New Media Awards Aim to Promote African Information Society

7 October 2002
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United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Addis Ababa)
press release

Addis Ababa — A media awards programme has been launched to promote and encourage more informed and consistent reporting and analysis of the information society and issues related to the development potential and impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

The AISI Media Awards Programme was named after the African Information Society Initiative, a framework, launched by the Economic Commission for Africa six years ago to help develop national information and communication infrastructure plans and to engender an information society in African countries.

The AISI Media Awards are aimed at individual journalists and media institutions that are promoting journalism that promotes a better understanding of the information society in Africa. The categories covered by the awards are Radio, Print, Television and a fourth category which covers Broadcaster of the Year, Promoting African Languages in the Information Society, Media Personality Award (sustained analysis in the news media), Media and ICT application, and the African Diaspora Media.

The deadline for applications is 28 February 2003. Detailed information on the awards, including instructions on how to submit entries, is available at http://www.uneca.org/aisi/mediaaward.htm or from the contact details below.

Main financier of the awards is the Open Society Initiative for Southern (OSISA). The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) are also sponsoring special interest categories.

The IDRC Award on Reporting ICT Research and Innovation is geared towards encouraging Media practitioners to focus on issues related to ICT research and innovations in Africa under the framework of IDRC's Acacia Programme.

IICD is supporting Awards on local content applications as well as a Media Award on local content. The first award aims to recognize users of innovative or pioneering applications of ICTs to local content defined as ''the expression of the locally owned and adapted knowledge of a community" in Africa. The IICD Media Award will recognize an outstanding story, campaign, or project in which the significance of local knowledge and content is raised in local, national, or regional fora.

The introduction of the awards comes at a time when heightened importance is being placed on the notion of ICTs as key tools for the empowerment of people in Africa. The awards respond to a call by participants at the recent Bamako 2002 Africa Regional Conference of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) for stakeholders to actively promote and support access by all Africans to the information society. Another reason behind the awards is the need for Africa to have a strong voice during the WSIS itself, scheduled to take place in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005.

According to Ms Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane, Director of ECA's Development Information Services Division: "Although the media in Africa are beginning to report on ICT issues, there is still a wide gap in their knowledge and comprehension of the issues in relation to development trends within their national context. It is expected the awards will increase interest among African journalists on reporting on information society issues".

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