WHAT IS GFMD?

Click here [1] for the GFMD Presentation

The Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD) is a practitioner-led process designed to be long term and open to the community involved in media development around the world.

The GFMD 2008 builds on the achievements made since the first global conference of media aid organizations in Amman, Jordan in October 2005, in which more than 400 participants attended and agreed to a set of principles that form the basis of the work of the GFMD.

The GFMD constitutes a network of some 500 non-governmental media assistance organizations operating in about 100 countries across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Eurasia and the Americas, which support the development of independent media at the community, national and regional level.

The GFMD aims to bring greater linkages and sustainable impact to the work of the media development sector as a whole. It seeks to do this through collaboration, substantiation, professionalization and shared learning.

It is the mission of the GFMD to make media development an integral part of overall development strategies, just like education or health. Too often, media assistance is relegated to communicating development goals and the GFMD aims to make media assistance a sector in its own right.

The GFMD's basic values are free expression, media freedom and independent journalism as defined by internationally accepted documents such as the UNESCO Windhoek Declaration.

The GFMD believes that free, independent, viable and inclusive media are prerequisites for creating and strengthening democratic society and human development.

GFMD members range from organisations with international reach, such as, for instance, the BBC World Trust or Internews Network to national organisations, such as Media Rights Agenda in Nigeria or the Environmental Education Media Project in China.

A major aim of the GFMD is to ensure that media assistance organisations from Asia, Africa, the Middle East/North Africa and Latin America are fully involved in the debate on media development strategies, defining objectives and analysing impact of media assistance programmes.