CIMA Welcomes MFWA Partnership

Centre for International Media Assistance (CIMA) has hailed its partnership with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).

Mr Paul Rothman, Assistant Partnerships Officer, CIMA, said they were pleased to be partnering with the MFWA to further explore pathways for improving the landscape for independent media in West Africa.

CIMA is a research centre and knowledge platform housed at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, DC that seeks to build knowledge about the role news media play in democratic society and how countries could build media systems that are pluralistic, open, and well governed.

Mr Rothman gave the commendations at the opening of the West Africa Media Excellence and Awards (WAMECA) 2018 in Accra.

He said as part of their effort to better understand the challenges facing independent media and media systems across the world and to help generate more locally informed ideas about what needs to be done, CIMA and their partners at Deutsche Welle Akademie, had been working with local partners to convene a series of regional consultations around the world to identify key challenges facing media systems and to devise regional strategies for addressing them.

He said their focus on the regional level was based on significant recent literature that emphasized the effectiveness of cross-border, peer learning and the influence that regional networks and institutions have on national level contexts.

He noted that CIMA and Deutsche Welle Akademie had convened regional consultations in Latin America in 2015, in Southeast Asia in 2016, and last year in Sub-Saharan Africa in Durban.

He said the purpose of these meetings was to identify common challenges facing independent media, stimulate new ideas for regional action and help build regional coalitions.

Mr Rothman said in Southeast Asia, a coalition of regional actors was exploring the possible creation of a regional mechanism for freedom of expression and access to information, much like the mechanism that existed here in Africa.

"Indeed, for CIMA, our engagement with partners in Africa is particularly exciting because it is one of the few regions of the world where democracy is actually progressing - albeit not without challenges and setbacks," he stated.

"In fact, the Varieties of Democracy index - a leading index on democratic performance worldwide, cited Sub-Saharan Africa as the only region in the world where indicators of democratic performance are improving and this includes major indicators related to media."

Mr Rothman praised the ECOWAS Commission for supporting and promoting democracy and good governance in the sub-region.

He said, he was particularly grateful for the ECOWAS Commission's engagement on the research project dubbed "Context, Challenges, Opportunities and Priorities for Media Development in West Africa".

The project, according to him, discusses the issue of media and its role in democracy and good governance more broadly.

The two-day conference brings together key personalities, organisations (local, regional and international), media practitioners, academia, activists and civil society organisations to reflect on the trends and challenges in the areas of free expression, media development and access to information.

The WAMECA awards on the other hand is meant to reward and inspire media excellence in West Africa, as well as honour West African journalists who have produced works that are impacting lives and societies positively.

Nana Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng, Chairman of the National Media Commission, said the WAMECA was of massive significance in the media development history of the West African sub-region.

He said WAMECA establishes MFWA even more firmly as one of the important media institutions not only in Africa but also in the world.

Nana Gyan-Apenteng called for quality delivery in the media activities in Africa.

Mr Sulemana Braimah, the Executive Director, MFWA, said the last two decades had witnessed significant growth in the media industry in West Africa and attributed it the transition to democratic governance and the ever increasing access to the internet; declaring that fortunately governments no longer has monopoly over media ownership and control.

'The growth of the media industry obviously presents a great opportunity for the consolidation of the nascent democracy in the region,' he said.

'Such vibrant, pluralistic media landscape is what is required for fostering good governance and for promoting the wellbeing of the citizenry.'