Page 29 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 1 2013

think itʹs a number of things.
Africa has changed greatly
in the last 10‐15 years in a
number of ways. Firstly, the
democratic space that
enables people to be
involved in media and to
have their own voice has changed
greatly. Second, technology has
made a huge contribution ‐ the fall
in technology prices meant that
people were able to set up radio
and TV stations and now of course
online services. Coupled with the
fact of the democratic space opening
up was the legislative aspect which
meant that private operators were
allowed into this space where
before you only had national TV
and radio. Following on from that
you had this great mushrooming of
voices and people making their
views clearly heard on the
multiplicity of outlets that opened.
The third factor is of course
education ‐ a great number of
Africans are increasingly educated
and these people are consumers of
information and media. To give
you an example, in my country
Uganda we used to have only one
university but in the last 20 years
more than 25 degree awarding
institutions have been established.
Places such as Kenya are now
becoming media hubs where
technological developments are
happening to serve that market and
we find innovations like M‐Pesa,
the money transfer system that
addresses a shortage of banking
facilities. It is for a number of those
reasons that you find Africa is
being seen as the place to be.
Are the foreign media players
having an impact?
The big players, be they BBC, RFI
or CNN, are losing market share.
One of the reasons is of course that
people now have alternatives
where before they didnʹt. And what
is more, the new media outlets
address issues that are within your
locality ‐ roads, schools, housing ‐ ,
issues that you can relate to.
The second point is quite a
number of the international media
have been slow to respond
by adding Africa focused
Joel Kibazo does not like
being called an expert on
Africa. After a childhood
spent in Kampala at the
time of Idi Amin, he
remained in close contact
with Africa through his work
as a journalist (Financial
Times, BBC) and diplomat
(Commonwealth
Secretariat) and he now
runs his own Africa-focused
consultancy. We asked him:
what is it about Africa's
potential right now that
gets people so excited?
I
CHALLENGE:
RELEVANCE
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