On May 2, a day before World Press Freedom Day 2008, I received an e-mail message from Internews Network, an NGO that specializes in media development around the world. The message promotes a new public service announcement (PSA) featuring Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaking on behalf of a group called 
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a viewing and panel discussion of a documentary film entitled Magic Radio: The FM Revolution in Niger at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C. Mainly about the contribution of private FM radio toward enhancing grassroots democracy, the film also illustrates radio’s efficacy in publicly promoting development issues, particularly in the areas of health, education, and gender. The subsequent panel featured Mark Nelson, Tia Duer, and Ajay Tejasvi of The World Bank Institute (WBI), who expanded the scope of discussion to include the following points: the importance of carrying out tec 
For those of us who grew up in developing countries, political discourse about poverty is an everyday thing. Political campaigns in the Philippines, for example, place poverty upfront and center. Candidates for local posts, such as barangay (village) councilor, all the way up to the highest office in the archipelago invariably campaign on poverty issues. For instance, memorable slogans from relatively recent elections include "para sa mahirap" ("for the poor") and "pagkain sa bawat mesa" ("food on every table"). Not at all surprising in developing country contexts where poverty and inequality are so ubiquitous.
For the past few weeks, the Philippine media have been intensely focused on a controversy regarding a foreign loan meant to fund the creation of the National Broadband Network (NBN), a project envisioned to seamlessly link all government offices across the archipelago via the Internet. Whistleblower Jun Lozada alleged in a senate committee hearing that a former high level official was poised to receive $130 million in kickbacks, a claim that has been repeatedly denied. Last November 2007, CommGAP organized a workshop entitled Generating Genuine Demand with Social Accountability Mechanisms in Paris, France. Since then, we have been reflecting on the word “accountability” and what it really means in the work of governance. I recently recalled that Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson defines the term in the context of political campaigns as candidates (and I would add officials and elites in other public settings) speaking in their own voices, thus keeping themselves open to challenge and criticism. Simply put, the essence of accountability in political discourse is being answerable to others for what one says in public.
UNESCO's International Programme for the Development of Communication recently developed a framework for assessing the state of media around the world. This framework is comprised of a set of indicators that are meant to help diagnose the media's overall health, primarily at the national level. The document grounds this effort by citing the sector’s global mandate enshrined in Article XIX of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that every person has rights to freedom of opinion, expression, and information.
Thu, 21/02/2008
Thu, 07/02/2008
