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Building Independent Mass Media in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Robert Martin
Robert Martin
Affiliation:
Professor of Law and Journalism, The University of Western Ontario, London, and Secretary-Treasurer, The Commonwealth Association for Education in Journalism and Communication
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Extract

The 1980s were a terrible time for Africa. The decade began auspiciously enough — Nigeria had returned to civilian rule, the Tanzania People's Defence Force had sent Idi Amin packing, and the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe was about to win independence. But this promising beginning was quickly transformed and Africa sunk into its ‘lost decade’.

Type
Africana
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 331 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Society for International Development, The Challenge of Africa in the 90s. Report of the North-South Roundtable Consultation, Ottawa, Canada, June 17–18, 1991 (New York, 1991), p. 5.Google Scholar

2 de Cuellar, Javier Perez, Economic Crisis in Africa. Report of the U.N. Secretary-General Prepared for the Session of the Ad-Hoc Committee of the Whole of the U.N. General Assembly, 3–13 September 1991 (New York, 1991), foreword.Google Scholar

3 See the press kit prepared by the Africa Recovery Unit, U.N. Department of Public Information, Africa: new compact for co-operation (New York, 1991)Google Scholar, and U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes for Socio-Economic Recovery and Transformation: a popular version (Addis Ababa, 1991).Google Scholar

4 African Alternative Framework, p. 5.

5 For a powerful and compelling critique of underdevelopment-dependency theory, see Harris, Nigel, The End of the Third World: newly industrialising countries and the decline of an ideology (Harmondsworth, 1986).Google Scholar

6 Robinson, John, Economic Philosophy (Harmondsworth, 1964), p. 46.Google Scholar

7 Economic Crisis in Africa, pp. 2–3. According to ibid. p. 6, the U.N. Secretary-General saw structural adjustment programmes as a major factor in the failure of the U.N. initiative.

8 U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, African Charter for Popular Participation in Development (Addis Ababa, 1990), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

9 For a succinct review of the African situation and suggested responses, including literature discussing both, see Shaw, Timothy M., ‘Reformism, Revisionism, and Radicalism in African Political Economy During the 1990s’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 29, 2, 06 1991, p. 191–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Development Assistance Committee, Issues for the DAC High-Level Meeting (Paris, 19 September 1990), p. 7.Google Scholar

11 African Alternative Framework, p. 3.

12 Ibid. p. 10.

13 Economic Crisis in Africa, p. 11.

14 African Charter for Popular Participation in Development, p. 28.

15 The Challenge of Africa in the 90s, pp. 11–12.

16 Two interesting legal decisions which illustrate this are Wallace-Johnson v. R. [1940] A.C. 231 (J.C.P.C.) and D.P.P. v. Obi [1961], All Nigeria Law Reports 186 (F.S.C.). Although the first case is from the pre-independence Gold Coast and the second is from post-independence Nigeria, what is striking about them is the similarity of the statements which led to criminal prosecutions for sedition.

17 Unesco, Many Voices, One World: towards a new, more just and more efficient world information and communication order. Report by the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (Paris, 1980).Google Scholar

18 The author attended the Windhoek seminar as the representative of the Canadian International Development Agency.

19 Ansah, Paul A. V., ‘The Legal and Political Framework for a Free and Pluralistic Press in Africa’, Windhoek, 1991, p. 31.Google Scholar

20 Kasoma, Francis, ‘Technical Cooperation for Communication Development in Africa’, Windhoek, 1991, p. 9.Google Scholar

21 Issues for the DAC High-Level Meeting, p. 6, specifically recommended twinning.Google Scholar

22 See, as an example, several of the essays in Review of African Political Economy (Sheffield), 50, 1991.Google Scholar

23 See Macpherson, C. B., The Real World of Democracy (London, 1966).Google Scholar