Purposes of the Round table
The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) hosted the first Roundtable on Community Media for Sustainable Development on November 21, in Marrakesh, Morocco.
The purpose of the Roundtable was to facilitate an open dialogue among key stakeholders in the communications and development sectors concerning the achievement and monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals. It also aimed as a preparation for the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) which will be held on November 2005, in Tunisia.
The discussions focused on Community Radios in Africa, with contributions and insights from Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. AMARC’s initiative was to create a Task Force leading to the constitution of a Development Fund for Community Radio in Africa.
For more information you can contact Sophie Toupin at sophie.toupin@amarc.org.
Organisers of the Roundtable:
Final Declaration of the Roundtable
Marrakesh, 21 November 2004
We, community media practitioners and stakeholders, meeting in Marrakesh, the 21 November 2004, at the first Round Table on Community Media and Sustainable Development;
Recognising that Community Media, that is media which are independent, communitydriven and civil society based, have a particular role to play in enabling access and participation for all to information and communications, especially the poorest and most marginalized communities;
Noting growing recognition of the crucial contribution that community media can make to the achievement of the goals of the Millennium Declaration and that Community Media can be vital enablers of information, voice, and capacities for dialogue; Recognising that legal, regulatory and policy frameworks that protect and enhance community media are especially critical for ensuring vulnerable groups access to information;
Call on Governments to ensure that legal frameworks for community media are nondiscriminatory and provide for equitable allocation of frequencies through transparent and accountable mechanisms;
Call for targets to be established for the opening up of broadcast licensing to allow for the operation of community broadcasting where this is not currently permitted; Insist that spectrum planning and regulation should ensure sufficient spectrum and channel capacity, and appropriate technical standards, for community media to develop in both the analogue and digital environment;
Call for a donor c ivil society partnership to invest in and support community-driven information and communication initiatives, using traditional media and new ICTs including projects that make provision for the poorest communities, for cultural and linguistic diversity and for the equal participation of women and girls;
Propose that this should include:
- Engagement of community media expertise in planning for media and ICT
investment around development,
- inclusion of a community media element in all ICT investment,
- establishment of a Development Fund for Community Radio in Africa,
- encouragement of national level funds for community media support;
And agree to establish a Task Force on Funding and Resourcing Community Media to take forward these proposals and to evaluate their implementation.
For more information download the following documents:
- Letter of Announcement
- Agenda
- Equipment Fund for Africa
- Concept paper
- Closing Declaration of the Round Table
- Notes on the discussion
- Power Point Presentation on Community Radio & The Millennium Declaration
Marrakech International Conference
Role and place of Media in the Information Society in Africa and Arab States
The Marrakesh conference was held in Morrocco, Marrakesh on November 22-24 as a follow-up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
To read the final declaration visit Orbicom website at www.orbicom.uqam.ca
This conference was organized jointly by the Ministry of Communication and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Telecommunications of Morocco, and by ORBICOM, the International Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication. The Marrakech Conference was intended as a follow-up meeting to the 1st phase of the WSIS (Geneva 2003) and as a preparatory meeting for the 2nd phase (Tunis 2005).