African Forum for Media Development (AFMD)

The African Forum for Media Development (AFMD) was created to:

• limit unnecessary duplication of effort;
• combine synergies for stronger impact nationally, sub-regionally, and at sub-Saharan level;
• provide a coherent and streamlined media civil society counterpart for the African Union;
• effectively map and provide a database of media civil society organisations and resources in sub-Saharan Africa;
• explore best practises; and
• provide an African platform and voice for international engagement with other regions (in the first instance, through the GFMD), but also in relation to other international organisations (governmental and non-governmental).

According to the AFMD, while vital and essential efforts are underway among some media support sectors in Africa to establish sub-Saharan networks (i.e., among editors, associations of journalists, media freedom organisations, and organisations in the media education and training sector), it is essential that various sectors of the media also engage with each other in a more holistic manner. This inter-sectoral approach is a key element of the GFMD in order to develop voice and vision regionally and internationally for recognition of independent media (community, public, and private) as a crucial sector of development in its own right, and not as a sub-component or instrument of other development sectors.

For further details, please see the AFMD page on the GFMD website.

Media Development.

The AFMD's founding conference in Grahamstown, South Africa, in September 2008 was attended by 60 delegates from 35 African media development organisations from Southern, Western, Eastern, and Central Africa and a number of African continental media networks, including The African Editors Forum (TAEF), the Africa Division of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), the Africa office of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), and the Network of African Freedom of Expression Organisations (NAFEO). Other participants included 8 international and 2 Asian media development organisations, as well as the financial supporters of the conference - the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Open Society Media Programme. It was also attended by representatives from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.