Afronline – The Voice Of Africa

Afro: the project

The project’s aim is to encourage the development of cultural relations between Africa and Europe, particularly Italy. Its aim is to diffuse, through the offer of quality information, a better knowledge of social conditions on the African continent.

The operational instruments to pursue such an aim are:

• the creation of a news alert agency distributed by Telpress. Using a vast array of collaborators capable of producing journalistic material adapted to the constant challenges related to African society and its growth;

• a news portal which mission is to augment the visibility of the African information experience from below;

• the promotion of training activities aimed at African journalists and representatives of African civil society;

• the development of cultural exchange programmes between Africa and Europe, particularly Italy.

Context and opportunity

Africa is a continent which is rapidly changing and gaining in worldwide importance. New super-national organisations and economic cooperation programmes are being born and increasingly, African governments are asking to be responsible for their own destiny.

Despite these factors, and despite Italy’s geographical position at the very tip between Europe and Africa, there is a lack of valuable, regular news diffusion in Italy coming from Africa. Indeed, there is no news which is respectful of facts or analytical of the profound causes of events and mutations, which could then be a source of information capable of sensitising journalists, public opinion and relevant institutions.

Very often the possibility for Africans to tell their own story is denied by reporters themselves. The great African cultural laboratory and gold mine of art, expression and culture are being ignored.

Therefore there is a need for:

• high visibility, to which only an ad hoc journalistic service can respond;

• instruments of information and discussion capable of gathering the real causes of phenomena in Africa;

• forming a group of African journalists, capable of talking about Africa from Africa’s point of view;

• promoting cultural exchanges through festivals and demonstrations.

Objectives

The “Afro” project, supported by VITA COMUNICAZIONE Società Cooperativa Sociale and VITA Società Editoriale S.p.A., is innovative in the production of an African specific news wire (part of the already existing AGI), in the creation of a portal (afronline.org) as infrastructure which allows information and experiences from the African bottom to talk to Italy and Europe, and in the promotion of cultural exchanges between Africa and Italy.

The “Afro” project intends to promote a profitable synergy between information and solidarity, and as such puts forward the following objectives.

1. Give continued visibility to crisis areas (like Darfur, Cote d’Ivoire), often obscured by information operators, promoting the interests of mass media and of readers towards these African countries, formally in a recovery phase, in which vast sectors of the populations are still living in bad conditions (poverty, illness, etc);

2. Give a voice to African civil society, highlighting personal experiences (associations, movements, groups);

3. Describe innovative facts and the positive dimensions of the political, economical and cultural lives in African countries;

4. Augment the African presence in Italian media and activities undertaken by NGOs that would reach the Italian and European decision-makers;

5. Offer stimulus and information to all that wish to launch or sustain projects of development;

6. Form and introduce young African journalists and civil society representatives into the European and Italian media circuits.

Information offer 1

The diffusion and distribution systems of information services is digital, on Telpress and Internet. The Agency is present not only on the global wire of press agencies but also on the homepage of its website, where a selection of the main news stories and updates are transmitted on a daily basis to subscribed traditional Italian media outlets (agencies, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, etc). The daily feeds strive to be: brief, clear, attractive and complete. The agency seeks to become the reference point for mass media on African issues.

Information offer 2

The Afronline.org is a platform information website in English supported by VITA COMUNICAZIONE and VITA Società Editoriale S.p.A., with the objective to reinforce the voice of the media produced by African civil society, giving them visibility as well as Italian and European fruition. Afronline seeks agreements with local partners from civil society involved in the diffusion of information. From 2009, Afronline.org has also been building a transnational network of African indidependent newspapers through collective interviews with daily and weekly newspapers such as Sud Quotidien (Senegal), Les Echos du Mali, Le Républicain (Niger), Addis Fortune (Ethiopia), etc. Since 2011, Afronline.org has been collaborating with the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), an organisation established in 1983 under the Lomé Convention between the ACP (Africa, Carribean and Pacific) Group of States and the European Union Member States. The CTA, in collaboration with the European Commission, the EU Presidency, the ACP Group, Concord and other partners organizes regular development sessions in Brussels on key issues and challenges for rual development in the context of ACP-EU Cooperation. The project foresees the coverage of the Brussels Development Briefings through the publications of interviews, articles and cartoons on Afronline.org and African independent newspapers (such as Sud Quotidien, Senegal; Les Echos, Mali; Le Républicain, Niger; Addis Fortune, Ethiopia; Le Calame, Mauritania; Le Confident, Central African Republic; The Zimbabwean, Zimbabwe).

The formative offer

The news offices of Agi and Vita Comunicazione are the first two environments to host formative internships for African journalists and an exchange programme will be created between Italian news rooms and African ones. Themed internships will also be organised for civil society representatives.

Cultural activities

In the view of organising cultural exchanges and reciprocal knowledge, a convention on the promotion of the Afro project and that of the African culture and media are organised under the supervision of the Scientific Committee of the project.

Scientific Committee

Bah Abdoulaye. Journalist born in Guinea Bissau

Gianpaolo Calchi Novati. Tenured Professor at Pavia university, head of the department of History and institutions of African and Asian countries, in the Political science department, director of the department of political and social studies. Visiting professor at the University of Addis Ababa. Senior Research Fellow Africa ISPI.

Anna Maria Gentili. Tenured professor at the University of Bologna, head of Department of African history and institutions. Expert on democracy and development in sub-Saharian Africa.

Kossi Komla-Ebri. Surgeon and writer originally from Togo. In Italy he started the migration writing movement, receiving various awards. He is member of the editorial board of “El-Ghibli”, online magazine on migration. He is also director of migrant literature for Ediarco publishing house.

Alessandra Speciale. Filmmaker and artistic director of the African film festival of Milan, as well as editor of “African screen magazine”.

Massimo Alberizzi. Italian journalist and reporter for Corriere della Sera. Known for his reports on sub-saharan Africa.

Giovanni Carbone. Political researcher for the Milan university, researcher at the International Political Studies Institute (Ispi, Milan); visiting fellow at the Crisis States Research Centre (London School of Economics LSE); associate fellow at the Penn Program in Ethnic Conflict (University of Pennsylvania)

Jean Leonard Touadi. Italian politician, academic, writer and journalist, originaly from Congo. He lectures at the University of Tor Vergata in Rome in the department of Litterature and Philosophy. He is the first Italian member of Parliament with non European origins. He has written, “Africa. La pentola che bolle”, Africa, the frying pan (EMI, 2003); “Congo. Ruanda. Burundi. Le parole per conoscere”, Congo, Randa, Burundi, the words to know (Editori Riuniti, 2004); “L’Africa in Pista”, Africa ready (SEI, 2006).

Pietro Veronese. Reporter for many years in crisis global areas such as the Middle East, Balkans, Subsaharan Africa. At the moment he is responsible for the “Domenica di Repubblica”.

Sandra Federici. Director of “Africa e Mediterraneo”, which follows the economy, history, culture and social movements of Africa.

The staff

Joshua Massarenti. Editor in chief

Emanuela Citterio. Project Coordinator

Chiara Caprio. Staff writer

Randa Ghazy. Staff writer

Collaborators: Marie-Martine Buckens; Mame Aly Konte; Momet Mathurin; Sylvain Ranjahaly; Alexis Kalambry; Ousseini Issa Djibo; Ould Chekh Ahmed; Damien Glez.