The specialist will likewise serve under the title of "Cognitive Technical Officer," or CTO, of the Internews Independent Media Program-Afghanistan. The "overall goal" of the USAID- and private-donor-funded program is to support Afghanistan independent media’s "move toward sustainability, with a focus on improved business skills, management, journalism, and production skills, and reinforcement of an enabling regulatory environment," according to a planning document that The Peacock Report recently obtained.
"Recent years have seen a prolific growth of media, including independent and government magazines and newspapers, independent radio stations, and private television stations," the document points out. "Although this growth has been encouraging as na indicator of freedom of expression and public participation in social and political life, the media sector is still in its early stages... Afghan media and media rights organizations also need continued support for policy and advocacy in the pursuit of assured freedom of expression and the legal underpinnings of an open media."
Impeding the development of open media, for instance, are a list of restrictions that the Afghan National Security Directorate imposed upon journalists last year. Human Rights Watch decried the restrictive list as a "blatant intrusion on the freedom of Afghanistan’s fledgling media. These directives are an insult to the hard work and personal sacrifice of Afghan journalists who try to get the truth out to the public."
The targeted outcome of the project appear to comport with the findings of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which last year reported that "the Afghan media environment appears to have embarked on an upward trend... But ensuring a healthy, professional, and independent media will require the Afghan public and its officials to draw lessons from the past and evaluate the country’s nascent media law."
Similarly, USAID’s recruitment of the media and communications specialist follows last month’s "Media is Development" conference in Kabul, where the Afghan media event affirmed the "constitutional right of the people to be informed, and inform," InterPressService (IPS) News Agency reported.
"There is no alternative to free flow of information and ideas in a democracy because this is the basis for informed dialogue for participation and ownership of development," the conference concluded, according to IPS.
(For access to the above-mentioned planning document and for links to reference articles, go to ThePeacockReport.com, where this piece originally appeared).
"Recent years have seen a prolific growth of media, including independent and government magazines and newspapers, independent radio stations, and private television stations," the document points out. "Although this growth has been encouraging as na indicator of freedom of expression and public participation in social and political life, the media sector is still in its early stages... Afghan media and media rights organizations also need continued support for policy and advocacy in the pursuit of assured freedom of expression and the legal underpinnings of an open media."
Impeding the development of open media, for instance, are a list of restrictions that the Afghan National Security Directorate imposed upon journalists last year. Human Rights Watch decried the restrictive list as a "blatant intrusion on the freedom of Afghanistan’s fledgling media. These directives are an insult to the hard work and personal sacrifice of Afghan journalists who try to get the truth out to the public."
The targeted outcome of the project appear to comport with the findings of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which last year reported that "the Afghan media environment appears to have embarked on an upward trend... But ensuring a healthy, professional, and independent media will require the Afghan public and its officials to draw lessons from the past and evaluate the country’s nascent media law."
Similarly, USAID’s recruitment of the media and communications specialist follows last month’s "Media is Development" conference in Kabul, where the Afghan media event affirmed the "constitutional right of the people to be informed, and inform," InterPressService (IPS) News Agency reported.
"There is no alternative to free flow of information and ideas in a democracy because this is the basis for informed dialogue for participation and ownership of development," the conference concluded, according to IPS.
(For access to the above-mentioned planning document and for links to reference articles, go to ThePeacockReport.com, where this piece originally appeared).
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