JOINT STATEMENT BY PARTICIPANTS IN BOSTON
UNIVERSITY AFRICAN PRESIDENTIAL ROUNDTABLE 2005
(Boston, Mass.) — Eleven African former heads of state Wednesday
concluded the African Presidential Roundtable 2005, sponsored by Boston
University’s African Presidential Archives and Research Center (APARC), with the
following joint statement:
This has been an enormously productive
transcontinental initiative. We started in Johannesburg, where the focus for our
deliberations was the Commission for Africa Report and discussions about
Africa's image in the American media. Both are matters of critical importance to
Africa's continued growth and development. In Boston, we have been looking at
the compatibility of initiatives like the UN Millennium Development Goals and
the Commission for Africa Report with NEPAD, which is Africa’s own plan for its
aspirations.
If our deliberations were to be summarized in a word, that
word would be accountability.
We acknowledge the need for African
leadership to be accountable relative to matters like good governance, peace and
stability, and transparency in our economies. The good news, according to the
briefing we received on NEPAD: Africa is making significant and important
strides in the area of good governance, peace and stability and transparency in
our economies. African leadership is being more accountable.
If
initiatives like the UN Millennium Development Goals, the Commission for Africa
Report, and the Millennium Challenge Account are going to be worth more than the
paper they are written on, then the West is also going to need to be accountable
relative to its commitments to partner with Africa.
Accountability by
the West, in the partnership to improve Africa’s condition, means a couple of
things. Beyond the right words and mix of policies, the urgent question, at the
end of the day is: Where does the money come from? To advance the
recommendations like those contained in the various reports, the nations of the
G-8 must step up to the plate. It is the responsible and right thing to do. It
is the responsible thing to do because Africa continues to lag behind the rest
of the world in terms of development. It is the right thing to do because Africa
has driven the growth and development of the rest of the world for centuries.
Historically, Africa has been central to the global economy — from
providing the slave labor that developed the new world and enriched the old
world to providing col-tan, the essential mineral in making the computer chips
necessary to drive this 21st century high-tech global economy. Africa's
importance to global commerce and development is unquestionable. The issue is,
will Africa ever benefit from its contribution to the global economy as much as
the world benefits? Africa's turn is long overdue.
The other focus of our
deliberations was Africa's image in the American media. This has profound
relevance to everything — including the world considering Africa as a worthy
investment venue and viewing Africa as a valuable trading partner. Today, we
call on the media to be more fair and balanced in its coverage of Africa.
We spent a good part of the day examining the record of coverage of some
America's most distinguished publications — The New York Times, The Washington
Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and U.S. News & World Report. We
reviewed their coverage of the continent over a 10-year period — from 1994 to
2004. We found their coverage of the continent to be anything but fair and
balanced.
For example, in South Africa (under the leadership of the
present government and that led by Nelson Mandela) the country has had the
longest period of sustained economic growth in its history. That story has yet
to be told in the detail in which South Africa's problems are
covered.
The record of coverage of other parts of the continent is
equally abysmal. One of the more notable areas of progress on the continent over
the last 10 years has been in education. Yet, it was the smallest category
covered with only 20 articles.
APARC's [Boston University’s African
Presidential Archives and Research Center] State of Africa Report 2003
highlighted some of the noteworthy achievements in education: A literacy rate in
Botswana of 90 percent, the enrollment of an additional 1.7 million children in
primary education in Kenya, the rise of persons in teaching training colleges in
Ghana to 8,500 from a low of 6,000 in the year 2000, and the construction of
more than 600 new classrooms over that past year in Malawi.
These, or
similar gains from 1994 to 2004, were not reported in the more than 2,700
articles surveyed from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street
Journal, USA Today, or U.S. News & World Report.
The findings of this
(and other) surveys indicate that coverage of Africa, by the leading sources of
American media is, at best, dismissive of the continent's progress and
potential, and thus leading to continued "exotification" and marginalization of
the African continent. At worst, coverage disregards recent trends toward
democratization, thus betraying an almost contemptuous lack of interest in the
potential and progress being achieved on the continent.
Underneath the
present major American media coverage are buried stories of untold and
unpublished growth, reform and sustainability. While this survey was not
intended to establish a causal relationship between perceptions about Africa and
the preponderance of negative coverage of the continent's democracies, it is
logical and reasonable to conclude that there is such a correlation between
negative coverage and negative perceptions. Furthermore, it is reasonable to
posit that negative perceptions lead to negative outcomes, namely, lower levels
of aid and lower levels of investment. This area is so important.
We
would like to highlight three recommendations coming out of our deliberations:
Recommendation 1 — African countries, and institutions like the
African Union, need to develop a set of strategies to counter the negative media
portrayal of Africa. Included among the initiatives that should be considered
are: Developing alternative mediums through which to tell Africa's story;
developing a multimedia campaign to counter Africa's negative image in the
western press; and developing a strategy for engaging major media outlets, like
those identified in the survey we reviewed, in order to encourage more fair and
balanced coverage of the continent.
Recommendation 2 — A plan
should be devised to encourage more American NGOs and non-commercial media
forums to create new paradigms for training Western and African journalists
covering emerging African democracies.
Recommendation 3 — A
strategy must be developed to encourage leading American schools of journalism
and journalism organizations to develop specific tracks for covering emerging
economies and developing democracies, particularly in Africa.
We raise
this concern about how Africa is covered not because we don't appreciate the
need for a critical and sceptical press as a guarantor of democracy. Our
complaint is the sceptical and critical coverage does not have to be cynical.
Our point is simple: Tell Africa's whole story. The problems in African
countries deserve to be brought under the light of public scrutiny; but the
continent's progress and potential also deserve to see the light of
day.
The Mulindwas Communication Group "With
Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in
anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans
l'anarchie"
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