World Press Freedom Day Participant Profile: Abdikadir Ahmed

A speaker at this year’s World Press Freedom Day conference, Abdikadir Ahmed discusses innovative ways to introduce technology for sharing information in a panel on “Accessing the Digital Benefit.” Ahmed, IREX’s Field Projects Manager in Somalia, uses innovative media tools to help alleviate conflict and clan differences by providing media skills, mediation training, and technical assistance to women and youth in the USAID-funded, IREX-administered Uniting Communities to Mitigate Conflict (UCMC) program.  

UCMC promotes peaceful approaches to clan-related conflict through media products and facilitated community dialogues. The program mobilizes youth and women, traditionally non-active players in these conflicts, by providing training in peacebuilding, facilitation, and media skills such as story writing, producing, and editing videos.

Abdikadir Ahmed supports UCMC partners in producing documentaries, dramas, talk shows and articles promoting peaceful approaches to clan-related conflict and highlighting ways for women and youth in particular to work for peace in their communities. Through other IREX media support programs, Abdikadir has worked to improve the professional and business capacity of Somali media outlets, as well as to support efforts to construct a democratic legal framework for the media.

When asked his views on media development in the region, Abdikadir explains that a lack of a coordination among media associations and the absence of a comprehensive legal framework remain a frustrating reality, hindering protection of the right to freedom of expression in Somalia.

Still, Abdikadir expresses optimism regarding the future of independent media in Somalia.  There are a significant and growing number of media outlets in Somalia including websites and many radio and television stations. 

In addition, nearly all the radio and TV media outlets have correspondents throughout the country, with one radio station employing over 40 people, for example.  Because Somali journalists have a presence even in the smaller cities of the country, Somali citizens can be well informed of current events all over the country by visiting only a few of these websites. 

One of the most exciting aspects of the evolving Somali media environment, Abdikadir says, is how the media outlets are sustained more and more by young people.  Many employees, aware that they will not be paid for their work, are young volunteers who join only to build their media professional capacity.  The substantial number of Somali youth who join these outlets indicate a newfound passion in choosing media as their professional career in Somalia and reflects a promising trend for the Somali media.

# # #

About World Press Freedom Day
World Press Freedom Day is celebrated every year on May 3 worldwide. The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) organizes World Press Freedom Day commemorations to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom; to evaluate press freedom, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty. In December 1993, the UN General Assembly proclaimed May 3 as World Press Freedom Day. Since then, it has been celebrated each year on May 3, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of free press principles as put together by newspaper journalists in Africa during a UNESCO seminar on “Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press” in Windhoek, Namibia in 1991. The declaration calls for free, independent, pluralistic media worldwide characterizing free press as essential to democracy and a fundamental human right.
 
World Press Freedom Day 2011
This year’s World Press Freedom Day conference will take place May 1-3 at the Newseum and National Press Club in Washington DC. It will feature innovative journalists, donors, and researchers who focus on digital media and the new opportunities—and threats—to freedom of expression that lie in the use of new technologies and social networks. The conference is organized jointly by UNESCO, the U.S. Department of State, the Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy, IREX, and the United Nations Foundation.