HOLA AFRICA: First pan-African reality show scheduled for September launch

To help reinforce and add substance to the ABMP’s YOU campaign, an innovative new reality show with components for television and radio is planned for a September 2007 launch.

Using the working title Hola Africa, the concept is a competition-driven 13-part series involving young African innovators and leaders in devising creative solutions to community-based challenges. The participants will be selected from across ABMP member countries and will be organized into multi-country teams to tackle challenges in a variety of different settings across the continent. The main goal of the show is to promote the YOU campaign’s challenge to all Africans and young people in particular to take action to help make an HIV-free generation. The show will reveal and examine the issues that continue to drive the HIV epidemic in different countries, and explore how Africans can rise above these roadblocks in the fight for an HIV-free generation.

The concept was developed by a creative sub-committee (see members of creative sub-committee) during two intensive days in February 2007 in Nairobi, and the final execution and production will be overseen by a consortium of young African creative and television producers. Although the end product will be centrally produced, the aim is to involve all ABMP member companies in production of aspects of the show. And member companies will have a big role in the recruitment of participants in the show

YOU Campaign: Second Phase Launches on June 1, 2007

Africa is talking about the YOU campaign and its inspiring call to action in working for an HIV-free generation. Audience feedback from ABMP member companies is overwhelmingly positive. People feel inspired by the campaign’s motivational message and optimistic treatment. There is also a sense of real pride that not only is this a fresh approach, but that it is African inspired, lead and produced.

The YOU campaign is a multi-year effort rolling out in six monthly phases with public service ads and longer form supporting programs produced by ABMP member companies. Each phase of the campaign will focus specifically on one of the principal drivers of HIV infection, with the overall goal of motivating personal action in the goal of achieving an HIV-free generation.

The next phase launches on June 1, 2007 and will specifically focus on gender inequity as a major factor in HIV infection. The core ads will be a celebration of an idealised world in which men and women are genuinely equal in all respects, challenging stereotypes and traditional gender-based behaviour. Conceived and created by the ABMP’s creative sub-committee, the ads are being shot on location in Kenya, but the end product will have an authentic pan-African look and feel.

And of course this is not just a TV campaign. An equivalent campaign for radio echoing the same creative approach and themes is also in production and will launch on June 1.

It Begins With YOU : Results of the 1st December 2006 YOU Campaign Survey

On World AIDS Day, December 1, 2006, the ABMP launched the first-ever coordinated, multi-year HIV/AIDS public education campaign using the tag line: Imagine the Possibility of an HIV Free Generation: It Begins with YOU. The December 1st launch of the first six-month phase of public service ads (PSAs) was marked by an historic pan-African synchronized broadcast of the anchor PSA on TV and radio at 13h00GMT. The PSAs were supported by longer-form programming produced by the member companies including talk shows, news programs, magazine shows and entertainment programming. To assess ABMP member company’s participation in the launch and to help improve the future execution and distribution of campaign content, a questionnaire was emailed to all 41 member companies. Approximately two-thirds (28 companies) responded to the survey.

All responding companies participated in the synchronized launch broadcast and most (96%) broadcast additional programming in support of the YOU campaign. About a third of these also organized off air activities like live discussion forums, live entertainment, billboards, posters and banners. Most also engaged other stakeholders such as the local National AIDS Council (85%) and other NGOs (86%). Government leaders were also involved by 62% of responding companies including briefings and participation by senior government representatives in activities associated with the launch of the campaign.

The response to the campaign was reported to be overwhelmingly positive. 92% said they had positive feedback from their audiences and 100% reported positive feedback from their national governments and church leaders. All responding companies said they were committed to sustain the YOU campaign through the next six months of the current phase and beyond.

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African Union and ABMP Create Working Relationship

ABMP Steering Committee Chair, Solly Mokoetle, was invited to address the 3rd Session of the AU Conference of Ministers of Health in Johannesburg on April 10, 2007. Mr. Mokoetle’s address to the Health Ministers follows on several months of discussion between the AU and the ABMP on the prospects of a working partnership in support of an enhanced HIV prevention effort in Africa. Speaking at the Health Ministers Johannesburg Summit, Mr. Mokoetle, stressed the importance of the role of the media in extending public awareness and education about HIV/AIDS and other endemic diseases. He said broadcasters have to be included in the conceptualisation and planning of AU campaigns and programs as they will be committed on the onset to providing their valuable airtime and other resources in support of the programs. He reiterated the commitment of members of the ABMP to be engaged as active partners, adding that, to be effective, a communications campaign must be sustained over a considerable period with consistent, high visibility messaging.

The AU Social Affairs Commissioner, Advocate Bience Gawanas, thanked the ABMP for its commitment and invited the ABMP to work together with the AU. Also at the occasion was the AU Commission Chairperson, Professor A. Oumar Konare; and the Regional Director for Africa of the World Health Organisation, Dr. Luis Sambo. The event was well attended by Ministers of Health from across the continent.

For more on the conference, click here.

