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ECA Press Release No. 04/2003

AFRICAN MEDIA AWARDS FOR INFORMATION SOCIETY REPORTING

Addis Ababa, 13 May 2003 (ECA) - The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and
its partners will today present the African Information Society Initiative
(AISI) Media Awards to prominent media practitioners and organizations that have
made significant contributions to the development of information and
communications technologies (ICTs) and the information society in Africa.

An initiative of ECA, the awards are currently supported by the Open Society
Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), the Open Society Initiative for Western
Africa (OSIWA), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the
International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD).

This year's winners and their special interest categories are:

AISI-OSISA Print: ICT Focus (Ethiopia)

AISI-OSISA Radio: Radio Afrique Espoir (Benin)

AISI-OSISA TV: Association Yam Pukri (Burkina Faso)

AISI-OSISA Special Award: Réalités Magazine (Tunisia)

IICD-Local Content: Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET)
African Languages Technology (Nigeria) - Second Prize

IICD Media: Mr. Etienne Tasse (Cameroon)
Mr. Salif Sanogo (Mali)

IDRC Award on Reporting on ICT Research and Innovation:
Mr. Takawira Musara (Zimbabwe) IT & Telecom Digest (Nigeria)
Ms. Bianca Wright (South Africa) - Second Prize

OSIWA Best Female Reporter: Ms. Brenda Zulu (Zambia)

The winners year were selected by internationally recognized African
journalists, media researchers, and experts on ICT for Development issues.

The AISI Media Awards are established to encourage more informed coverage of the
information society and ICT for development issues in Africa as part of the its
AISI Outreach and Communication Programme. The AISI Media Awards is aimed at
individual journalists and media institutions based in Africa that are
"promoting journalism which contributes to a better understanding of the
information society in Africa".

The Award ceremony is one of the events of the on-going third meeting of the
Committee on Development Information (CODI-III), one of seven technical
Committees established by the ECA's Conference of Ministers in May 1997 to
ensure the implementation of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI)
so as to promote the growth of an information society in Africa, advise on
measures to improve all aspects of statistical development of member States, and
advise on the building, maintenance and dissemination of regional development
databases, including bibliographic, textual and spatial databases.

AISI is aimed at supporting and accelerating socio-economic development across
the continent, focusing on priority strategies, programmes and projects that can
assist in the sustainable build up of an information society in African
countries. This requires the development of information resources to reflect the
needs of each and every sector and stakeholder in society.

The information society also requires that information and knowledge be
disseminated and used by stakeholders, the public at large and disenfranchised
groups such as women and the poor to make rational choices and exercise
democratic and human rights.

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For more information on the Awards, please contact Aida Opoku-Mensah at
[email protected]

For information on AISI, visit http://www.uneca.org/aisi/

For more information on CODI-III, contact:
Yinka Adeyemi
Communication Officer
Tel: +251-1-44 35 37
Fax: +251-1-51 03 65
Cell: +251-9- 40 27 15
E-mail: [email protected]

Issued by the Communication Team
ECA
P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Tel: +251-1-44 50 98 or 44 31 61
Fax: +251-1-51 03 65
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: http://www.uneca.org