By Ajong Mbapndah L
Appointed recently as the Regional Director for Africa and the Middle East for the International Fund for Public Interest Media-IFPIM, Makmid Kamara has embraced his new role with gusto. With a mission to provide fresh, ambitious, coordinated, and well-resourced strategic international response to the crisis facing independent media around the world, Makmid Kamara takes on the assignment at a very challenging time for the media in Africa. In a Q & A with PAV, Kamara sheds light on the vision of the IFPIM and how it intends to make a difference in Africa and the Middle East.
Could you start with an introduction of the International Fund for Public Interest Media IFPIM?
Makmid Kamara: IFPIM is a bold new multi-stakeholder initiative designed to effectively diagnose and address the challenges facing public interest media in low- and middle-income countries and help to identify pathways toward long-term sustainability. The International Fund seeks to provide a fresh, ambitious, coordinated, and well-resourced strategic international response to the crisis facing independent media around the world. The Fund aims to radically increase the amount of funding available to support ethical, non-partisan, fact-based journalism, and to enable the media to work for democracy. The Fund will support media through this period of existential threat and aims to develop lasting solutions to the current media market failure. The Fund will complement existing efforts in the media development sector and will catalyze new money as a globally coordinated, but fully independent, vehicle that can act quickly to provide critical funding and support to hundreds – if not thousands – of public interest media organizations worldwide.
Per the IFPIM, what is the definition of public interest media, in the African context, what will constitute public interest media?
Makmid Kamara : IFPIM aims to radically increase the amount of funding available to support ethical, non-partisan, fact-based journalism, and enable the media to work for democracy. This fund will support media through this time of existential threat and aims to develop lasting solutions to the current media market failure. The Fund will complement existing efforts in the sector and will catalyse new money as a globally coordinated but fully independent vehicle that can act quickly to provide critical funding and support to hundreds – if not thousands – of public interest media organizations worldwide.
The Fund has been designed to minimize interference in the internal affairs of the countries it supports. Its governance arrangements and international nature ensure funds are allocated efficiently and in ways that command maximum legitimacy in the eyes of media institutions and other democratic stakeholders in beneficiary countries.
The Fund is co-chaired by Maria Ressa, journalist, CEO of Rappler and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Mark Thompson, former CEO of New York Times and Director General of the BBC.
You were recently appointed by the International Fund for Public Interest Media as its inaugural regional director for Africa and the Middle East, can you shed light on this new role and what you will be doing?
Makmid Kamara : As the inaugural Regional Director for the region, I will work with colleagues to guide the International Fund’s strategy and grant-making process across Africa and the Middle East. I will collaborate with colleagues and other partners to provide strategic leadership and oversee the implementation of IFPIM’s strategy for the region, including the strategy for individual countries within the region. The Fund will develop context-specific country strategies, rooted in a clear political economy analysis of the countries concerned. In addition, together with my colleagues, we will develop partnerships between CSOs, media development organisations, media and government (where appropriate) to improve strategies focused on improving public access to information in the region.
What are some of the challenges that public interest media face and how would the IFPIM be able to make a difference?
Makmid Kamara: Around the world, public interest media faces fundamentally challenging conditions, from deteriorating business models as a result of declining revenue to the worrying rise of government crackdowns on journalists. In particular, the advent of digital advertising has severely hampered traditional funding models for journalism. These existential challenges have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic which, for many communities, will be a “media extinction event.”
Public interest media is particularly endangered in low- and middle-income countries, where media infrastructure is most fragile and audience engagement has decoupled from advertising revenue. As news outlets struggle to stay afloat, media ecosystems begin to collapse — an outcome linked to increased corruption, conflict, violent extremism, and human-caused disasters like famines and epidemics. Now more than ever, public interest media is a key pillar of democracy, good governance, and sustainable development.
A feasibility study conducted by BBC Media Action showed that an International Fund for Public Interest Media would be an effective vehicle for bolstering public interest media, especially in low- and middle-income regions in the next decade or two, until new business models can be developed to address challenges faced by both individual news outlets and entire media ecosystems.
For the programs or partnership programs that you have, what will it take for interested media to benefit from them?
Makmid Kamara : The Fund will undertake a combination of approaches. Firstly, media institutions will have an opportunity to express interest in partnering with IFPIM. Secondly, the Fund will reach out directly to media organisations in the selected countries of focus, to initiate a partnership process. A more detailed and clearer process will be communicated via IFPIM’s website in due course.
Following significant early resource mobilization and the urgent need expressed by media organizations in focus regions, we announced the inaugural open call for grant proposals at World Press Freedom Day in May 2022. That call resulted in more than 200 funding applications, from which our first cohort of 13 grantees was selected.
These initial grantees are located across nine countries, comprise a broad diversity of organizations in terms of geography, language, editorial content, content distribution platforms, business models, and organizational maturity. The cohort is roughly evenly split across commercial, non-commercial, and hybrid business models. A majority are digital natives, publishing content primarily via their website and/or social media channels, and a little under one–third are primarily broadcast or print media.
On the website we discovered that there are only ten countries where media organizations are eligible for grants, is this not unfair or prejudicial to a continent with 54 countries facing some of the most serious media challenges across the globe?
Makmid Kamara : This is a pilot phase for the International Fund. With more resources and strategic need, perhaps we could expand. But the countries selected so far were carefully chosen to help pilot the interventions and to respond to the urgency identified. There are also huge potentials for impact in all these countries. The successes and learning from these countries might probably help attract additional funding resources for IFPIM, which will in turn also probably accelerate expansion.
However, it must be noted that the International Fund cannot necessarily operate in all 54+ countries in the region. The interventions have to be strategic and carefully managed.
How do you think your background as a human rights leader, democracy advocate and development communications practitioner is going to be helpful in this new role?
Makmid Kamara : I believe this is a perfect fit. My background in all these fields and as `a journalist means that I can relate with colleagues in the newsroom and I understand the imminence of this intervention. I intend to utilise the various experiences I have accumulated over the years, to advance the goals of IFPIM in the region and beyond.
My interactions in these sectors will also probably make it easier for me and my colleagues to draw on the various resources and support available for the advancement of public interest media in the region and globally.
With the energy and zest that you are bringing to the job, what changes should we expect to see when we come back for a follow up interview in a years’ time?
Makmid Kamara : Hopefully next time we meet, IFPIM would have achieved its fundraising goal and more countries would have been added to the list of eligible countries. I also hope that in a few years from now, there will be less
*Culled from the September Issue of PAV Magazine
