CIMA Monthly Media Development Funding Update

CIMA Media Blog

One Response to CIMA Monthly Media Development Funding Update

Media Events Calendar

January 11, 2012 Cathie Glover

1 Comment

How are European governments and donors looking at international media development in developing countries?

Although the current economic and budgetary problems in Europe are likely to affect aid spending by some European governments, the largest donors in Europe (for example the European Commission, France, Germany and the UK) are still providing official development assistance (ODA).

One indication of donors’ continued yet modest interest in media support is that UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) fund has seen a modest growth from $1.83m in 2008, to $1.95m in 2009 and to $2.3m in 2011. Another is the growth of the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) line within the European Commission which is dedicated to the promotion of human rights and in which many typical media support projects can be found (e.g. NGOs defending freedom of speech; investigative journalism; freedom of information legislation; strengthening of civil society etc.). The EIDHR budget is growing year on year, projected to disburse $37.3m in 2011 and $51.7m in 2012.

A look at a sample of European countries:

Austria – In the words of an OECD Development Assistance Committee peer review, “the Austrian aid system is fragmented among many institutional actors. Austriadoes not have a consolidated ODA budget; rather at least eight separate ministries fund aid-related activities from their own budgets.” Tracking down a media development budget is consequently extremely difficult but there is evidence that, through its emphasis on governance and human rights, for which it gives over a third of its total budget, the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) indirectly shows a fairly strong commitment to media development: “Good governance [and] … democracy promotion is understood in a very broad sense, comprising participation in planning local infrastructure projects as much as training journalists or promoting free media.”

Belgium – Belgian aid is divided into several sectors one of which is ‘consolidation of society and conflict prevention’ but there is no mention of media development under this ‘topic’, nor in any of the other ‘topics’ covered on the Development Cooperation website. However, the OECD micro data shows several media-support projects.

Denmark – Denmark media support comes largely under the category of ‘Human rights and democratization’ which went from 58.3 million USD in 2008 to – 89.9 Million USD in 2009. In addition for the category ‘Public administration and civil society’ support went from 280.7 million USD in 2008 to 330.4 million USD in 2009. However no specific figure is given for media development.

France – Official Foreign Ministry strategy for 2011 states: “Cooperation policy will encourage access to free and pluralistic media by supporting the professionalization of [the] audiovisual sector.” But no budgetary commitments on the media sector are given, nor, indeed is it seen as a separate sector, and appears to be hidden within ‘encouraging the production and exchange of knowledge and culture.’ For the French Foreign Ministry aid and influence are one and the same, and audio-visuals are seen as a tool for both.[1] The International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) continues to be a major contributor to media support.

Germany – Although Germany has a Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), German ODA is split across several other organizations such as various large foundations such as the Konrad Adenhaur Foundation and other ministries. None of these bodies have a defined media development sector.

A recent survey of German media development cooperation came to the following conclusions:

“Few actors have a major media development budget. However, the investments in media assistance seem to be expanding…only seven organizations participating in this survey have a budget for media development which surpasses Euros 500.000. The Deutsche Welle Akademie (DWA) is by far the “biggest” player in the field.”

Netherlands – Dutch policy does not regard strengthening the media as a goal in itself, but “as a means of helping achieve overall development objectives and of strengthening other cultural and socioeconomic sectors. As such, support to the media [is] seen as an important factor in achieving results in the field of, for example, human rights, development, poverty reduction, democratization, accountability, good governance, peace building, conflict prevention and post-conflict interventions and humanitarian aid.” In 2010 the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs granted a subsidy for five programs that have “specific media components” running from 2011 -2015 entitled Connect4Change.

Portugal – Portugese ODA is currently decreasing due to its own economic difficulties. It also suffers from a fragmented ODA system. Within its fragmented ODA system there is no clear media development sector and there is little evidence of support in this area.

Switzerland -Switzerland continues its support for media development within the sector, which, within Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) is called “Access to information – essential for life” and is further articulated as follows:

“The free flow of information between the state, citizens, civil society, the media, etc. must be guaranteed. All sectors of society should be able to inform themselves freely and fully about all political, economic and social processes affecting them (“Transparency” principle) and to be able to express their opinions about these processes” … “The SDC supports projects in this [access to information] field around the world with a current allocation of around CHF 30 million [$34.7million USD].”

Sweden – Sweden’s total development aid budget for 2011 is about SEK 35,2 billion, which is one percent of GNI. About SEK 17,5 billion of this is administered by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), and another SEK 10 billion is targeted to multilateral support decided upon by the Prime Minister’s Office but channeled through SIDA. SIDA has a strong track record on media support and in 2009 it was approximately USD 30 million.

