On 22-24 October 2009 the Stockholmsmässan was filled with 5.000 faces from more than 125 countries engaging in lively debates, sharing ideas, planning action: The European Development Days (EDD) were held in the Swedish capital, hosted by the European Commission and the European Presidency. The event brought together state leaders, development workers, scholars, business people and media representatives. In its fourth year the EDD 2009 dealt with today’s pressing issues of development: the effects of the global economic crisis, the challenge of climate change as well as the importance of democratisation and media.
The potential of new media for development was discussed at the Deutsche Welle-Panel ‘New Media’ for a New World: Democracy and Development. Check out the multimedia coverage of the panel, including reactions and an audio recording.
Don’t forget: comments on the entries of this blog are most welcome!
With the closing ceremony at the Victoriahallen the European Development Days 2009 come to an end. „The real work though is still ahead of us“, says Karl De Gucht, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. And by ‘us’ De Gucht means everyone. „Underdevelopment is a global problem that threats us all“, he stresses. The European Development Days provide a forum to work on solutions – together.
The one laptop per child (OLPC) device is an eye-catcher at the fair. With the big handle and the green antennas it looks funny and many adults stop by at the stand to play around with it. My inner child is curious now and I want to test it, too.
After starting the system I see a screen with what seems to be dozens of tiny icons arranged in a circle. An enormous if not overwhelming choice so I just hit one of the icons and meet Rudy, a grey face with big eyes that can speak words out loud which I type in.
Rudy is very sympathetic but when I want to close the application, I don’t know how. There is no symbol that looks like what I could identify as exit or back. So I start pressing one of the many button with circles and rectangles on the rubberised keypad. Nothing happens. I wonder how long a child would stare at Rudy sticking to the screen.
I also hit the ones next to the screen and all of a sudden the screen image is turned upside down. When I move the mouse to the left, the cursor moves to the right. Again, I have no idea on how to change it and press the keys randomly. It takes me 20 minutes to work out which one the “back” button is.
One of the many icons in the circle offers me to connect to Wikipedia. Ten seconds after I hit it I see a rainbow deamon security error with 10 lines of text telling me about the error. So maybe the notebook isn’t as sturdy as it seems.
Some of the applications are as self explanatory as Rudy, like the one to paint a picture or a translator where I type in English words and receive Spanish translations. Others I simply don’t get. The icon “physics” produces three tiny geometrical symbols in the middle of a big grey screen. There is nothing like a loading bar or a little lamp that shows me that it’s worth the wait. The music application offers at least 30 icons with images of instruments and other things that make noise. Can I record something? Can I play it back? I have to admit, I cannot work it out and the button on the top “share with neighbour” doesn’t help.
Time to speak to Giulia D’Amico from OLPC to ask her about my difficulties.
Did you have other experiences with the device? Leave a comment to start a discussion! If you want to get involved, here is a link to the OLPC Wiki.
New Media and development mean change – and the change starts right here in Stockholm at the DW-Panel. Leaving the traditional way of how panels are usually done, here the issues of new media and development are discussed in a TV style debate. The panelist are state leaders, experts in media and mobile technology, bloggers as well as journalists.
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Raila Odinga
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President of Liberia, shares her view as well as Raila Odinga, Prime Minister of Kenya. Key note speaker Mactar Silla, Chairman of the Association of Private Producers and Televisions of Africa and Senior International Consultant on Media and Communications, and Israël Yoroba, well-known in the blogosphere for his Le blog de Yoro from the Ivory Coast join the discussion. Pansy Tlakula, who is Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in Africa of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights shares her expertise as well as Fackson Banda, SAB LTD-UNESCO Chair of Media and Democracy at the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University. Moreover, Camille Sawadogo, Director of the CEMECA and the community radio Salaki and Wambui Waweru from the Kenyan radio station Capital FM are on the panel. The European Commission is represented by Lieve Fransen, Director of the Representations Directorate for the European Commission’s Directorate-General Communication. The panel is hosted by Patrick Leusch, Head of Division Project Development at DW-Akademie.
Challenges are the results of the rapid development of new media in Africa in the last years, Mactar Silla says in his key note speech. For today’s African diaspora for example the internet finally makes it possible to stay connected. For Silla, a crucial question of the new media boom in Africa is that of content which is linked to journalistic training and the question of economic viability. Africa needs to set up its own ideas in regard to new media, Silla says.
The room is packed, the audience listens closely. DW-Host Patrick Leusch directs the people’s attention to the status of media in African countries.
When asked whether the situation of media in Liberia is satisfactory, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf answers „not fully“. The Liberian media is aggressive, she says as there is freedom of expression and no restraints on the work of journalists. Some media would use that to sensationalize. But that is the price you pay for freedom which has been suppressed for such a long time, the President of Liberia says.
Raila Odinga recounts his own use of new media during his election campaign in 2007 where he used the web as a tool to address young voters – and to form a bigger audience outside Kenya as well. Pansy Tlakula points out the limited freedom of expression in many African countries – and the fact that the booming private media sector is often forcibly regulated by the legislation. New media have to come up quickly with self-regulations before being regulated by the state. Fackson Banda adds that even if the training of journalists might be the very best, trained journalists are thrown into the political context right after the end of the training – another challenge.
Camille Sawadogo points out that before the new media boom, journalists in Burkina Faso had to listen to the radio to get the news. Now with the direct access to new media and to the rest of the world, journalists get the news, process it and then redirect it to the people. The new media, Sawadogo says, changed the way they make radio as the people get more involved now. During the recent floods in Burkina Faso for example people called in to the radio station to pass on updates about the floods.