5th World Summit on Media for Children holds in Johannesburg

Children's TV producers from 88 countries, along with media regulators, researchers, and youth media projects enjoyed the hospitality of Johannesburg at the 5th World Summit for Media and Children 24 and 28 March 2007. This Summit was unprecedented as it was the first time that an African country played host to this global initiative.

The Summit’s theme was Media as a Tool for Global Peace & Democracy and the stars of the show were the 300 children who attended. They made films, produced a daily newspaper, and demonstrated their talents as communicators with testimony, challenging questions, and energy levels that put the adults to shame.

One of the plenary sessions at the Summit was on the role of the media in HIV/AIDS awareness with a key focus on how to produce HIV/AIDS programmes for a young audience. A presentation of the ABMP’s YOU campaign was made to participants who greeted the concept with enthusiasm and excitement.

The Summit included children as keynote presenters during each day’s plenary and their message was simple -- listen to young people, and let us in on the closed world of mainstream media production. They told an audience that included UN and government officials, senior TV executives, academics and development agencies: 'We are your audiences and your future. We have plenty to say, and plenty to give. In an interactive multi-media world there is no excuse for excluding us.'

Djibril Diallo, Director of the UN Office for Sport and Development, gave his blessing to an exciting project which should reach TV screens in advance of the next Football World Cup which South Africa hosts in 2010.

The next World Summit will be held in Karlstad, Sweden in 2010. The idea of bringing together film and TV producers, their audiences and those who analyse the impact of their products. It has expanded to include radio and print, and offers one example of a response to the challenge of global media. Held every three years in different regions of the globe, the World Summit movement began in 1995 with the first ever event hosted in Australia. Thereafter Summits followed in the UK, Greece and Brazil. The 5th World Summit on Media for Children (5WSMC) is coordinated by the Children and Broadcasting Foundation for Africa (CBFA), which began in 1995 as a lobby group concerned with children’s broadcasting needs and rights. Its creation followed the first ever World Summit on Media for Children held in Australia that year.

The Summit website provides up to date information of all the activities and papers presented including a 5WSMC blog. For more, click here or go to www.5wsmc.com

The State of the Media in Africa – Agents of Development and Economic Growth

The BBC World Service Trust recently released a survey on the state of the media in sub-Saharan Africa aimed at tracking how the media has changed in the past five years, and what interventions might further encourage development of media capacity. A key recommendation creation of a new, autonomous, African-led media partnership structured to improve coordination and sharing of resources and information.

The survey was conducted across 17 sub-Saharan African countries at the behest of the 2005 Report of the Commission for Africa, Our Common Interest, which recognized a shared need for a strengthening of Africa’s media sector.

Key Findings
Starting from the position that fostering a stronger media in Africa is an indispensable part of tackling poverty, improving development and enabling Africa to attain its development goals – the report offers many new and relevant findings, including:

Growth & Diversity: Media in Africa has grown immensely over the past five years. While radio is confirmed as the dominant media force on the continent -- with state-radio commanding the largest audience overall -- it is Africans’ attraction to mobile telephony that authors of the report call “the most spectacular,” because its use is far exceeding the uptake of the internet. There also has been an increase in the number of working journalists, though their pay remains low overall and the state of equipment and technical support in the sector is generally poor.

Unlike radio, audience access to television and newspapers varies, but is most prominent in urban sectors. The survey finds there is a widespread belief that community media should be funded more vigorously because it has the greatest impact on target populations.

The report recognizes the growth of the media, but calls for a holistic and integrated approach to media development, stating that the successful collaboration of all forms of media (newspaper, radio, television, etc.) is “amongst the highest priorities” for securing more funding for media capacity development.

It also calls for an increase in professionalisation of the field, which it states has been down-graded by poor-quality training institutions, rapid growth of media outlets, low salaries and status for journalists and an exodus of skilled journalists.

Dearth of Data & Donors: Though democratic reform throughout the continent has led to growth in the media, there is a severe lack and underdevelopment of systematic research and reliable data on media and its audience within the continent, the report finds. “The lack of reliable information has been a factor constraining private and public donor investment” and makes it difficult to “get the big picture.”

The report also finds an overall lack of effort on the part of media agencies to develop “holistic donor strategies” when it comes to securing funding for capacity building and training, with a few notable exceptions. The report acknowledges a “financing gap,” which makes it difficult for private media in low-income countries to sustain themselves. The report suggests broad use of existing soft loan funds, supporting projects coming to market and reducing costs through sharing resources. The report calls for the creation and implementation of more freedom of information legislation to enable media to be truly independent from government and to regulate themselves.

The Survey
The BBC World Service Trust established the Africa Media Development Initiative to “learn more about the challenges and opportunities in the development of the media sector in Africa.” The report was presented by the Ahmadu Bello University (Nigeria), the BBC World Service Trust, Rhodes University (South Africa) and a network of researchers from the 17 countries, who interviewed an equal number of representatives from the media, private, non-governmental and governmental sectors. The countries surveyed were: Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Partners in the production of the survey included the BBC World Service Trust, the International Finance Corporation, the Department for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

For more on the Report go to www.bbcworldservicetrust.org/amdi