GFMD World Conference Conclusions
The GFMD World Conference 2008 was an historic event:
We brought some 450 people from 105 countries representing media support organisations that cover the whole spectrum of media development, whether its media law reform, helping to set up new media outlets, training journalists, organizing community radio, advocacy groups, helping to build media capacity to inform people on issues that shape their lives.
And not only did we bring them together in one room: We agreed to form a membership network…….no longer can it be said that media development is too dispersed, too fragmented for donors or policy makers to directly engage with us.
We can stand up and say with confidence: this is a sector in its own right, one that should not be disregarded or subsumed under other headings. We are a real community of media assistance practitioners, who actively joined together around common goals.
Our statutes define these goals and we are committed to putting them into effect:
• To create a platform for media development practitioners to interact with donors, governments, opinion leaders and the wider public making the case for media development as a primary pillar for advancing social, economic, and political development.
• To promote and disseminate research and analysis on the impact of media development assistance on governance, civic participation, poverty alleviation, emergent crises, and markets worldwide.
• To advance best practice methods in the media development sector through shared learning, training and evaluation.
• To educate members, policymakers and the general public on the importance of free, independent, pluralistic and viable media to human and economic development.
We do this by creating the GFMD membership network, a structure that supports, never replaces or controls, its member organisations.
We can go with confidence to donors and policy makers and engage with other actors in civil society to push for the two things that we all want and that came up in all the regional meetings we held and throughout our discussions over the last three days:
The importance of viewing Media Development as a good in itself, that free, independent, pluralistic media have an intrinsic value. We work together in the GFMD to make donors and policy makers understand that.
And as a membership network we can make the case for more support from more donors much more convincingly.
The new Steering Committee will have to develop concrete strategies and actions to put these aims into practice.
This conference discussed many issues and through the workshops and regional caucus meetings we defined a plan of work for the GFMD.
The conference drew the following conclusions:
Recommendations made by all or most regions:
1. Create a database of media development organisations (GFMD members)
2. Undertake a review of media development programmes carried out by GFMD members;
3. Undertake a review of funding provided by donors to media development;
4. Create mechanisms for information sharing (web-site etc) at global and at regional levels
5. Develop a set of principles (code of conduct) for media assistance organisations (GFMD members)
6. Develop strategies to make the case to donors why media development is important and needs more support.
7. Develop the regional web-sites
8. Aim to be represented at international media (development) gatherings to make the case for media development
9. Promote South-South partnerships by linking GFMD members
10. Promote closer cooperation between media assistance organisations.
Additional Recommendations from:
Middle East/North Africa Region:
• Promote joint campaigns for access to information in MENA;
• Media development organisations in MENA should develop guidelines for transparency and good governance inside media companies and organisations, including clear information on ownership and structures safeguarding editorial independence.
• GFMD members in the MENA region should work to create and promote and independent rating/measurement tool for MENA media.
Africa Region:
• Review existing development aid budgets for Africa to check whether media is included
• Undertake a study of the status of journalists in the different African countries and the viability of their organisations.
• Explain conditions for membership in the GFMD
• Organise the Africa regional forums for media development
Eurasia Region:
• Media support groups in the region have to work more closely with civil society organisations to be better prepared to withstand undue influence on media content. GFMD should assist in developing a strategy to do this work;
Asia Region:
• Carry out a review of media legislation;
• Develop strategies for dealing with closed media systems
• Develop strategies for challenging restrictive media laws
Latin America and the Caribbean Region:
• Promote greater editorial independence;
• Promote social responsibilities of media organisations;
• Create links with media assistance organisations and community media in the region