Strengthening Africa's Media

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Electronic Consultation

Consultation Meetings

Contact Information

Task Force

A Task Force of ten persons has been appointed to provide guidance, expert technical advice and other relevant input to the Secretariat’s work.

	Diana Senghor, Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA/IPAO) After launching the West Africa Programme of Panos Paris, Diana Senghor is, currently the Director of the Panos Institute West Africa (PIWA/IPAO), created in 2000, and based in Dakar (Sénégal). She has been the Editor in Chief of two West African magazines (“Famille et Développement”, IDRC; “Vivre autrement”, ENDA). Previously, she worked as the head of the Department of Anthropology at IFAN (Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire), University of Dakar. She has studied Philosophy (Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne), and Anthropology (Master, Paris VII Diderot). She is Senegalese.
	Grace Githaiga, AMARC Africa Grace Githaiga is the Executive Director of EcoNews Africa (ENA), a sub-regional organization that works with some of most underprivileged groups in East Africa. ENA works towards the empowerment of rural communities, mostly women, young people and girls who live on the margins of their societies. EcoNews Africa has managed to avail rural communications systems (community FM radio stations and tele-centres) to such rural communities in East Africa. The communications systems help in disseminating health messages, reliable market information, and most remarkable, a tremendous reduction in gender-based violence in rural villages of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.Grace Githaiga is current chair of AMARC Africa (World Association of Community Broadcasters).
	Wilfred David Kiboro Mr. Kiboro is a director of the subsidiary companies of the Nation Media Group, including Nation Newspapers Division, Nation Broadcasting Division, Nation Carriers Division, Nation Marketing & Publishing in Kenya, Monitor Publications Limited and KFM radio (Uganda), Mwananchi Communications Ltd (publishers of Mwananchi and Mwanaspoti) and The Citizen (Tanzania), East African Magazines (publishers of Drum East Africa and True Love magazines) and Property Development and Management Limited. Mr. Kiboro is the immediate past Chairman of the Media Owners Association
	Mike Daka, Breeze FM (Zambia) Mike Daka - Owner and Managing Director of Breeze 99.6 FM – a privately owned radio station in Chipata, Eastern Zambia. Has over 30 years media experience having worked as a reporter, editor and director of a media training institute. Holds a Masters degree in Journalism Studies.
	Prof. Fackson Banda, Rhodes University Prof. Fackson Banda is the SAB Chair of Media and Democracy in the Schoolof Journalismand Media Studies at Rhodes University, South Africa. He has worked as executive director of the Panos Institute Southern Africa. He has also taught at the Universityof Zambia, in the Department of Mass Communication. Prof. Banda has published on a range of media related subjects, such as media sustainability, press coverage of electoral campaigns, community radio broadcasting, democracy and media, etc.
	John Mukela, NSJ Centre Media Training Trust (Mozambique) John Mukela has extensive experience in journalism, media training, project planning, management and coordination. As part of various teams, he has helped the establishment and setting up of several media enterprises, including The Nation (Lesotho’s first national daily newspaper); The Post (Zambia’s first independent national daily newspaper); The Centre for Development Information (Zambia) and The Zambian Farmer (Zambia). John has edited newspapers in Lesotho, Botswana and Zambia, and served as a correspondent for Radio Netherlands and BBC as a producer and presenter on the BBC's flagship Focus on Africa programme. He is currently Executive Director of the Southern African Media Training Trust -- (NSJ): www.nsjtraining.org). He also serves on various boards as Chair of the Southern African Media Trainers Network (SAMTRAN): www.samtran.org, and Chair of Panos Southern Africa (PSAf): www.panos.org.zm. John holds a Diploma in Journalism from Evelyn Hone College in Zambia and MSc in Comparative Development & International Policy Studies from the University of Bristol.
	Manoah Esipisu, Commonwealth Secretariat Manoah Esipisu recently joined the Commonwealth Secretariat as its Deputy Director of Information. Prior to joining the Commonwealth Secretariat he worked as a senior Reuters Correspondent based in Johannesburg and covers political and general news, macroeconomics and black economic empowerment in South Africa. He was one of the agency’s experts on the African Union and its continental and regional economic groupings such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a role that has allowed him extensive travel in Africa and overseas. He also serves on the team of Reuters’ specialists on trade and globalization. Manoah has trained for the Reuters Foundation since 1999 – directing courses ranging from writing business and financial news to covering elections in Africa. He has also worked on growing Africa’s journalism with institutions ranging from the Mozambique-based Southern Africa Media Training Trust (NSJ) to the Johncom/Pearson journalism training programme. In 2006 He was invited to become a Visiting Academic at the University of the Witwatersrand's Journalism and Media Studies Programme - a voluntary role in which he will lead a project to set up post-graduate qualifications in financial journalism.
