The Vice-Chancellor of Mozambique's Higher Institute of International Relations (ISRI), Jamisse Taimo, on Tuesday urged media professionals to play their role as promoters of development.
Addressing a seminar, organized by the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), on Media Coverage of the government's main anti-poverty document, PARPA (Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty), he recalled that one of the strategies used by African countries during the liberation years, was the establishment of "alternative" media, to counter the way in which the major international agencies reported African matters.
But now alternatives were needed within African journalism, to counter a grey and stultifying approach according to which only officialdom has anything interesting to say. Taimo noted that, most of the time, the media report on certain issues in the rural areas only when government officials are there to inaugurate undertakings.
This, he warned, undermines the media's role of "giving voice to the voiceless".
The way many events appear in the press makes it sound as if "the media are the channel to convey the government's ideas", and not to report on what is important for the people. "PARPA is not outside of the people's daily life", Taimo said.
For his part, Adelino Pimpao, a prominent Mozambican economist, compared positively PARPA II, which is now being finalised, to PARPA I, the first phase of the poverty reduction programme, which is ending this year. He noted that one of the main factors determining the relatively poor performance of the first phase was that civil society was not included during the drafting stage, which resulted in most people not understanding the document or not feeling it as their own. Preparation of PARPA II, however, has been much more thorough, with the draft document circulated among civil society organisations, and discussed at the Poverty Observatory, which brings together representatives of the government, civil society and the donors.
Pimpao also asked why the yearly government social and economic plans, which are intended to be the implementation of PARPA, are submitted to the parliament, while PARPA itself is not - it is passed by the government, without a parliamentary vote.
Pimpao though it would make much more sense for parliament to debate the main document, and vote on the entire structure of PARPA - then perhaps the government could be allowed to adopt on its own the yearly implementation plans
|
