 Y Ffwrdd leif character a Feithdorydd yng Nghymru The Africa Centre means heaven, a place in London Where you can experience the best of Africa It's a hub, it's a gathering of people who have common interest in the African continent There is an African Renaissance, in arts, in culture and music In the film industry and we feel that the Africa Centre going forward should be the hub should be the leading place that would showcase I would say the innovative creativity of the continent as it is today. It has always been a meeting point for both Africans in Africa and also Africans in the diaspora. So the legacy of the African Centre is a very important one. The future will involve more business related activities for the Africa Centre. There's a whole new African entrepreneur coming up and we want to engage with them. We want to deal with corporates. Corporates obviously Africa now. People keep talking about Africa rising. Of course it's a little bit of a tired phrase. But the corporates are very interested in Africa so we want also to be a bridge, a business bridge to Africa from the corporate world in the Europe, in US and China. So the African Centre needs to be a hub of business and cultural activity, a centre for people to engage with. Changing the face, vibe, perspective that many people have about Africa into a positive one. So I am happy to be part of that. I think festivals like this are absolutely essential in representing Africa in London because the news portrays Africa as very needy, lots of wars and things like that. There are many challenges but it's not the only thing. There are amazing things happening in Africa and amazing arts and amazing culture. That's what we should be celebrating because when you go to Africa that's what you see. Thank you Henry. Good afternoon, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. It gives me immense pleasure to be here today, really, really deep pleasure to participate in a conference on such a live and important issue as the need for the change in narrative about the African continent. I'm proud and honoured to be participating today, first of all as an African myself, affected by the thorny issues of how the world perceives us. And secondly as a representative of the Africa Centre, a co-sponsor of today's event. The title of this session after March's deliberation, changing the conversation was chosen by Catelyn from Soaz and myself to reflect the Africa Centre's role today in changing perceptions of Africa within the UK. Over the past 50 years the relevance of the Africa Centre has evolved from being a major forum on pan-African activism in the UK in the 70s, the 80s, promoting and championing struggles for independence, to becoming a platform for promoting Africa's cultural diversity and socio-economic development in the 80s and 90s. Now in the 21st century the Africa Centre recognises its great potential to become an ideological hub, a space in which African innovation and development can and should converge. The Africa Centre should be and is a facilitator for fostering the exchange of ideas and debate and nurturing the creativity that is transforming and powering the continent into a force to be reckoned with and respected on the global stage. The Africa Centre must, with greatest respect to its past, look to the future now and serve the interests of the current and future generations. By that I mean myself and my children and your children and yourselves. Serve the interests of those of us who are outside the continent and who need to be heard, seen and recognised as contributors with an equal stake in shaping the next 50 years both of the Africa Centre and of Africa. Let's set about changing the conversation just as we are starting to do today. Each of us should leave here today making a commitment as we have done at the Africa Centre to influence and transform that negative and stereotypical image of our continent, of poverty, hunger and war, by showcasing our talent, our entrepreneurship, our good citizenship, our bold innovation so that it becomes a norm rather than the exception, not just a feel good once in a while news story, but a consistent theme that Africa is truly, forgive the cliché, truly rising. Now in researching this controversial topic of the negative reporting, I'm not a journalist by the way, I'm a lawyer, so when I was asked to come and participate I thought well let me find out online about what's been said, what's been debated. What are the experts saying about the way the media is reporting Africa? And I found a whole host of online newspaper articles. It's been debated for the past ten years, I was surprised. I was surprised that it's been debated and we've made some progress, but in my opinion not enough. And there again I see a role for the Africa Centre. Now one particular article that I will quote from, and I will, so I'm not accused of plagiarism, give due recognition to the journalist Remy Adikoya, who published an article on the 20th of November 2013 in The Guardian Online, and made very few pertinent observations which really resonated with me personally, as someone who's living and has lived in the UK for 20 years. I quote, Africans living abroad fret about the perception of their continent and its inhabitants because their future often depends on the opinions of Africa, held by those in the countries in which they reside. I'm Nigerian, and I remember 10, 15 years ago the FT was running an article about how a lot of the credit card scams and frauds were being perpetrated by Nigerians, or not only Nigerians, but mostly Nigerians and the forever Nigerians. And therefore Nigerians who worked in the finance industry started to take to a British and actually hide the fact of who they were because they stereotyped us as people who were only good at one thing. The other quote I will say is each major news item presenting Africa in a negative light is viewed by Africans as something that will make their working lives that bit harder. And again, take the recent media coverage about the Ebola virus outbreak in three countries, in Guinea, in Sierra Leone, in Liberia, in West Africa. Now that coverage on the, I would say, responsible media coverage in the US caused havoc in the lives of Africans living and working in that country. And those are just little examples of what Africans have to experience in their day-to-day lives, really because of the media's narrative, and that media may be the international media, may be the domestic African media, but it's still a problem that we take home and sleep with and wake up with every morning. Let's be honest, Africa like the rest of the world has its own challenges, but these are not the only stories to be told. The same newspaper article commented, the continent currently has no microphone of its own on the global stage. No loudspeaker with which to tell its stories, the wait wants them to be told. It has to wait in line, hoping others lends its theirs from time to time. That won't do. The Africa Centre today is uniquely placed to be that microphone, to be that loudspeaker for the continent on the global stage, starting within the UK. We are the focal point at the Africa Centre for a dynamic international Africa and will always seek to raise the profile of Africans by providing a meeting place where ideas and endeavours can be exchanged and celebrated. When I say we, I mean everyone of us in this room because we are all the Africa Centre. How will the Africa Centre play a role in changing the conversation? Our programming will reflect innovation in arts, culture, music, film and fashion. Our flagship annual Africa Summer Festival in Covent Garden is fast becoming the most attended event for those wishing to experience first hand the best of Africa's talent. By nurturing excellence and entrepreneurship, particularly in the air creative sector, we are proud supporters of the annual African Creative Industry Summit. By supporting initiatives such as today, aimed at raising the profile of Africa whilst engaging in constructive debate on critical issues, that still hinder socio-economic development. We are proud supporters in today's event and really are grateful for the opportunity given to us by SOAS and by RAZ to participate and be really, really part of the conversation and will continue to hold this space responsibly from this day onward. We