After about four years under the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, operations of the Dar es Salaam-based Kilimanjaro Dialogue (KDI) in Tanzania have made a moderate comeback on stage, pressing for total Africa media embrace of digital age opportunities in order to meet the information and knowledge demands of the day for full and meaningful human development.
Drawn from a wide spectrum of media stakeholders, guests at a KDI-hosted Itfar dinner-cum-exchange of ideas on contemporary issues, agreed that there is no reason for owners, workers and the grassroots public to harbor fears that machines will ever replace man because the tools are his product and cannot go into operation without being initiated by the same man. Comprising social, electronic, media consultancy, and civic foundations, the guests observed that human dignity and rights must, however, always be given preference over any advancement in technological, social, and political development spheres.
For the Africa media to go or not to go digital targeting sustainable human development, two views emerged at the dinner. On one hand, media Consultant and blogger Ezekiel Kamwaga observed that many genuine leaders do lot of good upon coming to power. But in the absence of delivering communications system they end up hanging at the top while the people of the ground remain ignorant of what their leaders are doing, however good. Other leaders come into power through the ballot box but thereafter engage themselves in pulling down all democracy pillars for their own benefit, thus abandoning interests of those who put them into power, including the right to access (well researched and authentic) information. This is where the need for a critical media arises.
On the other hand, Managing Director of Jamii Forums — one of the East African Community (EAC) and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), Great Lakes and African Union (AU) regions’ upcoming pro-good governance civic institutions, Maxence Melo, warned of dangers of leaders engaged in development activities and turning to mounting self-publicity and propaganda campaigns. Such leaders, he argued, tend to lose track along the lines of “Kizuri cha jiuza; kibaya cha jitembeza” African indigenous old adage.
The Kamwaga-Melo observations pointed to leaders losing touch with the base, impacting their performance and creating room for investigative journalism – a specialized journalism area starved in Tanzania of people like Mbarak Islam of Raia Mwema, who was also an invitee. Expounding on the stress for digital media continued growth, Jamii Forums’ boss revealed that his institution reaches out to about five million people through the social media daily, an almost impossible coverage for individual newsprint dailies. Director Hassan Khamis of Radio Kher said they were in the final stages of establishing a TV station.
Ishik Medical and Education Foundation (IEMF) chairman Ismail Yilmaz said that in the process of improving information penetration to the grassroots, the African media had to avoid falling in the trap of their Western counterparts’ media policy about the continent. “I’ve an experience of many parts of the world. There is a lot of dialogue going on in Africa, which is positive for good governance comparable to what is going on in Europe. This positive fact should not be ignored,” he noted. KDI Trustee Alhaj Habib Miraji said that he had witnessed big media transformation during all post-independence Tanzania governments worth communicating.
KDI Executive Secretary Hassan Mzighani called on the invitees to establish closer institutional links to carry forward the KDI aims and objectives and promised more of such occasions revolving on the axis of national, regional and international calendars and scheduled development activities and forums. The iftar dinner was held at the Istanbul Restaurant, run by a former Turkish journalist turned into a hospitality industry entrepreneur. Turkey is among the world’s worst jailers of journalists.