The international secretariat of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Paris is pleased to announce that Florianne Heine has been appointed as the director of its Tunis-based North Africa bureau, with the principle task of developing RSF's activities in a region where press freedom is under a great deal of pressure.
As a former project coordinator for regional and international organisations for the past 15 years, Florianne Heine will oversee RSF's activities in the six countries covered by this bureau - Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia.
She will also coordinate the work of a committed team including RSF's Algiers-based North Africa representative, Khaled Drareni, who acts as RSF's spokesperson in the region; North Africa advocacy officer, Samir Bouaziz, and the project officer, Alia Kerkeni.
Florianne Heine has worked with a range of actors including local media, journalists, civil society organisations and government authorities. She has devoted much of her career to working on projects related to stability, peacekeeping and crisis management in West Africa and, more recently, in North Africa and the Middle East region.
"We have ambitious goals for our cause in North Africa, and Florianne's job will be to increase the impact of RSF's activities on journalistic freedom, independence and pluralism in the region," RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. "Her in-depth knowledge of the Maghreb, where she has lived for the past five years, will help her in guiding the bureau in its mission of defending and, even more so, promoting the public's right to information.
Christophe Deloire
Secrétaire général de RSF
"I'm delighted to join the Tunis team, which does a remarkable job," Florianne Heine said. "Developing the regional office, striving for an ever more relevant impact and providing support to journalists in the region are the three intervention pillars that we are putting at the heart of our regional strategy. I will pursue this strategy with a constant concern for accountability in the actions we conduct, and aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals."