also are proud supporters of TEDx and we've done that for two years in a row. The Africa Centre will continue to listen, communicate and engage with stakeholders, with our friends, our audience and all of those who have a genuine interest in the advancement of the African continent to ensure we keep our finger on the pulse of change to remain relevant to the conversation. We already see that young Africans are using social media to challenge negative stereotypical images of Africa. They reflect badly on us all and we thank them for it and we follow their lead. The Africa Centre is actively engaging in this changing conversation online and will continue to provide the much needed platform and loudspeaker for all of you and myself and our children and all those young activists out there for the new and rising Africa Centre in the 21st century. I'm going to just end on a proverb if you've got a copy of our brochure which if you haven't I hope you will pick up from the desk outside. It's just a brochure that tells you a bit about our story and hopefully will encourage you to participate in the journey that we're on. The proverb in our brochure says if you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. We recognise the next 50 years of the Africa Centre is a journey we need to embark on collectively. Together we are stronger. We also acknowledge that only irreversible economic development can transform global perceptions about African countries. A final quote from that same newspaper article. Nothing burnishes reputation quite as quickly as success. Thank you very much. A lot of people, especially in this room will have memories of the Africa Centre and then they're not quite clear, perhaps not till the last few minutes, what it's going to become, which direction it's going to go. Are we saying that rather than focusing on a building which people were doing for a long time, it's now about supporting and enabling African initiatives especially in the creative industries or well-meaning conferences like this? Is that what the future is going to really be about? It's about both. I'm African. I live in London. My children are growing up here. We do need to support the initiatives. We do need to be part of the conversation. But we need a place to gather. Just as the Africa Centre, I didn't study here in the 60s what I guess my parents did and most people will talk with nostalgia about going there and meeting friends and being that home away from home. The point is though that there are a lot of places in London that experience African food, African music and shows there to film. So in those days, it was probably the only place. But we still need a gathering place. We need a hub, a place to come together to exchange ideas. First of all, it would be more economical for various institutions and organisations to have one place, one home where they can come and use together and share the costs and that's an economic factor. But at the same time, we need a building we can put our stamp on and a building and a place that we can call home. What kind of building are you thinking of? Because I remember with the BCA Heritage, formerly Black Cultural Archives, which is in Brixton, people were wondering about what that place that they now have, the Raleigh Hall, should do. Because it goes up quite high but it doesn't go out very far. If you remember the old Africa Centre, of course, it was a very tall building but very, very narrow. So it was strictly what you could do in terms of performances, in terms of gallery space, etc. Form on content, what are you thinking? Again, the building has to fit our vision. I hope I have articulated it enough sufficiently today but it has to be fit for purpose building. When you travel on the continent of Africa today, you will find amazing spaces for experiencing art, food, hotels and there's no reason why a building in London should not be as befitting and as special as some of the spaces that we can find in Dakar, in Nairobi, in Lagos, in Johannesburg. So we've got to make it a building that works for the Africans who want to use it who have a choice. That's one thing London gives us a lot more choice. London is so culturally diverse. You don't have to be stuck in one postcode to find Africa. So we've got to make it a place that everyone wants to come to but a place that can house small enough events. I mean we can't compete with the South Bank or the Barbican but we want to be able to have intimate meetings, book readings, we want to have lectures, we want to have talks like this, 100, 150 people but we want space again to be financially sustainable, we can hire out, we can make into smaller rooms, bigger spaces, we can use for other things apart from our own programmes and we can also invite other institutions who are Africa-focused and other businesses who are Africa-focused to come in and have meetings and conferences as well. So multi-use is the thing that provides this place, that is it, it will become a destination. Do you have a borer in mind? I mean my own borer of Lombard is welcoming to Africans, I mean there are many of us there for a while. If you don't like SW9, you can try South Acasipos there's lots of Nigerians there if you feel welcome. You know those are borers that we are looking at. Really? Absolutely because you know London again, Central London was two or three post codes. Central London now is, now I've discovered myself, where the White Cube Gallery is, Bermondsy, London Bridge is Central London, Borough Market is, Camden is, borers like you mentioned are all part of where we are looking. Also with the cost of real estate one needs to make sure that the building that is financially sustainable that's not going to be paying for our air so something we can't maintain but yes, we also need a building I think one of the reasons things I feel very strongly about for the Africa Center to be is not a home for Africans but a place where non-Africans who have no knowledge and have never interacted with Africa or Africans can find easily, can get off the tube and it might be in a destination and they're on their way somewhere and they think wow what's this building and that's what the Covent Garden summer festival has become. The first year we held it I was standing there just sort of American tourists, French tourists I speak French, sort of saying wow what's going on here, you know London is amazing we're coming to Covent Garden to the Apple Store we didn't think we'd find Africa here and that's, you know we want us to be everywhere and in everybody's faces and people who don't normally see us interact with us and that's how we can change that perception because if they've only seen the negative news on TV and suddenly they see this amazing African fashion designer or artists or young musician they're going to also understand like you said earlier that there are two sides to every story and so we need it to be in a place where people can get to and that's the most important, but London does have transport links so we're looking at various post codes. Tremendous, obviously for a long time people were going on and talking, you know with great passion and feeling about the building I think everyone accepts that that story has gone and moved to something else so people are now wondering okay so we need to hear the Africa Centre, they need to be louder they need to be where everybody knows what they're doing and that the building is only part of it what about shouting much more loudly about Africa about Africans in the UK, about who we are and what we're doing? Absolutely and shouting online we have a great team a small team at the moment who are also younger than I am and who have actually educated us very much about the virtues of the online conduit and platform and so that's one area where the Africa Centre was totally absent up to now and we're exploring that space so online, social media but definitely being part of events supporting where we can participating but really being part of the conversation that as far as we're concerned is showcasing the contemporary the good news about Africa. I think there's a lot of other people showing the bad news the bad news will talk about the debate and analyse, we'll try and give our own solutions but I think we want to focus more on the good news Fantastic so when the Nigerian election takes