	Anja Venth - Soul Beat Africa Anja Venth has extensive experience as content researcher and producer specialising in education, health and development programming for television, radio and print. She has worked on national HIV/AIDS campaigns in South Africa and developed content for youth and children’s educational television. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of the Witswatersrand as well as an Honors Degree in Development Studies from the University of South Africa where her focus was development communication. Anja is currently the Acting Director of Soul Beat Africa.
	Edetaen Ojo, Global Forum for Media Development (Africa) Edetaen Ojo is Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, an NGO in Nigeria, which works to promote media freedom and freedom of expression. He is also Vice Chair of the Board of the Media Foundation for West Africa. Mr. Ojo is currently serving as a consultant to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the post-conflict reconstruction of the media in Liberia and is coordinator of the international Partnership on Media and Conflict Prevention in West Africa. Mr. Ojo is also Chair of the International Press Centre in Lagos, Nigeria and an International Associate of the Open Democracy Advice Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, as well as a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD). Edetaen Ojo has 20 years experience as a journalist and is a former visiting media fellow at the DeWitt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism at Duke University in North Carolina, USA; and a British Chevening Scholar.
	Jeanette Minnie, Zambezi FoX Jeanette Minnie is a South African citizen and an international Freedom of Expression and Media consultant, also known as Zambezi FoX - the name of her consultancy service. She is a former Regional Director of the Namibia-based Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and a former Executive Director of the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) in South Africa. She has conducted extensive analysis of media freedom violations against journalists, and the media law and policy environments of the SADC region. She is an advisor to the Media Programme of the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NiZA) and serves on the Steering Committee of the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD). She has published articles in various books on the themes of Ethics, Journalism and Self-Regulation and on the Growth of Independent Broadcasting in South Africa and has written many newspaper articles on censorship, the role of media in democracy, protection of journalists' sources and media law and policy. She is also the editor of an annual publication on the state of democracy and elections in the SADC region called "Outside the Ballot Box: Preconditions for Elections in Southern Africa" published jointly by MISA, NiZA, HiVOS and OSISA. She frequently conducts evaluations of donor-funded media and human rights development projects in various countries and regions including in Africa and South Eastern Europe and assists media associations and NGO's with strategic planning. She was the lead consultant in an evaluation of UNESCO's international freedom of expression strategies in 2001/2.
	Peter da Costa, communication for development specialist Peter da Costa, a national of The Gambia, is a communication for development specialist who has worked extensively in Africa over the last 16 years. He initially trained as a journalist and reported extensively from West Africaduring the early 1990s for print, broadcast and multimedia outlets. During this period he diversified into communication for development and undertook assignments for a number of development organizations. In 1994 he was appointed Regional Director for Africa of Inter Press Service, a leading global media and development communication agency, and moved to Zimbabwe. In 1997 he became Senior Communication Adviser to the head of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Ethiopia, where he led efforts to build and strengthen communication for development partnerships and capacity in Africa. In 2003 he left the UN to pursue doctoral studies and is currently a PhD candidate at the Schoolof Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. He remains actively involved in communication for development initiatives in and on Africa.
	Kaitira Kandjii - Regional Director, Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA) Kaitira Kandjii was born in Namibia and obtained his BA(Hons) and MA in Media Studies and Policies from the University of Natal, South Africa. He began his professional career as a jounalist working for a daily newspaper owned by the Democratic Media Holdings in 1990 and later worked as a senior journalist and then Editor of a community magazine called Bricks Community Magazine. In 1997 Kaitira joined the University of Namibia as lecturer in Media Studies and taught the first batch of media and journalism students. He later joined the Government and worked as a Communication Specialist for a water project wihthin the Ministry of Agriculture. In 2000, Kaitira Kandji joined MISA as an Information Officer and rose through the ranks until he was appointed Regional Director this year. He has published articles on media policy, broadcasting and freedom of expression.