United Kingdom – For media support, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) gives small grants such as journalism fellowships through its overseas embassies. But the Department for International Development (DFID) is still the biggest source of UK bilateral and multilateral aid. DFID has recently improved the way in which it publishes its statistics so that all projects currently receiving support around the world are posted on a publically accessible website. However, the difficulty inherent in obtaining figures about media support remains the same; media support is almost always hidden within other projects which invariably do not have ‘media’ in their titles.

[1] Presentation by Florence Lemoine-Mineury, NGO GRET, ‘French Media Assistance: Strategies and Lessons Learned’ at conference The Fourth Estate in Democracy Assistance, Forum medien und entwiclung and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Schloss Eicholz, Cologne, Germany, November 2010.

Cathie Glover (26 Posts)

Posted in: Media
Tags: Donors, Europe, Monthly Funding Update

Phil says:

February 6, 2012 at 4:47 pm

Good post Ranil, I agree wraheleohtedly. I’d be interested to hear your opinion on something regarding the “Use Money Efficiently!” point though.Given that a) a great deal of aid is given directly to government institutions and b) government institutions (e.g. Ministry of Education, National Aids Commission in Malawi) are often extremely inefficient in their use of funds and rather poor at transmitting value to the intended recipients, is it possible to significantly improve donor spending efficiency without reducing the role of government as an implementer?The typical response is no, government capacity (if not actual size) should be increased to the point that they can make efficiency improvements themselves. I agree to an extent, but also recognise that sustainable, institutional capacity building is, realistically, a long-term process. Until this process reaches a relatively advanced stage (if indeed it happens at all), enormous amounts of money are wasted due to poor management and poor delivery.

Reply

Facebook

2 Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom 6:00 pm A global struggle for control of the Internet is now underway. At stake are no less than civil liberties, privacy and even the character of democracy in the 21st century. Many commentators have debated whether the Internet is ultimately a force for freedom of expression and political liberation, or for alienation, and repression. It is time to stop arguing over whether the Internet empowers individuals and societies, and address the more fundamental and urgent question of how technology should be structured and governed to support the rights and liberties of all the world’s Internet users. In her timely book, Rebecca MacKinnon warns that a convergence of unchecked government actions and unaccountable company practices is threatening the future of democracy and human rights around the world. Consent of the Networked is a call to action: Our freedom in the Internet age depends on whether we defend our rights on digital platforms and networks in the same way that people fight for their rights and accountable governance in physical communities and nations. It is time to stop thinking of ourselves as passive “users” of technology and instead act like citizens of the Internet – as netizens – and take ownership and responsibility for our digital future. Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom

7 Online Networks and Bottom-Up Politics 4:00 pm Academic and media discourse have long considered the democratising potential of the Internet, and its impact on political engagement. This talk gives an overview of the empirical evidence that supports those claims, paying special attention to what users do online that helps strengthen their political involvement. The talk will start by considering research linking Internet use with offline participation; it then discusses the mechanisms that might be mediating this association, with a focus on the role played by informal interactions and networks. Users expand their social circles online, and peripheral contacts or casual relationships become more consequential. These informal networks activate three mechanisms that are relevant to understanding political engagement. First, they widen exposure to information; second, they encourage public discussion and deliberation; and third, they support new forms of association. This talk concludes with a consideration of what makes online communities successful at activating political engagement, and how their effects can spill over into offline politics. Online Networks and Bottom-Up Politics

14 The Attention Economy and the Economics of Search 4:00 pm The traditional economic problem is one of allocating scarce commodities in the face of infinite desires. Now, in the rapidly emerging information economy, digital goods are anything but scarce; the bits and bytes that make up a news story or music recording can be infinitely and perfectly reproduced at low or zero cost. This wealth of content has given renewed importance to a particular kind of scarcity: the scarcity of attention. This talk will examine the central role of attention in online markets and its economic implications for businesses and consumers. It discusses the centrality of attention in the business models of a broad spectrum of online enterprises, and show how such considerations shape pricing and consumers' end experience. It also examines the role of search engines as important gatekeepers of attention and explains how economic tools are being used to make the online search industry more effective in this function. The Attention Economy and the Economics of Search

21 New Threads in the Global Web of Knowledge 4:00 pm The Internet has fundamentally changed how research is done; from astronomers making vast amounts of data about galaxies available, to literary scholars crowdsourcing the annotation of novels. What impact do these and other changes in research have on the role of academic knowledge in society, and on how the public engages with this knowledge? Contemporary academic research can be found online alongside a range of other sources in searches for information. New Threads in the Global Web of Knowledge

28 The Internet, Web, and Beyond 4:00 pm This talk will discuss the Semantic Web and the ways that it will transform a range of human activities. The premise behind the Semantic Web is that it is a Web, which 'knows' information about its own content, can reason about that content, and can provide more useful services. The Web of texts and images does not have any more knowledge about its own content than a television does about what it is showing. Increasingly targeted and intelligent searches will be possible when content can be accessed more directly, rather than though the search strings of words we currently use. The Internet, Web, and Beyond