AMARC AFRICA’S Fourth Pan-African Conference to be held in Ivory Coast

The AMARC Africa Board announced earlier this week that their fourth Pan-African Conference will be held in Côte d’Ivoire in April 2009. Which will be hosted by their members, the “Union des radios de proximité de la Côte d’Ivoire”.

Every four years AMARC Africa organises a Pan-African conference for its members and community radio stakeholders to discuss the challenges of community radio in Africa. It is during the Pan-African conferences that AMARC Africa members elect the Board of Directors as well as decide on the strategic plan for action for the following four years. This is the second time that the Pan-African conference will be held in West Africa. Previous Pan-African Conferences were held in Johannesburg (South Africa) in 1997, Dakar (Senegal) in 2001 and Nairobi (Kenya) in 2005. Ivory Coast was selected to host the conference from tenders submitted from AMARC member country networks namely Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Niger and Burkina Faso. Ivory Coast was selected to host the Pan-African on the basis of (a) the quality of the presentation of its documentation; (b) the fact the bid was presented by a Federation (c) the federation has the support of the radios. (d) the federation has support and approval from the government; (e) that the challenges of CR in Côte d’Ivoire are very important for AMARC Africa as they resonate with the rebuilding of AMARC Africa (f) That the selection allows for geographic balance with other Pan African Conferences. AMARC Africa members number over 364, and are based in all sub-regions of the continent. AMARC-Africa is the African regional section of AMARC grouping together radios from all the sub-regions of the continent. The main global impact of AMARC since its creation in 1983, has been to accompany and support the establishment of an African and world wide community radio sector that has democratized the media sector. AMARC Africa advocates for the right to communicate at the international, national, local and neighbourhood levels and defends and promotes the interests of the community radio movement through solidarity, networking and Cooperation.