place next month can I expect to see you on news night discussing it Evan Davis It may not be me Henry don't forget I'm a trustee it's not a full time job but what we are doing is we are as much as possible ensuring that we can reach out and form partnerships with other bodies with other institutions, with other leaders people who are experts in areas that you know, ostrosies are not and it may be that we invite them and ask them to speak and localise some of the thoughts or lead the debate that we want to be part of because we're not going to reinvent the wheel but we want to just make sure that we facilitate and support and push forward on certain areas that we think are key as Africans. Fantastic and the money you recoup to what the sale of the building is being managed well by some excellent fund managers, yes? We're there and we're pretty being very prudent, finding a building is one, a building that will be financially sustainable, ensuring that there's good financial management around whatever funds we have and building an endowment fund and that's the future of the Africa Centre Thank you very much indeed Thank you very much What a day it's been Absolutely fantastic Last night I had I didn't kind of wake up about 4am and think oh dear but I've been absolutely delighted it's been really inspiring and of course there are a lot of questions that have been left resonating in my mind and I think there are things that a generation ago that some of them would have probably have been asked but some of them are within those questions are possibly some potential solutions some positive narratives that we might be able to tie together to weave together into something that hopefully will create a momentum that we can go away with and that's what I'm hoping from this plenary that we can begin to do and it's going to be about you we're hoping that this will be an opportunity for more questions but also potentially some solutions, some suggestions from the floor and we've got a fantastic panel, we welcome back Bimpay but also Catherine Sylvie Agnes Agnes Ola and Magnus and I mean it's been a great day What will you take away from today Agnes? It's their money, our story Okay so from here what I think sort of I've taken today is about connectivity, the African diaspora, investment and development of the African media but also innovation if we are to make any sense if we are to contribute to the African narrative, the rising story we must be innovative that all media is dying so we must come with new ways of telling our story but it will take each one of us and I think another very important thing that the media has filled is to sort of be part of the integration Africa is selling itself as one economic block can we have one block the African media but it will take a lot of us, it will take us investing in African media and also Africans consuming the African story so we must be able if I'm looking for a story about African investment I don't have to go to the FT, can I go to the to the Kenyan media or to the Nigerian media to learn about Africa so investment and quality reporting for me And Sylvia do you get a sense that there are the constituent parts to actually make that possible, I mean I can imagine that there is of course the will but is there the infrastructure, is there the means? Yes I think there are basic problems here I do not see I haven't seen an awareness of the fact that the media are actually crucial to development the fact is we heard a lot about people complaining about the marginalization of African journalists and African topics in mainstream western media that's true but we also have a lot of professionals of African descent from whom we heard today I think rather than focus on the problems we still have we need to ensure that we use the human and other resources we already have to contribute to the development of Africa and African communities and we must understand that it's not enough to report on Boko Haram or report on words in Africa and so on and so on that is while Africa is burning I believe that we Africans and African diaspora must understand that we have a duty and an opportunity in the 21st century to ensure that we develop, protect and build the African continent and African communities that have been abused by others and also the African elites for many many centuries I know it's a heavy burden but I tell you this we will not be sitting here today if an African journalist had not taken up that burden and fulfilled his duty that journalist was called Joseph Casely Hefford and I am not mentioning him just because his wonderful grandson happens to be chairing this meeting the fact is it was at a simple conference like this one in 1912 that he and Booker T Washington decided to actively promote Pan-Africanism and we know what Pan-Africanism has done for Africa and the African diaspora and what above all a big generator of news it was throughout the 20th century and my point is less fulfilled our duty towards Africa and the African continent and African communities in the diaspora as well if we want to generate stories that are of interest to the media and the world and I know you mentioned the lack of means with due respect I do not believe at all that there is any problem with financial resources and as I was saying earlier please do not mistake me for one of these millionaires who tell people poor people that money is not going to make them happy I I speak to you I speak to you as the director of the policy center for African peoples which operates from a shed in her garden in the Kent countryside and that shed also doubles as her gym because she does not yet have the infrastructure she needs to operate in Central London which is her M but from that shed I help the African union raise over 100 million dollars 100 million dollars in three weeks in order to combat Ebola in West Africa just by picking up the phone and lobbing business people all over the world so it can be done it can be done Sylvie is my new best friend if there is potentially that money I know it's going to be difficult to leverage to prize out of the hands of the people who have it but what needs to be done on the continent and also beyond to make the necessary changes so that we can create really sustainable change I think Barrett, the African media faces a lot of challenges that are the same as the media all over the world they have challenges around finding profitable business models finding advertising revenue and an increasingly competitive space they also face the business challenges that many other businesses in Africa face and how do they get reliable internet how do they have reliable power supply how can they get good telephone lines in in order to be able to carry out those interviews so I think there's a tremendous amount that needs to be done but I think there are a lot of initiatives that have been set up which are trying to address those issues at Africa practice which is the company that I work for which is a communications consultancy there are a couple of players in the private sector who are trying to do their bit as investors in Africa to give something back to the media which is such a critical voice on the continent so for example Bloomberg which I think was being discussed quite a bit today in terms of their reporting but they also have a foundation called Bloomberg Philanthropies which has just launched a big program to train financial journalists in Nigeria, South Africa and in Kenya in recognition of the fact that in order to be able to do good business and financial reporting you need to be able to read a balance sheet you need to be able to understand statistics you need to be able to know which databases to go to to find out the information that you need and I think that kind of targeted programming that really focuses on skills is really an essential element and I think it's important that it's not forgotten about in the rush to focus too much on representation and narratives which is important but actually day to day skills and business models are just as important as the message that's being delivered And Magnus do you think there are other things that could be done to build capacity to create sustainability Yeah I agree with much of what you've just said Catherine I think one of the key points is creating a vision of what a sustainable domestic