissioner Sir Edward Clay, but even so…

There are issues, she says, that are preventing the country from continuing — a favourite phrase — “its forward trajectory.”

“This is a very critical time for Kenya,” she tells me, “It’s painful to observe what’s happening.

“It’s fair to say no-one really expected what happened following the last elections. It was difficult to see the country go down so rapidly. It really was on the brink.”

She continues: “Since 1992 and multiparty elections the country had been on a forward trajectory,” (that phrase again) “then from 2002 there had been an explosion of hope. But then came the experience in 2007… at the moment people are losing hope, they can no longer see that forward trajectory.”

Her main concern while in Kenya, she says, “is to help to keep this country on a forward trajectory.”

And that has not been made any easier by the global downturn. Kenya was not immune.

She speaks about how the market in the UK for Kenya vegetables has slumped and says that recently a Dutch exporter here had to let 1,500 of their 2,000 employees go.

The downward trend is true too of the cut flower business, in which the Dutch are actively engaged.

“People in Europe still buy bunches of flowers but those bunches are smaller: Ten flowers instead of 12. Now 80 per cent of the people employed on the flower farms are women and if they lose their incomes, they cannot care for their children,” she says.

She speaks out too on the Waki report and tells me its implementation “is critical, very important.”

“Disappointingly,” she goes on, “the debate on it in parliament took place behind closed doors… there has been very little transparency.”

She believes it is better that the hearings of the tribunal charged with dealing with those responsible for the violence take place in Kenya rather than in her own capital, The Hague, “because then the people here can see what is happening.”

On the subject of good governance, which she believes passionately can be influenced through the arts, with that general increase in “awareness,”

Ms van den Assum comments: “It is important people know where their politicians stand on these issues, but this is not clear.

“If you cannot hold your MP to account because it is not clear what he has promised you, then it is a very difficult situation.”

The forthcoming political parties Bill could provide a solution. “It will see an end to briefcase parties and compel parties to come up with substantive policies.

“There will be fewer parties, so they will have to make clearer their differences, for example on utilising resources to move the country forward.”

Then comes that stern judgment, all the more powerful for being delivered in pity rather than in anger: “What is lacking is an overall sense of duty to Kenya as a whole.”

So, are the politicians taking care only of their own constituents and does the recent succession of scandals indicate they are primarily looking after themselves?

Ms van den Assum looks out of her huge picture window for a moment, collecting her thoughts, and then, leaning forward confidentially, remarks:

“I have a sense that Kenyans are fed up; there are scandals popping up every day, almost like popcorn… maize, now oil and petrol.

“I don’t know whether there are more scandals now or if they have always been there and they are finding it harder to keep them concealed.

“This oil scandal does not bode well for Kenya as a regional hub because if we are not well off here, they are worse off in Tanzania and Uganda and there is great unhappiness with Kenya there.”

Then, brightening again, “The reaction to Amos Kimunya’s reappointment to the Cabinet showed people are no longer willing to remain silent.”

Aha! Awareness.

Perhaps it holds out hope that Kenya will regain that forward trajectory?

“A key part of that is to help Kenya get its new Constitution, which will enable it to move forward,” she says.

“Without that, I don’t know what 2012 will look like.”

I drink the last of my coffee and put down the cup.

Then I am reminded: “I am here to work with the Kenya Government.” And, with a charming smile: “We don’t only communicate through the media!”

Quite. But I suspect that to Her Excellency Dr Laetitia van den Assum, the media is a useful channel that she knows very well how to use.