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"PenPlusBytes" - 5 new articles

1. EXPERTS GATHER IN GHANA TO DEVELOP IMPROVED STANDARDS FOR AFRICAN ELECTIONS
2. COLLOQUIUM ON AFRICAN ELECTIONS: BEST PRACTICES AND CROSS SECTORAL COLLABORATION
3. African Media Leaders Meet in Lagos
4. Africa Media Leaders Forum(AMLF) Lagos, Nigeria 4-6 November 2009
5. Using ICTs To Cover Mozambique Elections 2009 - African Elections Project leads the way
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EXPERTS GATHER IN GHANA TO DEVELOP IMPROVED STANDARDS FOR AFRICAN ELECTIONS

ACCRA, GHANA – More than 100 practitioners and experts on elections from 25 African countries will convene in Accra Nov. 12-14, to assess recent elections across the continent and develop recommendations for standards that could mitigate conflict and improve election processes. Recommendations from the colloquium will be aimed at enhancing prospects for credible elections in Africa by heightening standards of professionalism among election administration officials, political parties, civic groups, security services and the media.
The Colloquium on African Elections: Best Practices and Cross-Sectoral Collaboration will focus on Ghana's 2008 elections, which were universally viewed as credible despite heated political tensions and a razor-thin margin between the candidates. Participants hope to draw on lessons from the experience in Ghana, where for the second time in less than a decade, political power has
changed hands from the ruling to an opposition party through the ballot box.
Effective collaboration among all sectors of the electoral process helped ease tensions, enhanced transparency and built voter confidence in the election results.
Participants will also explore the differences between the Ghanaian experience and elections in other countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, which experienced gross irregularities, fraud and conflict. They will identify the factors that contributed to different outcomes in each of these cases and discuss how to foster credible elections on the continent based on these case studies.
"This is an opportunity for Africans to reflect on our own experiences and build upon our successes. As a regional initiative, this conference will bolster electoral reformers, and civic and political stakeholders on the continent," said Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, chair of the Electoral Commission in Ghana.
At the conclusion of the colloquium, participants will release a communiqué summarizing their discussions and sharing their recommendations for election standards in Africa.
Co-organizers of the colloquium include the National Democratic Institute, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, International Foundation for Electoral Systems, Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, Open Society Initiative for West Africa and United Nations Development Programme.

Contact: Brittany Danisch, bdanisch@ndi.org, +223 (0) 54 303 6951

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COLLOQUIUM ON AFRICAN ELECTIONS: BEST PRACTICES AND CROSS SECTORAL COLLABORATION

November 11-14, 2009

Accra, Ghana

The International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will co-sponsor  a Colloquium on African Elections from 12‐14 November 2009 in Accra, Ghana. 

The colloquium will review the challenges and best practices in the conduct of elections in Africa, with a particular focus on lessons that could be shared from Ghana's 2008 electoral process.

Approximately 100 participants from 25 African countries will attend the colloquium.  Participants will include elections commissioners, political party leaders, civic advocates, leaders of elections monitoring groups, journalists and high level officials of security services that oversee peace building and law enforcement missions around elections.

The Colloquium on African Elections: Best Practices and Cross-Sectoral Collaboration will seek to address two critical points:

1)    the effective performance of entities involved in the electoral process and

2)    the linkages that should exist among stakeholders, and how to foster cross-sectoral collaboration during elections. 

Examining the strengths and weaknesses of the Ghanaian electoral process and how it compares with other African countries will facilitate sharing knowledge and strengthening linkages among different sectors of the electoral process.  The anticipated outcome of discussions at the colloquium will be to identify guidelines on how to conduct credible elections, ease political tensions, enhance transparency, and facilitate the acceptance of genuine election results by political contestants and their supporters.  Sharing best practices among African practitioners will enhance prospects for democratic elections across the continent and inspire professional conduct among various stakeholders in countries preparing for upcoming elections. The Consortium of organizers are hoping to compile the cases of best practices in elections in Africa and publish on a book form.

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African Media Leaders Meet in Lagos

African Media Leaders Meet in Lagos Focus on Harnessing Power of New Technologies for Media Development LAGOS, Nigeria, November 6, 2009 – Over 185 African media owners' participated in a two-day "African Media Leaders Forum (AMLF)" to discuss practical ways for strengthening Africa's media development and agreed on a charter for the African Media Initiative (AMI), a parent body that is working to improve the media sector across Africa.  "Media have a central role to play in nurturing democracy on the African continent," said Nduka Obaigbena, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of THISDAY, one of Africa's leading newspapers.  "The African Media Leaders Forum is committed to improving the business environment for media and to strengthening skills of African journalists. The Lagos meeting will serve as a launch pad for concerted, collective actions to promote African media development for the benefit of all."  Mr. Nduka is the founding chairman of the AMLF which held its first meeting in Dakar, Senegal, one year ago. The AMLF is the single-largest annual gathering of media owners coming together to discuss development in Africa and the range of cutting-edge issues affecting Africa's media industries, just as the African continent is being buffeted by the global financial crisis, deepening recessionary trends, and the advent of new, social media technologies that are fundamentally altering existing media business models all across the globe.   "The African Media Leaders Forum is a nascent body with an ambitious agenda," said Amadou Mahtar Ba, Acting Executive Director of the African Media Initiative (AMI).  "By convening the Forum in Nigeria, Africa's most populous democracy, we are sending a message that the strengthening of mass media systems is an urgent imperative for societal advancement, and needs the support of governments, business leaders, and civil society." Headlined speakers at the Lagos meeting represented a Who's Who of top print, broadcast, and online journalists, including Sam Amuka (Vanguard, Nigeria), Oh Yeon Ho (Ohmynews, South Korea), Arianna Huffington (The Huffington Post), Charlayne Hunter-Gault (US National Public Radio), Ted Koppel (former anchor, ABC's Nightline news), Tumi Magkabo (of Tumi & Co, formerly with CNN), Trevor Ncube (South Africa's Mail & Guardian), Dele Olojede (Pulitzer Prize winner), and others. "We have urgent business, and that business is development," said Trevor Ncube, Deputy Executive Chairman, Mail & Guardian, addressing his peers.  "Our role is to ensure that we participate in creating a marketplace of ideas and that media is perceived as an integral partner of the development process."