journalism system looks like in many African countries I don't know if this has been mentioned much today but many journalists in African countries can't really afford to be journalists or journalists exclusively as their only job because the pay is so bad I work with a really interesting organisation called the I work for the Royal African Society but we collaborate with an organisation called the David Aster Journalism Awards Trust which takes really great young journalists in East Africa and brings them over to the UK helps develop their careers with the intention of giving them opportunities to write internationally where the money is better than often they'll get for a developing career in one of the East African countries in which they work but this is a great initiative but I always think it looks externally and what we need to be doing is to creating sustainable careers within the region rather than constantly looking outside of the region for the better money the problem is particularly in this changing media world is that newspapers particularly don't make money which we've mentioned earlier and we're going to have to think innovatively through how people consume news and consume analysis maybe through micro payments via their mobile phone innovation in East Africa so I think there are lots of opportunities now to make this new media environment sustainable both in Africa and globally but people are going to have to really think creatively about that and not just stick to the old model of news consumption and production that is being essentially phased out at the moment It's an interesting new model that seems to be taking shape Ola, do you feel optimistic about that? Very much so I was a journalist in the 80s and I'm now a scholar so I know what it means to actually experience practicing in an atmosphere that sometimes is very very hostile What I want to say for the future is that journalism has got a future there's no doubt about it but Africans have to change their conceptual map of Africa the way we perceive Africa and you could be in Africa and actually not know Africa very well because growing up in Nigeria in the 60s, 70s and things like that I actually valued western ideas and concepts and way of life more than I did in Nigeria and thanks to the Russians actually because I went I got a scholarship and my scholarship took me to Moscow State University and after learning the Russian language the first thing they asked me was tell us about your culture I was in my mid 20s and I knew nothing about my culture so that was a big shock so getting over that so we need to change our conceptual map and based on the question that you've raised today it is their money and the story is ours however it is being told from an ideological and cultural lens which is not ours is it a point and Tabouim Beke actually made a statement about 10 years ago and said the African media have to actually redefine African narrative and we should now begin to do a lot of that the technology has given us the means to do that you know our now study because I've been living outside of Africa for almost 30 years now and I felt let me study African media within the diaspora you see the point so for those of you who have not seen my book before this is very good what newspapers films and television do Africans living in Britain see and read so you could get a copy from the Amazon and that's focusing on the Africans and then the editor of one of the newspapers that I actually you know study Mr Michael Biola the editor of African Voice is here I invited him yesterday I said I'm coming to London so it's an incredible moment for things to happen what I will throw to the to the floor as food for thought is what is the role of the Africans in the diaspora in making things happen you see because there is a big gap there then the second thing is that what is the role of the African diasporic journalists and their media in also changing the perception of Africa I will leave that to the floor so that we can there is also a question that you might want to answer because aren't those the questions that are pretty core to the the remit of the Africa Centre? Absolutely, I mean speaking on behalf of this is where in the third sector here so this is a charity but at the same time we recognise that there is a need for some you know leadership in trying to to look at what the next steps are because when I was speaking earlier I was very concerned about the fact that like I said I researched online and there's been a lot of debate and conferences and talk shops about this same topic over the last ten years and I didn't realise that we hadn't made that much progress so someone somewhere has to together with someone like Sylvie in her Kent hot needs to champion this and move things forward because I really would like to in a year or two be again an audience in a conference like this saying now this is what has happened since that last time. Now where can the Africa Centre fit in, what can we do and I see a role a role in this even through the third sector it may not be obviously in funding or investing in TV channels or in newspapers but I would look at the same way that we have an audience of Africans in diaspora who are working in various sectors in film in media and in business there is an opportunity here for us to leverage the Africa Centre's audience and contacts to perhaps look for a way of supporting investigative journalism and I think even if part of that big piece of cake that we need to sort of allot responsibility for one part for me is having some more human interest stories good feeling part of, somebody mentioned earlier bringing the history of Africa into mainstream journalism whether through fiction on fact or a blend of both just to educate our generation and the ones coming afterwards. Now if we were able to support some way of raising funds for a grant of some sort to get a good investigation journalism grants out there on an animal basis to support some good stories that I think will help in changing the narrative. In the financial and business sector there is a big leap in the way Bloomberg or Reuters represent Africa if you want to invest in any stock market in Africa you will punch online and you will find tons of information and data about what stocks are doing and who is the CEO of this company and the banks and their CEO summits in London, Geneva to your blue in the face that obviously show that there is African business interest but nobody is doing anything that actually tells stories about that entrepreneur that town in Nairobi or what was happening in Lagos in the film industry in schools or what have you so there should be a way to support some young journalists who want to just focus on investigative journalism to bring that possibly online that might be the less expensive way of doing it but I think Africa centre can actually champion a movement in creating a new narrative in that direction. I'm going to OK Sylvie, just carry on one quick point and I want to open it up. Just to highlight what Bimple is saying that it is really very very important to have a specific action plan in terms of the next steps she is proposing because again and again we usually come together we talk talk talk talk and then nothing concrete happens. I think Sylvie if you're prepared to think about ways in which we can coordinate some actions that come out of today I think that would be enormous useful. I think particularly as you seem such a resourceful person who's been but I do think that this is essentially it's about to some degrees stopping talking and actually us all getting up and actually doing things and the passion in this space and the ideas I think that there is the potential to build some momentum here and I think you know it's something that we shouldn't waste but I do want to open up to the floor because what I really want us to go away with at the end of today is a sense of some forward momentum it may not be that we have answers but it might be that we're beginning to ask really kind of you know focus questions please questions for the floor. My name is Tokumboy Facharoti it's just a proposal since we're talking about the African continent is there a way that we can probably link up with the maybe educational departments of the 54 countries find out what is school is doing in terms of