Building Partnerships for media support
Thirty media support organisations are taking concrete action to improve coordination of their activities in hotspots around the world where press freedom and freedom of speech are hampered
There was a clear consensus around the need to improve coordination of media support efforts around the world amongst the 30 media support organisations present at the second International Partnership meeting hosted by the Open Society Institute in New York on 26 January. Partnerships are a means to ensure increased impact. Read the minutes from the meeting here.
– The situation in Haiti is a clear example of why we are here today to discuss media support Partnerships, said Jesper Højberg, Executive Director of IMS in his opening address to the group.
– From day one, we have coordinated our efforts to assess the needs of media to operate and to deliver vital humanitarian information to the public affected by the recent earthquake. Internews has taken the overall coordinationg role. AMARC is carrying out a vital media assessment to determine what channels are still operational around the country and IMS has worked with AMARC to support their efforts on the ground. Information is shared and action is taken. But despite this positive example, we can do better.
Avoiding duplication of efforts
Jesper Højberg highlighted the need to set up better information sharing mechanisms between media support organisations on best practices, lessons learnt and existing media and country analyses as a means to avoid duplication of efforts and improve efficiency. He emphasised the need to help donors realise that support to media and free speech is a vital component in any strategy to fight poverty whether in emergencies or as part of a long-term democratic development plan.
Advocacy, Media Development and Emergency Partnerships
Building on the recommendations from the first International Partnership meeting in Copenhagen in September 2009, the ambitious aim of this second Partnership meeting was to agree on a list of priority countries for Partnership action in 2010 and the appropriate Partnership approach for each selected country.
Representatives from various organisations including Internews, RSF, International Federation of Journalists, Committee to Protect Journalists and more, rallied around the three types of partnership approaches initially identified at the previous Partnership meeting in Copenhagen:
Advocacy partnership – a group of organisations together pursuing lobbying or advocacy-related objectives with national or third party governments or multilateral bodies;
Media Development Partnership – building holistic support for the development of a media community over a longer timeframe;
Emergency Partnership – providing rapid and flexible support to a media community as a result of conflict or natural disasters.
The three types of Partnerships are not mutually exclusive, but run parallel to or in conjunction with one another depending on the needs of the media community in a given country.
Criteria for intervention
Jesper Højberg emphasised that when choosing to engage in a country, careful consideration should be given to what type of Partnership would have the greatest impact.
For example, before carrying out an advocacy partnership in a given country, one criteria would be whether the government is receptive to engaging with international organisations in order for an advocacy-based Partnership to have any impact. IMS-led missions to Nepal and Mexico are good examples of where international advocacy missions, led by IMS, have had a positive impact on the local media environment.
In the same way, before engaging in media development in a country, organisations should determine whether they and national organisations have the capacity to carry out long-term development.
Priority countries for 2010
Following a process where 31 countries were nominated by organisations as potential locations for joint media support action in 2010, a further short-listing took place resulting in the selection of nine priority countries for Partnerships in 2010.
These are: Nigeria, Uganda, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Philippines, Yemen, Venezuela, Haiti and Azerbaijan.
The shortlist of countries does not exclude further Partnership action or halt ongoing Partnership work in the other nominated countries that did not make the final list. The aim was to identify a realistic number of countries for specific attention and joint action in 2010.
The nine selected countries share similar characteristics under which media are operating such as brewing or ongoing conflict, organised crime, political censorship or impunity by the state.
The situation of journalists and media workers in these countries has markedly worsened in the past year, but a concerted Partnership effort to support local media around upcoming events such as elections (Nigeria, Uganda, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Venezuela), or court cases involving journalists (Azerbaijan, the Philippines) and new media legislation (Uganda and the Philippines) could help to turn this trend around.
Watch the IMS website for updates on the joint media support activities planned for 2010. Read the full report from the International Partnership meeting in September 2009 here. A report from the January 2010 International Partnership meeting in New York will be available on the IMS website shortly.
