Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)

Kuwait News Agency (KUNA; Arabic: وكالة الأنباء الكويتية) is the official state news agency of the State of Kuwait, headquartered in Shuwaikh, Kuwait City, and operating under the Ministry of Information and Culture portfolio. KUNA was established by Decree No. 70 on 6 October 1976 as a public institution with legal personality, making it the principal official news wire of the Kuwaiti state and one of the established state news agencies in the Gulf region. The agency marked its 49th anniversary in October 2025.

Media assets

News agency: KUNA

Ownership and governance

KUNA operates as Kuwait’s official state news agency under the Ministry of Information and Culture portfolio. Its governance is vested in a Board of Directors consisting of the Chairman of the Board and Director-General alongside four additional members appointed by the Cabinet on nomination by the Minister of Information. This appointment mechanism places KUNA firmly within the Kuwaiti executive’s institutional perimeter and differentiates it from an independent or arm’s-length public-service news agency.

KUNA’s leadership has undergone material transitions in the period preceding the SMM 2025/26 review window. Sheikh Mubarak Al-Duaij Al-Ibrahim Al-Sabah’s tenure as Chairman and Director-General ended in 2018; Dr Fatma Saud Abdulaziz Al-Salem was subsequently appointed Director-General by Amiri Decree on 9 November 2022; and during the 2025/26 review period, public reporting identified Mohammad Al-Mannai (also rendered Al-Mannaei in some English transliterations) as Acting Director-General of KUNA. No governance reform introducing an independent board, editorial-independence guarantees or arm’s-length oversight was identified during the SMM 2025/26 review.

The wider political context for KUNA governance during the cycle was shaped by Kuwait’s continued operation under the May 2024 Amiri order that dissolved the National Assembly and suspended parts of the Constitution for a period not exceeding four years, by the accession of Emir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah in December 2023 following the death of Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, and by the February 2026 cabinet reshuffle under Decree No. 11 of 2026.

Source of funding and budget

KUNA is financed overwhelmingly through public allocations and operates as a state-subsidised news agency rather than as a commercially autonomous news wire. According to budget documents reviewed by SMM-retained expert sources for prior cycles, KUNA received an allocation of approximately KWD 16 million (around US$52.1 million) in the 2023/24 fiscal year. No updated standalone KUNA budget line for the 2025/26 fiscal year was identified in publicly disclosed Ministry of Information or Ministry of Finance documentation reviewed by SMM during the cycle.

KUNA does not rely on commercial advertising or market-based revenue to sustain its core operations. Its funding architecture remains structurally distinct from that of a commercial news agency and is anchored in state support. The 2025/26 cycle produced no structural funding reform: KUNA continued to operate as a publicly funded state news agency under the Ministry of Information and Culture portfolio, and no published transition toward audited public financial disclosure for KUNA-specific operations was identified during the SMM review.

Editorial independence

KUNA functions as the official state news wire and government communications channel of the State of Kuwait. According to SMM-retained expert sources and regional media experts consulted during prior cycles, KUNA serves as the principal official outlet for government announcements, policy statements, public-sector pronouncements and state diplomatic messaging. Its editorial line is closely aligned with official narratives, with regional coverage emphasising Gulf Cooperation Council unity, regional security alignment and Kuwaiti government positioning on diplomatic and security matters.

No statute or legal instrument guaranteeing the editorial independence of KUNA has been identified in Kuwaiti law, and no independent oversight body monitors KUNA editorial output for impartiality, accuracy or pluralism. The Board of Directors functions as a formal governance body but does not constitute an editorial firewall, as its members are appointed through executive mechanisms and no arm’s-length editorial-independence safeguards were identified.

AI and digital policy

KUNA has not published a public-facing institutional AI governance policy. However, the agency has publicly deployed AI-enabled newsroom and presentation tools, including KUNA Smart Oasis and a virtual anchor/avatar; the relevant SMM finding is therefore narrower than absence of AI activity. No public KUNA-specific framework was identified governing the use of generative AI or AI-enabled systems in editorial decision-making, verification, newsroom production, archiving, distribution or audience-facing content during the 2025/26 review.

Classification rationale

Kuwait News Agency remains classified as State-Controlled (SC) for the 2026 cycle. KUNA operates as the official state news agency under the Ministry of Information and Culture portfolio with a Board of Directors appointed through executive mechanisms and no statutory editorial independence, independent oversight body or arm’s-length editorial firewall protecting its output from government direction; public reporting during the review period identified Mohammad Al-Mannai as Acting Director-General, while ministerial authority over the information portfolio rested for most of the cycle with Omar Saud Al-Omar as Acting Minister of Information and Culture following the short-lived February 2026 appointment and resignation of Abdullah Buftain. The agency is sustained by public funding rather than independent commercial revenue, with the most recent KUNA-specific allocation identified by SMM from prior-cycle budget review standing at approximately KWD 16 million for the 2023/24 fiscal year and no updated standalone 2025/26 KUNA budget line identified in publicly disclosed documentation. The 2025/26 cycle produced no governance, funding or editorial reform sufficient to move KUNA out of the SC category: the agency continued to function as the principal official mouthpiece for Kuwaiti government communication output and as a foreign-policy projection channel during a cycle marked by continued rule by Amiri decree after the May 2024 dissolution of parliament, the February 2026 information-ministry reshuffle and resignation, and tighter press-freedom restrictions linked to coverage of the regional conflict around Iran.

June 2026