if they have league maybe leagues and then create as it were maybe like being said an online academy or something whereby we seek for funding if we can't get funding or we do crowdfunding or just to get some money and then we train individuals who show that they want to move into journalism or media and then this Bloomberg that you were talking about kind that you were talking about send those people forth to get more training and then they will be the ones who because they're already living in these countries on the African continent be a better mouthpiece to voice out exactly what is going on on ground and infuse it with the training that they're getting from Bloomberg I think if we look inward instead of always looking outward we can't begin to make a pathway but as it stands now a lot of us in the diaspora come together and we talk about the walls that are not happening and to a larger extent we do this and it's covered by the media so that maybe the government back home will see what is going on and begin to make a change but from my experience nobody really has time for that it has to really come from us so if we can all come together and make this happen then we take it to the state governments of all these countries and say this is what we want our youth to be doing now because nobody is looking out for the future and these youth are really the people who will be leading us 10, 15 years down the line so I think if we do it in that way then the face of media can begin to change and the kind of news that we want to be coming out showcasing good leadership skills teamwork, commitment and dedication to work we become rife as opposed to the negativity which we tend to hear much more often than we really need to respond to that can I just say a point if you're a journalist and you want to work as a freelancer and you want to work on any African country or the entire continent you need to know that you've got lots of outlets that you can pitch your articles to and get a decent amount of money to make your career sustainable so there are lots of organisations generally small trusts and grant making organisations that will support investigative work so I actually think this is a really good idea if the Africa Centre would have put a load of money up and say we will sponsor this many investigative projects per year and make a big deal about that as well to show that there's a place that people can actually go to and think about writing about a story about an African country rather than going for easier topics if you're a freelancer you want to know that there's some way that you can actually to put it crudely make money by being a journalist on Africa so I would really commend that kind of initiative that already happens but not so much with an Africa focus it's generally with an investigative journalism focus or with some other kind of thematic focus Agnus did you? Sure that's a very important point about education and I think instead of reinventing the wheel there are already initiatives out there they are so divided what we need to do is find one voice there is an African media initiative already based in Nairobi but tries to develop that capacity African media capacity and you know the most surprising thing for me is that we have these grants none of them from Africans we have Bloomberg, we have Diageau that really supports Africa reportage Africa business reportage, FAB Miller so we need to see Africans putting their money where their mouth is we have to see blaming the western media in fact the western media has actually shaped the Africa rising story we need to sort of how can we coordinate that effort how can we have a united agenda a united agenda towards Africa reportage and I think that's the way forward and as Africans in the diaspora it is an opportunity we cannot afford to do it we need to grasp it now because 10 years from now it will not be there the Africa rising story is only with us for racial time we don't grasp it our young children, our generation to come will still have to struggle with identity with the issue of misrepresentation so let's coordinate our efforts let's work together as Africans and see complaining and put our money where our mouth is thank you Sylvie I would love to see the sorts of resources that you're talking about actually in some way plug into the sorts of things that Magnus is talking about but do you feel that there are the sorts of figures who would invest in these kinds of programs who would be open to potentially the ramifications there has to be a sense of I don't know you would have to be able to let go of the ramifications or the repercussions that come from that investment to some degree because part of it may well be that these individuals may well be criticizing the companies that are funding some of these programs oh yes but I think there are two things that I may say in response to your question number one, a certainness was saying earlier there is money there is already money there then what we need to do is to learn how to make the case if there is already, as I mentioned earlier someone like Dr. Mo Ibrahim we know that he is interested in supporting a specific agenda which is democracy if we want a project and we want to do something that is how to support dictatorial Africans he won't support it but if we have a project there as we were saying how to promote freedom of expression or the fact that there are already some journalists that are being killed in Africa let's make a proper case the thing I was saying earlier this morning is that I have written to several people in a position of power I will attempt not to mention any names to say I cannot do everything alone let's come together and let's have a proper action plan we know where Oba Sanjo is we know that he has money we know where did I say I wasn't going to mention any name and we know where all these people operate then if each one of us because it's about who you know and how you talk to these people we know the people who go to Davos but if we go to Davos just to hear what is being done in Davos without our own action plan I swear I give only one specific example and I stop there right now we know that President Obama is a very good news story imagine a group of us members of the African diaspora and people on the ground in Nigeria approaching him with a specific action plan to say this is what we think should be done to end with Boko Haram and don't tell me that it is impossible because I have already done studies on that and imagine do you think people are not going to listen to that story and President Obama are not going to listen to us that's something I will be very happy to help because I already have a project with him in September this year but what I can do is the man has given me his trust on a specific project and suddenly I start bothering his team again with the African media and I have approached people here in a position of power I said I am doing this in September what can you do for terrorism or media and blah blah blah that is the problem genuinely if we can build this kind of momentum raise your hand if you would be prepared to come together as a working group to begin to think about how one would actually progress some of the things that Sylvie would say see does that fill you with optimism definitely there are many challenges to telling African stories and I would talk from the perspective of the African there are sporic media because that's the my specialist area and the problem that they go through skills shortage is one of them and we have been talking about retraining people and giving them the skill and there is also skills flights because as you are trading them they are also moving to the mainstream the mainstream will snatch them so we need to make them at least happy working for the African diasporic media to be able to do a good job there are also other issues to do with advertising revenue now there are many things that are going on politics behind the scene whereby you find the African diasporic struggling to actually get the right advertising revenue only when the government feels that oh by the way we need to talk to the minority group then let's put a couple of advertisement in their newspaper it shouldn't be should be something that we can at least love before and I think the African diasporic media should come