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GFMD 2012 at Highway Africa

# Media Matters: giving voice to a changing world
3rd World Conference of the Global Forum for Media Development
in conjunction with Highway Africa, September 9-11,2012

Outline
The joint GFMD and Highway Africa conferences will bring together some 300 media development practitioners, high-level donor and media representatives, journalists, editors, media experts and researchers from around the world.

The GFMD conference is the only global event that addresses media development directly and in a comprehensive manner.  It is the place where all groups involved in media development meet and agree strategies for cooperation. It is the event where all the different strands of discussion about media development come together.

The GFMD 3rd World Conference focuses on why media matters to building democratic societies, good governance, human and economic development. Linked to the theme of Highway Africa: “Africa Rising”, the GFMD conference will have a special focus on Africa and the role of media development and new technology initiatives in building open societies in African countries.

The aim of # Media matters: giving voice to a changing world is to define new and more targeted strategies of media development aimed at building free, independent and pluralistic media that serve the information and communication needs of the public.  With the use of new technologies, increase of the internet information space, social media and pressures on traditional media and market models, media development needs to redefine its strategies.

The GFMD has the global network, especially through its members in Latin America, Asia, Africa, Eurasia, the Middle East, to develop new ideas for promoting media freedom, professional journalism and inclusive media landscapes.

Themes and Speakers

The main focus of the GFMD conference is the effect new media, mobile technology and new players in the media scene have on media development strategies. This theme will be further defined in panel discussion and workshop sessions organised separately by GFMD on September 9th and jointly with Highway Africa on September 10th and 11th:

• The New Information Environment and Internet Freedom

• Innovation and technology: Making them work for media development;

• Holding governments to account: role of media in good governance;

• Standards and ethics in media across all platforms;

• Media Matters: Impact of media development on other development sectors (health, elections, disaster response etc);

• Media, the new information environment and rights: effects on the rights of women and of minorities;

• Media and Conflict: Lessons learnt and new strategies;

• Safety First: Journalists’ Safety in Media Development;

The advantage of the GFMD global network is that it can draw on media development expertise from around the world. In addition to the main themes, a wide range of issues media professionals and media development practitioners face in their daily work will be addressed in workshops and panel discussions.

We are building further partnerships with other organisations active in defence of press freedom, development actors, donors and foundations, some of whom have already agreed to be partners in specific sessions.

Selection of Speakers

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google will be invited to give a address on internet freedom.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Orhan Pamuk will be asked to present their reflections to the conference.

Eminent author Paul Collier, Professor of Economics at Oxford University, who addressed the 2nd GFMD World Conference, will review trends in the development field and the impact of media.

Key players in the world of media and innovation will address the conference, including:

• Wael Ghonim, former head of Google, Egypt
• Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Belarus;
• David Kobia, co-founder of Ushahidi, South Africa
• Waddah Khanfar, former Chairman Al Jazeera Television, Qatar
• Chris Cramer, head of Innovlation, Thomson Reuters, US and UK

High-level representatives from international institutions dealing with media development will include:

• Irina Bokova, Director General, UNESCO
• Frank La Rue, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
• Faith Pansy Tlakula, Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa
• Sina Ogudbemi, CommGap, the World Bank.

Key players in the world of media development will address the conference, including:

• Stephen King, Omidyar Network, United Kingdom
• Alec Ross, US State Department, USA
• Nazeer Ladhani, Aga Khan Foundation, Kenya
• Sasa Vucinic, co-founder, Media Development Loan Fund

In addition to these speakers there will be a wide range of experts on media development, innovation, media policy and regulation addressing the event.

On-Going Initiatives

• The Global Reporting Initiative: The GRI is a network-based organisation that has pioneered the development of the world’s most widely used reporting framework to assess companies’ performance in sustainability development. The GRI, which is the collaborating centre of the UN Environment Programme and works closely with the UN Compact, is currently working on specific indicators and guidelines for sustainable development in media.

• Pan-African Media Network: The GFMD’s regional organisation the African Forum for Media Development (AFMD) in partnership with the African Union is organising the network of key regional and pan-African groups involved in media development to act as a consulting body to the African Union. A special session on the work of the Pan-African Media Network will be held at the conference.

• Measuring Media Development Impact: This project, organised by the World Bank Institute/Brookings Institute/Internews and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is developing a database on media and other development indicators and looks at if and how positive developments in the media environment improve other development areas such as good governance, gender equality, health etc. The GFMD has developed a toolkit for assessing media landscapes. This work is based on the IREX MSI and African Media Barometer and links to the UNESCO framework of indicators of media development. It provides local media assistance NGOs with a tool to do a media landscape assessment including outside factors such as political and economic environment in order to develop targeted base lines and project programmes.

Other Conference Themes

Alongside the main theme, the conference will address other key issues of media development in workshop sessions that can also be done in partnership with Highway Africa, including:

Innovation: Mobile Technology and Media Development

• Creative digital innovation – Open Society Institute study on digital media and other studies;
• Workshop on digital technology for media development groups;
• Media innovation in the developing world: Examples of success in Africa;
• Using mobile phones for media development;

New Journalism, New Ways to Engage with Society, New Media Markets:

• Media markets – successful business models, strategies for emerging markets;
• Quality journalism on all platforms: standards and self-regulation;
• Covering the Issues: good governance, inequality, poverty, sustainability, public budget;
• Social corporate responsibility – Global Reporting Initiative.

Key Issues for Media Development:

• Journalism Training in the New Information Environment
• Internet censorship;
• Media development and good governance;
• Media literacy;
• Community radio;
• Media development in disaster areas.

Reviewing the Media Development Field:

• Assessing Media Landscapes: UNESCO framework of Indicators, GFMD toolkit;
• Evidence of impact of media development;
• Embracing and involving new actors in the media development field;
• Media development 2020: Where is the field going;

Regional sessions defining priorities for Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eurasia, Middle East/North Africa.

Background – The GFMD

Mission

It is the mission of the GFMD to make media development an integral part of overall development strategies, just like education or health. The GFMD aims to make media assistance a sector in its own right especially in light of the important contribution free and independent media make to promoting economic and human development, good governance and democracy.

The GFMD’s basic values are free expression, media freedom and independent journalism as defined by the UNESCO Windhoek, Santiago, Almaty, Sana’a and Sofia Declarations on Pluralistic and Independent Media. The GFMD believes that free, independent, viable and inclusive media are prerequisites for creating and strengthening democratic society and human development.

Global Network of Media Assistance Organisations

The GFMD is the only network that focuses on highlighting the importance of free, independent and viable media to human and economic development. The GFMD is a collaborative process and with more than 400 media assistance organisations world wide in its network, the GFMD has partners in more than 100 countries, who will be involved in shaping the conference.

Sustainability

GFMD is a sustainable structure based on its membership network. The conclusions of the conference will form the work plan of the GFMD and will continue to be implemented. Strategies adopted will be used by GFMD for advocacy and as reference by donors or policy makers.

Partners

The GFMD partners with a wide range of donors including, the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Center for Independent Media Assistance, The US Institute for Peace, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, the Danish Foreign Ministry, the Swedish International Development Agency, UNESCO and others.

Bettina Peters, GFMD Director
Brussels, April 2012