Ah yes, the media, we ought not to forget about it.
This appears to be the after-thought sentiment in the Blair commission proposals for Africa, released last month.
But perhaps there is more than amnesia about the media that explains the downplaying of independent journalism in this British response to African underdevelopment.
The commission’s report has momentarily faded from the headlines, but it will be back at the Group of Eight meeting in July. Meanwhile, its media recommendations are on the agenda for several meetings to be held in Dakar, Senegal, next week, coinciding with International Media Freedom Day, May 3. And there, one of Blair’s blind spots will come into focus.
What is likely to emerge is that what could have become a big-stakes solution for Africa is gravely weakened by a severe underestimation of the role of the media.
Blair’s team has produced a substantial tome that hammers home the importance of good governance and increased donor aid. It calls for debt relief and a fairer trade regime. It costs all these all out and explores whence the cash could come. The amount is $75-billion. But …
- Just 4% of this financial target is set to go towards ”good governance” — despite definitive arguments in the report about the centrality of this factor to the success of all else.
- Though the media are recognised as part of ”good governance”, there is no budgetary assessment or allocation for them within this 4%.
Instead, there are mainly wistful and vague statements about the media’s role. There are the expected motherhood-and-apple-pie (or should we, as Africans, say ”pumpkin-and-beans”?) platitudes about what the status of the media ought to be. Accordingly, the commission specifies the role of journalists and media as:
- being a public watchdog;
- promoting accountability through exposing corruption and inefficiency; and
- helping to prevent conflicts through ”balanced reporting”.
These functions require convivial environments, and so the commission also addresses African governments, saying they should:
- promote competitive frameworks that enable investment in diverse broadcasting infrastructure;
and
- develop transparent and flexible regulatory environments to create a ”balance of public service, private, community and local media”.
For their part, says the commission, journalists and media ought to:
- get more training;
- have better self-regulation and ethics;
- create more and balanced coverage of Africa in the developed countries; and
- serve audiences outside the continent via the internet.
These are far from being new points. Where the report gets interesting, however, is in its more proactive recommendation that stakeholders should form a consortium in order to advance these points. This entity, says the commission, should:
- include independent media institutions, public service broadcasters, civil society and the private sector;
- be supported by governments;
- include partners outside of Africa; and
- work with African government ministries, independent institutions and civil society.
The aim is to ”provide long-term support for the strengthening of media capacity and programme-making through supporting regulatory reform, training and the generation of market and audience research”. To this end, says the commission, the consortium should assemble funds and expertise to create ”an African media development facility”.
Hence the agenda for Dakar next week. Much of the discussion there will be on trying to unpack all this, especially in the light of the commission urging ”donors to increase substantially their funding to African independent media institutions and those governments promoting free media”.
The idea has potential, although there are some dubious assumptions that need debating.
- There is the uninterrogated expectation that African governments will be willing partners in promoting the media’s growth and role — and no sticks and carrots are discussed in this regard.
- There is a spin that Africa’s largely government-controlled broadcasters are already public-service media, when most are still oppressive propaganda tools that perpetuate underdevelopment.
- The point is made that African journalists are not free enough to do their jobs, but followed by the wishy-washy appeal that ”the right to receive information and to the freedom of expression, as set out in the African Charter for Human and Peoples’ Rights, should be respected”.
Strong and independent media institutions, and the information they generate, are central to curing the roots of African ills, and governments need to hear this in no uncertain terms. This basic truth is left out of the Blair commission report — yet perhaps the omission is not merely a matter of forgetting.
By downplaying the media, the commission is able to avoid acknowledging that many African governments actually have zero interest in independent and free media. This realpolitik devaluation ensures that the report does not offend the offending African governments.
Indeed, two members of the commission, Tanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa and Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, have not exactly been advocates of free environments for the media, as their countries’ journalists can attest.
The mildness on media matters has also led the commission to miss a major opportunity. The report thus hails the famed African peer-review mechanism of the New Partnership for African Development, but fails to highlight that performance on media pluralism and freedom does not feature as a criterion in the peer assessment.
To sum up, the Blair report disappoints through its failure to make the media a central pillar of its plan for Africa. Little surprise, therefore, that there is no costing for an upgraded media role.
But for people who do take the media seriously, the challenge is on to make the case more strongly. If a new consortium, facility and extra funding do indeed emerge from the commission, they will need to strengthen the independence and quality of journalism — and even against governments, when need be.
Anything less than this, and the whole initiative will make not a jot of a difference to the media’s centrality to ”good governance” and the sought-after African revival.