together more and share resources as well and I did mention this in my book as well because after going around to the radio station, the TV station that they have and the press I see that there is a lot of synergy which they are not tapping into everybody has got their own ghetto they just work in silos so that should stop they do a lot of gate watching and gate watching means that they are not generating their own authentic stories so they monitor the BBC channel for this and that and then couple things together who want to listen to you that's a that story already because you are telling something that people know about so there are issues to do with credibility and trust okay how do we enhance that credibility even among the people in the diaspora when you tell them have you read this particular newspaper but if you say about Guardian or something they are much more open about yeah, Guardian is fantastic but what about the one that is talking about talking to them they are not doing that so brand loyalty is important and collaborative effort journalism is also very very important and back to what we are saying about you are setting up a social media platform and it's a collaborative project where the journalists come on board as well and then ordinary citizens who are interested can come on board to be able to do it but if we start something if we model something in the diaspora it will be a showcase to the rest of the world you see the point and then people in Africa can also wise up to say oh so it can be done differently rather than pulling them in Africa so we are a lot in the diaspora already let's pull our resources together and do something that we can be proud of that can rival the likes of Agisira even BBC should be proud of it and things that are rather having this more and more get to things there are other questions of course a lot can we go up here and then over there hi my name is Stephanie Kitchen I want to ask the panel to comment on the role of the state big question, apologies but I do think it's the missing element in this discussion you know we've heard an outstanding speaker from the BBC we've heard about Franco Fourni we've heard about Le Mans the website which the French give funding to their newspapers I understand the South African Broadcasting Corporation is state funded I'm doing parallels with higher education where state funded is still a critical leg in all of this I'm no expert I work in print publishing so it's just does not sort of observation or whether we want a more Agisira sort of funding model for these sort of African media initiatives I guess that's what I'm thinking about I'm not convinced that micro payments are going to pay our journalists in Nigeria I think it's I don't know Magnus, yours was the suggestion of micro payments, did you want to respond to that and also the role of the state well in the region that I know best which is eastern Africa state media is the biggest media outlet is coordination media which is not a state media outlet it's essentially a business of the Aga Khan whilst it's not a state media outlet it's definitely influenced by the state they have newspapers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania a big empire and they're very careful to watch the way in which they operate to not compromise how much you know how the business operates so for example when in two years ago the monitor in Uganda got a lot of trouble something the Richard Dowd and my boss mentioned earlier printing a letter by a kind of renegade general about a plan to put the president's son in power after the 70 goes the paper was closed down trashed so the people who run the whole nation media group essentially based in Kenya the suggestion is they got together they discussed with Museveni what could be done and one of the key managing editors a guy called Daniel Kanalaki was pushed out he didn't leave the nation media group he got a job in Kenya he's not doing very much work he's not operating as an investigative journalist he's being paid quite well so what I thought was quite interesting about that story is the way in which the business and the business of journalism kind of conflict in that way and in which the state wants to be seen to be allowing journalism to run in the way it should do so we've got a free press but it doesn't want it to be too free so there's a tension in there and what was mentioned earlier about this kind of big business that might provide funds for people to do journalism well what you need is to people to be to buy the idea that journalism is a good thing in itself and I'm not convinced that across particularly in East Africa which is where I know best potentially relatively illiberal estate machinery really believes in the idea that the media in itself is a good thing and makes countries better it does to an extent but not too much because it's a good thing the state has a role to play they are stakeholders and if we are ever going to resolve the African story the ownership of the African story we must work together I think for me strategic partnership with the state is critical we also have to build relationships between the political class and the journalism that journalists are not particularly enemies of the state it's sort of formulating the policies to ensure that journalists can operate in a conducive environment so it has certainly a very big stake to play I see in Kenya the government paying for peer services if they invested that money in journalism in being able to tell what they're doing so I think they have a role to play and they can actually fund journalism I think that's the way Can I just ask the question so they may not be running the newspapers but they're contributing indirectly a lot of money towards the media process if they were to withdraw their advertising from the daily nation that's a very bad thing for the paper so it implicitly moderates the editorial line so there has to be a healthy relationship one cannot operate independently of the other I think they have to relate and I think every one of us as we have discussed the African politicians are constantly talking about the African image the western media not representing them and I think if we worked around it and build relationship I think it will be positive for everyone Yes please there is something we must understand is that the state in Africa in the 28th century was never built to serve the interest of the populations it's a long debate but this is the reality this is the reality now then the way forward is for us to understand that we cannot afford to look at the state as the only source of salvation and we cannot either afford to look at the state as our enemy that we need to destroy what we need is what I called in one paper the building Africa vision because these people who are in power they are not necessarily bad people any worse than us it's just that they have never ever been trained to empower African people and to build Africa that's why despite all the millions that we know that exist the Chinese are the one who are funding the African Union how can that be possible so the way forward then is to establish healthy partnerships with whoever is prepared to help us implement our agenda that's the main thing so if it is money that we need there are business people and I tell you really right when behaving business people who can help and if there is a bad one a business person shares that is public shaming and if we have an action plan that we want to implement be it with some states that are well behaved like my ratios we can then adopt my ratios as a model that can be replicated all over Africa but if we sell that case to other African states that we already have a means to put pressure on them I tell you things are going to change five years the gentleman up there has been waiting thank you I'm Cyril from the University of Limerick Ireland and recently now saw us cast to be precise my question is do we have people here or Africans in the diaspora as we say who are willing to sacrifice for the next five years to bring to fruition any kind of conclusion we can make now I just give a short example I try to be brief there was an agenda to let the people decide in south Sudan and that was the agenda let the people decide 50 years of war more than enough let the people decide and I was part of that group