Kenya

"Africa Governance Forum-Media's role in APRM."

Nardos Bekele Thomas Deputy resident representative UNDP-Kenya, addressed more than 12 media houses at the New Partnership for African Development-NEPAD secretariat 18 May 2006.This was an opportunity to deepen the media's understanding of the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and the role they can play as stakeholders in the process. The press briefing was a follow up to the just concluded Media Forum organized by the Regional Bureau for Africa 9-11 May, 2006 in Kigali, Rwanda.

Click here to read media clips: Nation newspaper, Standard newspaper.

Background on APRM media forum

Twenty-five African journalists participated in a Media Forum organized by the Regional Bureau for Africa 9-11 May, 2006 in Kigali Rwanda. Here they had an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the APRM and the role they can play as stakeholders in the process. These media professionals showed interest in supporting the APRM implementation and ended their forum drafting a series of recommendations on how the Mechanism can more fully take the perspectives of the media into account. Back home in Kenya, UNDP-Kenya together with NEPAD secretariat organized a joint press briefing to create a platform from which the local media can inform their readerships about the APRM. We will include it in a final report to RBA and DFID, which funded this initiative.

Regarding countries that had not acceded to the process, the forum was informed that seven of them had been invited as observers to help them understand and deepen their knowledge and benefits of the APRM. It was stressed that since the process was voluntary it was necessary to allow countries to accede only when they were convinced that being peer reviewed by their colleagues was a moral obligation to their citizens and the rest of the continent.

On the question of delayed APRM reports for countries that had completed their self assessment processes, delegates impressed upon acceding African states to show more commitment by investing substantially in NEPAD and APRM capacity building and provide enough resources for the continental, regional and national offices to boost their output. It was not lost on observers that since 2003, only three countries had successfully completed their assessments while only one had finalized the process. Bearing in mind that today there were 25 countries waiting on the queue, it was critical that manpower and resources at all levels of the APRM processes were addressed with the agency it required.

A parallel Media Forum had earlier noticed that if the media was not mainstreamed into the NEPAD –APRM agenda, the current disconnect between the two initiatives and the media in the continent would continue to manifest itself. The Media Forum recommended that a Media Desk be created at the NEPAD- APRM Secretariat to streamline the management of information flow between the two initiatives and media outlets throughout the continent.

Journalists at the forum acknowledged that there were serious communication gaps between political governors and the media. This lack of information, coupled with inadequate training, lack of resources and general capacity deficiencies in many parts of the continent worked against serious journalistic professionalism. The media therefore impressed it upon the continent’s leaders to invest more in media training and improve on making information available to the media in a less restricted manner.