by Bayano Valy – SANF 06 No 78
Africa broadcasters can equal their western counterparts, if only they can be better trained and investment is made in newer communication technologies.
This is the view of Tomaz Salomão, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Executive Secretary.
He said the region “can and should do more in terms of broadcasting, but to do more we need to provide broadcasters with more resources.”
Better trained and equipped journalists would ensure that Africans started relying less on the global networks, he said. This has been a major point of frustration since “global networks’ interpretation and packaging of our issues leaves much to be desired.”
Global networks such as the BBC and CNN mostly show images of hunger, wars and poverty in Africa. Furthermore, the content of global networks “is determined by their different perceptions which reinforce their prejudice against us.”
Salomão stressed that although these are newsworthy, it does not hurt to tell the success stories. “Southern Africa has its own success stories which are not reaching our people.”
Examples of the success stories can be found in coverage of the HIV and AIDS pandemic, he said, where some “southern African countries have cases that could be used as good practices.”
Some southern African countries have vast experience in counselling and lifestyles for living positively with HIV, including healthy nutrition and vitamins to boost the immune system.
Salomão spoke to SANF in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, where he addressed the General Assembly of the Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABA).
One way for southern African broadcasters to offer a continental perspective and share stories of good practice would be to increase collaboration by swapping programmes from each other’s countries, Salomão said, adding that he was encouraged by the recent meeting of broadcasters to discuss SADC’s Communication Strategy and cross-border collaboration.
SADC’s communications strategy envisages fostering relationships among the various regional media bodies with a view to facilitate packaging, storage, access and dissemination of information, to allow SADC citizens to understand the objectives and programmes of the Community, thus enabling them to participate from an informed position.
“It is important that the broadcasters commit to regional cooperation,” Salomão said.
The SABA chairperson, Advocate Dali Mpofu, said that one way to further regional integration would be co-production.
“One should commission stories that deliberately have a regional slant,” he said, adding that such stories, for example, could be on the heroes of the liberation struggle in each country.
Most importantly, broadcasters could use new technologies to audio-stream the dramas whereby each country could broadcast them in their own language.
It is imperative to bring an African perspective “in terms of how the region should be seen,” a task that Mpofu said could be achieved through working with various international partners.
One example of regional partnership is SADC’s three-year Information 21 project, involving SABA and two other organizations, the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) and the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency. The project is funded by the government of Belgium and has a budget of 2.5 million euros.
Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Diogo told the broadcasters that public radio and television play such an important role for the promotion of regional integration, and she hopes that through them “the citizens of our countries can know each other better, get motivated towards an effective partnership when doing business, in the exchange of experiences, and socio-economic and cultural exchanges.”
Diogo also praised SABA’s role in furthering the region’s objectives towards development and improvement of the people’s living standards.
Over 100 delegates, representing 21 countries (including 13 SADC countries) and various international broadcasting organisations, attended the SABA General Assembly, held under the theme “Global Communications and Tomorrow’s Challenges”.