we were there for 5, 6, 10 years and we set up 10 radio stations after a big pilot project just to look for the best way to get people to achieve a setting level of civic education so that they can decide I know there's somebody from south Sudanese Embassy and so on but it was not a conspiracy but it was a deliberate media attempt let the people decide most of those who funded this project were private individuals you could have one or two families from Italy, from America and they paid to set up a whole radio station having a capacity for more than 300 km I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars the money came from everywhere after talking like this we are not able to decide people are putting up their hands willing to sacrifice for 5 years your time, your money to bring something like this maybe media for education for Africa forget about all the dancing media for education media for health for Africa 5 years strategic plans volunteers to come on board willing to travel, willing to pay for your expenses and sacrifice for 5 years you achieve something but not after talking like this when it's time to sacrifice everybody is asking how much, where is the location and it doesn't work so many of us are into research and so on the ideas are clear we need people who will be ready to sacrifice everybody is ready to sacrifice thank you very much Vincent Gassan again I'm just wondering, first principles really it's all stories are local essentially when we talk of international stories that are local to somebody and there is a tendency when we are speaking about Africa to want to cut and paste this is a media, this is a journalist and I think Magna has touched on it letting that stuff is coming from outside and do people really care if a newspaper disappears? If a radio station disappears? If you look at an organisation like the BBC, it grew organically out of the history and culture of this country. If you go into any African country and you ask most media practitioners their idea or vote on how to serve their locality, most of them would be slightly confused and still never get inwards and bring out stories. And I think we're talking so much about money, but we're not actually talking about... Guys you can look it from an historical perspective. What does journalism mean to Africa? What is journalism as far as the ordinary African is concerned? And if that doesn't compute with people that are supposed to be served by these organisations, we can talk year after year, after year after the next 50 years, for the same thing. We're reinventing the wheel here. mewn eniol iaith yn y rhan deillad gyda'i nadall, yma y tu gyfnod o gwisw'r gwybodaeth yw ym wneud, a wneud y cyfnod o'r pitywau ar gyfer orderau afrolygu, ddim yn ddechrau ddiwedd i gael ar-fawr. Mae gennym hynny o'ch ffordd am African mewn cyd-fawr a'r ddych chi i'r maen. Rwy'n ei ddweud diwedd i'r llwydiadau dduw, ..y'r bwysig o bwysig o'r sefydliadau ystod o'r fflau'r ysgrifennu. Mae'r hyn o'r adael, rwy'n credu, rwy'n credu. Mae'r adael o'r cyflau o'r cyflau. Roedd ei wneud o'r newydd o'r cyflau'r fflau a gofio... ..on y Darning Stryd. Rwy'n ei ddim yn fwy o'r ddweud o'r ysgrifennu, David Cameron... ..y'r ddweud y Pramysau. Rwy'n credu fflau ymlaen i Afrika... a amdou ben clyw'n cavalry that you are crazy and can kill you. They will be absolutely right in my view because you need to find a way that is within the context of that place and asking exactly the same questions, unless we start engaging with that, there's no point in going on about African media because what we have right now at the moment really isn't African media. Rма ddweud rym ni falle yn y gallu gwneud y bydd y bydd yna mae'r gweithio ychydig yn eu cyflawni'r 21 yma. Yn y 21 yma, mae'n ffordd i hynny'n gŷn sydd gyda'r model gyda'r medleidau mae'r cyflawni'n gyflawni sydd yn sicr sydd yn gweld y rhaid o'r capitul. Mae'r cyflawni i gydig yn gweithio'r gweithio gweithio'r cyflawni'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gwaith. gyda'n darlai cyfnodol iawn yn gweithio. I can't even begin to imagine how that is going to transform opportunities for people going into the future. And that many to many kind of model of broadcast is something which I actually think is very intrinsically African. You say I'm a historian, but if you look back at the kind of the history of the way in which Africans kind of commune gan unig deallu ei gweithredu ychydig, i fewn hynny'n colli'r gweithiau, y dweud o mynd i fothau oesaf o'r teiteiswn i'r blaenau – yn cyfnodol cyntaf yn dynamae, ac rydyn ni'n dweud y dyna'r ffordd sy'n fwy o'r ysgol yn ei bod yn dweud – i'n ddyn nhw'n arddangos fel gyllid mae'n gwybod o'i gweith Down.... ymlaen ni'n gweith yn gyfeinio'r maniwyd i'r ffordd y cydnod ymlaeniau yn yr hyn yn cymdeithasol yn ymgyrch. Roeddwn ni'n meddwl o hynny'n cymdeithasol. O'r hyn yn gweld. Rwy'n gweithio'n ymddangos. Ac rwy'n gwybod i'r ffordd o mynd i ymddangos yng Nghaerfodol ac oedd y gweithio'r ysgol i gael i'r gwaith. Rydw i'n gwybod i'r gwaith. Yn y gweithio'n ysgrifennu, ymddangos ymddangos ymddangos ymddangos ymddangos ymddangos ymddangos ymdangos, Felly, dw i'n ddigon yn yng Nghaerdydd. Y ddigon yn y Gwaith Nesaf, yw'r cyffredinol, yw'r cyffredinol, y ddigon yn y Gwaith Rhaid Dweud. Mae'r cyffredinol ond y Gwaith Rhaid Dweud ar y Gwaith Rhaid Dweud, ond, mae'n ddigon yn y Gwaith Rhaid Dweud, felly mae'n ddigon yn y Gwaith Rhaid Dweud i'n Gwaith Rhaid Dweud, dysti'n gwybod y pwnnig oed i ddweud. I have state governors, who are my friends, who will tell me that, look, yeah, after being the senator or whatever, there is even one of them who wants to set up a radio station in Abuja, Potako, or whatever. Do you think I would want to go and work with that kind of person? Those are some of the things you would need to ask ourselves. And then the question about South Sudan, I remember when this radio station started, I wanted to leave my comfort to go to Juba. I wanted to go there. That's why I'm happy that gentleman mentioned it. I don't want to live in London. I never wanted to live in Nigeria. But I will tell you, even President Abbasanjou, you were talking about, there are so many things he said about Nigeria and Nigerians that are times I ask myself, is it worth dying for this nation? I applied on Nigerian radio stations three times. I had to leave to come and do my PhD here. A lot of things happen. And that's why a lot of Nigerians or Africans are dissolutioned about their countries. Even let's go to Kenya. The radio stations are owned by President Kenyatta's family. Not all of them. Yeah, like the main radio stations. Like the ones that are open now with the start times issue, the digital issue. A lot of things are just wrong because we keep talking about local radio stations, the local people who owns them. Let's ask ourselves those questions. Do I want to walk with them? I can tell you. You know, these businessmen or these politicians have an agenda. What is our agenda? They have an agenda to maybe going to politics. If we have a united agenda and we have the money, then we can be. Don't give up. I tell you not to give up. If we have a united agenda and we have the discipline and the confidence, they have the confidence that if they put their money in the African media, they can achieve what they want, right? So if you have an agenda and we have a shared agenda, then I'm sure we can. So don't just complain and sort of give up. I urge you not to because if we have a united agenda and we put our money, how much money do Africans diaspora send home? How can we top that? How can we get all these private equities operating in the region and get them to invest in an outfit that represents us? That's exactly what I want to also point out. Even the people you think you're fighting for. Sincerely, the other ones. We're not fighting for anybody, no. Yeah, because if everybody, like Silver said, it's not as if we're fighting the politicians. I'm not fighting politicians. But even the people I feel I could die for, they disappointed me. Because these are the same people. For the first time, I must confess, Silver has been able to awaken the sleeping giant in me. I want to join her to do something. Because this is the first time I will meet an African who is really ready to do something and showing passion about it. Because I must confess, I got