Opening address to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Africa 2015 Conference
Friday 18 March 2005
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Ladies and Gentlemen it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this conference.
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It's clear from the list of speakers and the roll call of those attending that this is an issue that cuts across traditional party lines, and that it is as vital for the private sector as it is the public.
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I don't propose to speak for very long. This is a moment for listening and learning.
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You may wonder why, given my background, I'm speaking it all. What does someone like me know about Africa?
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Well, when you become Chairman of the ´óÏó´«Ã½, you start to get interested in all sorts of things – an experience shared, I hope, by our licence-fee payers, who look to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ not just for the tried and trusted but also to open their eyes to all kinds of interesting and worthwhile issues.
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The ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service, of course, already gives the ´óÏó´«Ã½ a strong connection with Africa. It's the World Service's largest audience.
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In Ghana the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is the biggest station. In Tanzania 60% of all radio listeners are regular ´óÏó´«Ã½ listeners. The Swahili service gets more than 18 million weekly listeners.
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I do also have some personal experience. I was lucky enough to be in at the birth of Live Aid – indeed I was able to give it a helping hand into the ´óÏó´«Ã½ schedules.
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I became a trustee of Live Aid, and in the process learned more than was good for me about the logistics of running convoys of trucks through the deserts of Sudan.
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It gave me an insight into the power of the media to put development issues into the spotlight and to begin to provide solutions.
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So when the Africa Commission report was published last week I was particularly glad to see the stress it lays on the potential of the media to help deliver the Millennium Development Goals.
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There are two key issues here.
The first is the image of Africa we reflect back to the UK – the picture of Africa we paint for our domestic audiences.
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The second is the role of the media within Africa in helping to build good governance by holding those in power to account.
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There are important questions for us at the heart of each of these.
Let me start with the coverage we give Africa.
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The report has some profound questions to ask of international media – including international broadcasters.
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For example, it asks difficult questions about the scale of coverage we give to disasters and emergencies as compared to other kinds of coverage from the developing world.
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It suggests that the high profile given to some emergencies by the media puts strong pressure on international politicians to respond – and provides political rewards in the shape of favourable coverage when they so.
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By contrast, other kinds of initiatives – for example sophisticated programmes to reduce Africa’s vulnerability to violence - find it much harder to generate headlines, even though they may be more effective in providing long-term solutions for the continent's problems.
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Where, asks the report, is the reward of media exposure for the politicians who give those initiatives their backing?
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This argument raises tough questions for us. We need to take them away and begin the process of finding answers.
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There are other questions for us in the report too. For example, it suggests that the international media may partly be to blame for the difficulties Africa faces in raising international investment.
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This argument flows from the idea that the image of Africa created by the media feeds the perception that Africa is – to quote the report – "one large, risky country" and therefore a deeply unattractive prospect for investment.
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If it ever was an accurate picture, that perception of Africa is certainly not true now. The film you've just seen provides solid evidence of that.
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So perhaps we in the international media have a role – indeed a duty – to set the record straight.
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This is a question the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has been grappling with for some time. It's a question not just for news and current affairs, but for all our output, whatever the genre.
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I'm happy to say that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is making an important contribution here.
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As you may know, earlier this week the ´óÏó´«Ã½ announced details of a wide-ranging series of programmes about Africa across television, radio, and online.
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Crucially, the initiative is being led by ´óÏó´«Ã½ ONE. This is not something aimed at niche audiences, but a bold attempt to bring Africa to the heartland ´óÏó´«Ã½ audience.
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And, just as important, the season is specifically designed to give viewers a more rounded portrayal of African life and culture than the usual one of war, famine, and disease.
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Much of it will reach not only our domestic audiences but our global audiences too, via ´óÏó´«Ã½ Prime and ´óÏó´«Ã½ World.
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There will be programmes across a whole range of genres – drama, features, factual, religion, music and so on – as well as news and current affairs.
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Taken together, they will build a picture of an Africa vibrant, diverse, and dynamic.
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It's a real opportunity to change our audiences' perceptions of Africa.
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It's an opportunity to build on the foundation of goodwill towards Africa built over the last 20 years by Comic Relief.
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Last Friday, Comic Relief, showcased by the ´óÏó´«Ã½, raised nearly £38m – and hopes to raise more than £60m by the time all the money has come in.
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Since its first outing in 1985, Comic Relief has raised well over £300m – most of it destined for development in Africa.
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So far, I've only talked about the media as an external force, affecting Africa from the outside.
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But there is another media issue that the report puts on the development agenda.
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This is the huge potential for the media within Africa to aid development by underpinning good governance.
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I think everyone in this hall would accept the existence of the umbilical link between a country's development progress and the existence of free and independent media within that country.
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Free and independent media empower their audiences with information to improve their health, education and income.
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Free and independent media offer a channel for opinion, debate and solutions.
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Free and independent media are a powerful brake on corruption in high-places, helping to ensure that aid and investment reach those who really need it.
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Free and independent media, in other words, are not a nice-to-have, an optional extra. They are an absolutely integral part of making development work.
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That means that proper funding for media-support initiatives and better mechanisms to deliver them must begin to take a higher priority.
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That's why I was very encouraged to see that the Africa Commission has given its full backing for the creation of an Africa Media Development Facility.
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This is an idea that grew from work originated in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ – in the World Service Trust, the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s international charity that, as you know, works to reduce poverty around the world through the innovative use of media.
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The trust does groundbreaking work developing engaging broadcasting formats to get vital health and educational messages to key groups of vulnerable people.
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In addition, the trust also does important work training broadcasters in developing countries to enable them to build broadcast media that will underpin good governance.
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The idea of the Africa Media Development Facility is to build a consortium of international and African partners, rooted in Africa, to provide long-term support for the strengthening of media capacity and programme-making.
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It will operate not just to build programme-making skills, but support regulatory reform, training, and the generation of the reliable market and audience research without which private media companies cannot raise investment funds.
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It will also seek to invest in African creative talent – providing a stimulus to programme makers across the continent.
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This is a hugely important initiative. As the report says: "Without progress in governance, all other reforms will have limited impact."
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I would add to that: Without significant progress towards a free and independent media, it will be hard, if not impossible, to make progress in making those governance reforms work.
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We in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ stand ready to do our part. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ and The World Service Trust will help to develop the Africa Media Development Facility with our partners.
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I encourage you all to do the same. This is a bold and exciting initiative to help African media realise its full potential. It deserves your support.
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This is an area in which the ´óÏó´«Ã½ sets out to be a leadership organisation. I'm very proud of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s record here, and proud to see the ´óÏó´«Ã½ developing new and innovative ways to help the world reach the Millennium Development Goals.
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But the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is a learning organisation too. Today is a day for learning. Thank you all for coming here today to help us do that together.