The Lagos meeting focused on six critical areas with a view to developing shared literacy of the issues, and spurring collective action: Impact of new media technologies on the practice of journalism across Africa drawing on lessons of experience from other parts of the world; Need for new business models that are necessary to grow and sustain Africa's media industries; Finance for African media development including access to venture capital, mitigating political risk through innovative guarantee mechanisms, and creating capacity so that media industries have broader access to various sources of capital; Lining mass media to the overall governance agenda in Africa and exploring ways in which the functioning of the fourth estate can be improved; Monetizing  media content for the development agenda, and exploring the challenges and opportunities for creating a value-added, sustainable source of revenue, and Positioning the African Media Initiative (parent body of the AMLF) as a broad-based partnership for improving the African media sector and landscape.   An overarching objective of the Lagos meeting was to explore ways in which the voices of the vast majority of Africans can be better mobilized to create a new narrative that is centered on wealth creation, away from the stereotypical view that emphasizes problems and deficiencies at the expense of opportunity.  The AMLF participants, representing the continent's influential thinkers and doers, have a key role to play in transforming the one-dimensional image that shortchanges Africa into the more complex image that the continent deserves. "New media are opening up new opportunities to expand the dialogue on the role of media in sustainable development across Africa," said Eric Chinje, Manager, Africa Region External Affairs, The World Bank.  "Now, more than ever before, is the time to create a new wealth narrative that can help improve the everyday lives of millions of Africans who yearn for economic opportunity, knowledge, and cultural expression." In keeping with the times, the proceedings and discussions of the AMLF meeting in Lagos were tweeted, twittered, and broadcast live on social media websites including www.twitter.com/allafrica. The full proceedings, including the charter of the African Media Initiative, is available on www.amlf2009.org Media contact: Tendai Mhizha, AMLF Forum Director, +234 70 693 81691, +27 82 9001 204, tendai@africanmediainitiative.org Additional Press Links: http://www.infosplusgabon.com/article.php3?id_article=4076  http://www.infosplusgabon.com/article.php3?id_article=4075

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Africa Media Leaders Forum(AMLF) Lagos, Nigeria 4-6 November 2009

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Using ICTs To Cover Mozambique Elections 2009 - African Elections Project leads the way

                                      Press Release

For immediate release

Maputo, Mozambique, October 28^th 2009

As Mozambicans heads to the polls today Wednesday 28^th October to elect president, legislators and provincials leaders, African Elections Project (AEP) is covering this election at its flagship website: www.africanelections.org/mozambique , via twitter at http://twitter.com/mozambiquevotos, providing SMS service powered by frontlinesms and also watching the media through its media monitoring system. Mozambique coverage comes after AEP's successful coverage of Botswana's 10^th general election which took place October 16 2009. In Southern Africa, AEP is also scheduled to cover Namibia's elections www.africanelections.org/namibia   from 28th to 29th November 2009 as well. The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa www.osisa.org is providing funding for these countries coverage.

Ruling party, Frenmte de Libertação de Moçambique FRELIMO (the Liberation Front of Mozambique) candidate and sitting President Armando Guebuza is running for a second term and is highly expected to win. FRELIMO since the country independence in 1975 has dominated Mozambican political space. For the opposition parties, longtime opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama from Resistência Nacional de Moçambique(RENAMO) Mozambican National Resistance, is a strong contender in this race. The third largest opposition party Movimento Democrático de Moçambique(MDM) Mozambique Democratic Movement is also contesting the polls with Davis Simango as its presidential candidate.

Prior to the elections coverage, AEP in conjunction with its partners, Media Institute For Southern Africa (MISA) www.misa.org  Mozambique held a two-day workshop aimed at equipping journalists with cutting edge Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) skills in elections coverage in Maputo from 6-8 October 2009.

AEP was established in 2008 to empower journalists to cover elections using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) across the continent. After a successful take-off in Ghana, Cote d' Ivoire, Mozambique, Malawi and Guinea, AEP also launched its Namibia phase of the project in Windhoek on 13th October 2009.

The African Elections Project is coordinated by Ghana based International Institute for ICT Journalism (www.penplusbytes.org) working hand in hand with key partners.

Signed

Egidio Vaz Raposo

Associate Editor

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