tired. Are you going to be there as well? You're going to be there. Sorry? You're going to be there standing shoulder to shoulder. That's exactly what I'm going to get in touch with her. We're going to talk about it. But I'm tired of Africans complaining, but they're not doing anything with some of us. Can I just interject and give my own point of view that I hope is shared by many? I think, first of all, one of the significant problems we have on the continent is the lack of a real civil society. Look at the Arab Spring. It started. I'm sure there were many times when many Egyptians or Tunisians were totally frustrated, but one day they had enough and one chap either got killed or bitten off and it triggered and the match was lit. The continent is not maybe quite ready for it. Either there are still issues of poverty, tribalism, we're fragmented and our interests are not totally, totally at one. But there is, I think, a civil society in the diaspora. Look around this room. I don't think anybody here is sitting here because they're Nigerian or Ghanaian or Sierra Leonean. We're Africans. And that's the power that we have outside the continent. We actually tend to think more as a unit and that's where we can be more powerful. The Africa Center can be a platform used responsibly. I didn't say that. I didn't say there was no civil society. I said civil society is weak. Look at what's happening in Nigeria. I'm Nigerian. The underlying point, though, is not... I obviously cannot make a generic sweeping statement. I am saying that a lot of the changes that you need in journalism in responsible, investigated, in independent journalism would be there if there was a real ideology, if there was a real agenda being formed by civil society. Nigeria, look at what's happened. Unfortunately, nobody's prepared to die for anyone and you're quite right. And that's what I mean. So maybe I'm not articulating it in the same way that you would, but I feel that outside the continent, in the UK and the diaspora, we tend to think as Africans first. And that is the honest truth. And I think therefore, all of the initiatives we're talking about around the table here are much more possible. And we can lead from here. We can start from here. Whether it's through us, it's not so much about sacrificing and not earning a living. It may be an initiative where you actually talk to those who are younger and have more at stake and who have more time and who are maybe studying journalism and try and get... I don't know what the curriculum are like or what they're studying in uni, but basically there might be a way to sort of injecting some form of ideology into the way that the youngsters here who are studying journalism and more Africans who are looking at the continent. So that when... There's a mini-silicon valley here. Things can happen. Someone may decide to sit down and set up a radio station purely because of the fact that there's a gap in the market and there's something he needs to put right. And sometimes investors see that. And even if it starts from ideology, an investor may see that this is a meaningful project and may decide actually whether for a sponsorship or investment to put their money and their time behind it. And that's all I have to share with you. Thank you. We actually run out of time, but one last question. So glad I get the last question. So I wanted to make a little comment and then ask a question. So I work with Magnus at the Royal African Society and I just want to point out we've got... We're launching a project called What's on Africa and it's going to be an events listing site and a cultural blog focusing on the continent and the diaspora in London. And a lot of the coverage is going to be cultural journalism, a lot of what's been referred to. So I'm very happy to work with lots of different partners. But one of the things we're trying to develop is a link with people on the ground in Africa. So we're working with the British Council to launch a cultural journalism mentorship project with young journalists who are interested in focusing on areas of culture. I think a lot of the time business gets a lot of support. Investigative journalism gets a lot of support. But the stuff that focuses on culture and creative economy doesn't get a lot of exposure. So I think that's... I'm very excited about this project. So I just wanted to put that out there. Now the other thing I wanted to point out is that I don't think we should do either Africa or the Africa diaspora disservice in terms of the media because there are quite a few things that have come up in recent years. There's media diversified which obviously it focuses on issues of race a lot but they are talking about the issues of representation and the way Africans and black people are represented. So I think there's a lot that we can... I agree with the whole idea of concerted effort but I also wanted to say that a lot of that also has to happen on a personal level and I'll put up my hand up and say I'm guilty of this. If I see a story in The Guardian which is objectionable I don't write a letter to the editor and I think we certainly need to do a lot more of that and maybe what you might be doing, Sylvia, is to coordinate people in making sure that their letters and their outrage has an impact because if we look at the US you have organisations like the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League who have a very big impact on the media because of their objections. So that's what I want to point out. And then the last thing I'd say is on development and the media I think a lot of what I can tell you says it's true. We need a lot more transparency in terms of who owns the media because we also need to find ways in which we can pressure those owners because actually, to Bimpers' point about the media in Africa Nigeria's got a very, very vibrant media but the truth of the matter is that the economic pressure is so strong that if a journalist goes to a theatre review they don't review it because it's a good play they review it because you put something in the brown envelope. So we need to change that. Yes, quickly there to my brother. The situation is as follows. It's not about the fact that we don't write letters. No, no, no, that's not the issue. The issue is this. We absolutely do not even believe that we can make something out of what we already have. This is the basic problem. Now then, what are we talking about? We are talking about the fact that the impetus for the decolonisation of Africa whatever we call it, what happened in the 20th century started here in the diaspora not because the people in Africa on the ground were more stupid than Don Cruma and those who studied here but simply because Don Cruma and the rest who were studying here had more means and also because the colonial powers did not feel able to kill them. Where the things have then been caught is that we, this generation from the 1980s onwards it's as though we stopped implementing a specific agenda. This is the main thing. So my role will be to help people to understand that whatever you want to do in your corner the main point we are aiming at should be is this contributing towards the building and the development of our continent. So what I am saying is whatever project A, B or C wants to have is not my problem to try to control that not at all I will die, no. But my problem will try to make everybody believe that it is possible. I tell you what, when I arrived here 10 years ago you wouldn't believe it, I couldn't speak English is neither my first, nor second, nor third, nor even fourth language is my fifth language but I was lucky enough to find one man called Tajudin Abdul Rahim who made me believed in myself and from then I am what you see today presidents there and there and there and everybody wanting a piece that was not meant to be me and this is what I want us to understand here that if we want to transform Africa we can do it within a few years because we have all the natural resources we are the richest continent in the whole world and number two we have what is called already a path for us which is that for centuries and centuries we did not own our continent now this is our opportunity what is it that we have to spend time talking instead of doing? I think that's the perfect way to end it it's time to stop talking and to start doing