Photo: Tami Hultman/AllAfrica

Amadou Mahtar Ba, chief executive officer of the African Media Initiative and chair of AllAfrica Global Media.

Dakar — Financial consolidation is a must for a good performance of media groups.

This is the point of view of Amadou Kanouté, the executive director of the Pan-African Institute for consumers’ citizenship and development (Cicodev).

According to Amadou Kanouté, Cicodev executive director, the development of the media cannot be achieved unless there is financial consolidation which would come, for example, from governments or other forms of supports to the media.

He was speaking on the occasion of the public debate on the theme "Media and Citizenship" held at the big amphitheatre of the Faculty of Medicine of Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD); this, as a prelude to the opening of the fifth edition of the African Media Leaders Forum (AMLF).

"We can’t, in a media group, recruit journalists not paid as they should normally be. In this case, they may be committed but it’s not obvious they do their job very well," he said. Focusing on the example of Senegal, Mr Kanouté says it is necessary, in the media code and the discussion about the role played by the media in a State in terms of democracy consolidation, there is financial sustainability at the same time."

However, he also denounced the lack of very clear vision as far as Senegalese media are concerned.

"After independences, the role played by the media was to consolidate national unity but today, we enter an era when it is said that the media contributes to the development of the civil society and an active citizenship, as well as the promotion of democracy. I think those functions require serious discussion between all stakeholders in view of determining the true role that should be played by the media," he said.