Afri’Kibaaru: 3 questions for Thierry Vallat, Chairman and Managing Director of CFI

What role does CFI play in the Afri’Kibaaru project?

CFI aims to enhance the editorial and managerial skills of a large network of local and national media outlets in the six countries within the Greater Sahel region on subjects such as education, health, climate and gender equality. The aim is to equip these media outlets with the tools they need to independently produce content that is informative, attractive and interactive to enable the populations within these countries to take full ownership of the challenges associated with sustainable development and to become more heavily involved in the public debate surrounding the responses to those challenges.

Why is the complementarity of RFI and CFI so essential to this project?

Sustainable development involves issues that must be taken into account as a matter of urgency, but which can only be resolved over the long term. The complementarity of RFI and CFI allows these two dimensions to be integrated into the Afri’Kibaaru project. RFI has the ability to quickly raise awareness of the challenges posed by sustainable development among the populations of the Greater Sahel region through the mass distribution of quality content in African languages, while CFI’s activities will help to firmly anchor these challenges in the editorial line of the local media and therefore also in the public debate in the region.

What, specifically, does CFI do in this area?

Between now and 2023, 48 media outlets, together with opinion leaders and members of civil society organisations, will benefit from support for the production and dissemination of content on the subject of sustainable development in French and several languages of the Sahel region.
This support will include training, coaching and regional workshops to enable the sharing of experience and the pooling of knowledge with key stakeholders in the scientific community and the business world. Competitions will also be organised to encourage and reward innovative media output and significant efforts will be made to train local trainers.

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