Lucky are those who managed to get a seat – outside people are queuing
Wambui Waweru says Capital FM, the radio station she works for, uses new media tools like the mobile phone to send out alerts and breaking news. However, she adds, Africa is still quite radio driven. Israël Yoroba though is at the forefront of the blogosphere in the Ivory Coast. He says, in his blog he wants to bring attention to aspects of the Ivory Coast that have mainly been ignored in the traditional media.
But not everything about new media is as shiny as it seems. Pansy Tlakula warns that communication is made so easy and anonymous that it can facilitate organised crime such as women trafficking and child pornography. She again stresses self-regulation as one of the many challenges of new media. Accessibility is another.
„We just need electricity“, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf says laughingly when asked what new media can do for development. All panelists agree: New media gives new opportunities to the people – educational, political, social and also economic. But in the end, Johnson-Sirleaf sums it up, „there is no substitute for having acces to the media.“
Please directly jump to 12:45 – then the panel starts. You can listen to the whole discussion.
Here are some of the remarks and questions that were sent via SMS during the DW-Panel:
“How can the increased flow of media and information be a tool for control that can be used against people? What are the dangers? How is the integrity of the individual gonna be protected and not only the protection of property such as music and films?”
“Mrs. President, are you and your administration using blogs and new media to ‘be in touch’ with the citizens?”
“Mr. Odinga, how can the administration better support media in Kenya?”
“In Sweden we see how well-known politicians are using their own blogs as platforms in order to avoid independent journalists. Do you see this trend as a problem?”
“Community radio stations are important in Africa. How can they be used with other media to interact with communities?”
“What is your impression of the journalistic quality of blogs?”
Muhammad Yunus is moved by the work of young reporters like Xiao-Mi Tan
„Media is power, but the question is for what purpose you want to use this power,“ said Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Laureat 2006, during this year’s ceremony of the Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism. The nominees and winners from all over the world were highly praised for their efforts to give voice to the powerless, to defend human rights and to fight for social justice.
Out of more than 1.000 print, radio and TV entries the jury awarded 15 journalists from Asia and Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe. The topics ranged from the persecution of albinos in Tanzania to the illegal trade with corpses in China and militias in the favelas in Brazil.
Fearing prosecution this award winner had to hide his face after investigating undercover
Award winner Richard Mgamba („The Battle for Souls“) from Tanzania stressed that journalism is much more than just a profession.„My business is to take a risk to make you informed“, he said after receiving the star shaped sculpture. The winners moving speeches showed the immens personal commitments and passions of the reporters.
The Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism is organised by the European Commission, Reporters without Borders and the World Association of Newspapers. It was created in 1992. The full list of the award winning journalists and their scripts can be found on the Natali Website.
“We are feeling a movement – every day a new blog is popping up in Ivory Coast.” Israël Yoroba is 27 years old and has just arrived at Stockholmsmässan.
While walking through the vast building, Yoroba recounts the beginning of blogging in his country – and the birth of his own blog two years ago. Israël Yoroba blogs about everyday life in Ivory Coast. Party politics is the traditional media’s business, he says. This does not mean that his blog is not political. Quite the contrary.
“I want to show the world what life is like in Ivory Coast”, he says, adding that the media coverage of Ivory Coast during the last years was one of violence and war. But the main audience of Yoroba’s blog are his fellow citizens, he says. With his posts about housing problems or damaged roads, he gets people involved. The comments and e-mails are encouraging, he says. At least most of them. When he posted a video of a policeman being bribed, Yoroba received angry e-mails, he says laughingly.
Yoroba blogs wherever he goes. But this is a privilege, he says, as the access to computers and the internet is very limited in his home country. Nevertheless, his blog attracks a fair amount of readers, most from the Ivory Coast and France. According to Yoroba, 10.000 people visited his blog since February 2009. In June 2008, he won the Deutsche Welle Best Of Blogs Award in the category Best Blog in French. Although he studies journalism in France at the moment, Yoroba regularly flies back to the Ivory Coast to teach young people the art of blogging. Around 20 people between the age of 18 and 30 participate in his new project avenue 225. Sharing knowledge and experiences is very important, Israël Yoroba says. Tomorrow he will put it into practice as one of the speakers at the DW-panel ‘New Media’ for a New World: Democracy, Development…
“Media is an important element of an open society and currently is in crisis.”
George Soros, Chair of the Soros Fund Management LLC. The billionaire Soros has been active as a philantrophist for decades. In 1993, he founded the Open Society Institute that works to build democraties.
Josè-Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, at the Opening Ceremony
The European Development Days 2009 in Stockholm have started with more than 5.000 participants from 125 countries. At the European Development Days politicians meet scholars, civil society meets business – this year discussing issues of democracy and development, tackling climate change and exchanging views on the global economic downturn. This wide range of ideas and experiences from all over the world, Swedish Crown Princess Victoria says in her welcoming address, will inspire new initiatives.
Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister of Sweden
The world has changed and not just to the better since the last European Development Days in 2008, says Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Prime Minister of Sweden. Especially the global financial crisis had a major impact on people’s lives. So a new economic framework is needed, Reinfeldt says in his opening remarks, as poverty cannot be solved without a functioning economy. However, poverty is also linked to climate change, he continues. The people already living in poverty are also the ones hit hardest by climate change. A call for all states to act as the European Development Days take place just weeks before the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Bringing the world together
Josè-Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, stresses the European Union’s importance as a role model. In a way, he says, the EU is a laboratory for global governance. Most importantly, good governance is impossible without strong citizenship, without the involvement of the people. And for the people of Europe, Barroso says, fighting poverty is crucial.
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