An African peer review mechanism conducted by an independent body should be established on the basis of home grown parameters, experiences and context to carry out self-assessment and ranking on the continent’s media.

This is one of the key recommendations from a regional media dialogue that took place in Kigali, Tuesday,

Stakeholders in the media sector and representatives from various media houses from across the continent met to review and asses the gains and gaps within the media in Africa.

Rwanda hosted the gathering after being inspired by the media reforms it is undertaking. As part of the media reforms, Rwanda passed an access to information legislation, shifted regulation to the practitioners themselves and turned government owned media to a public broadcaster.

According to the organisers, one of goals was initiate a continent-wide debate on how to best understand and rank African media organisations, with the aim to avail documented scientific data without relying on Western assessments which are often faulty and appear to be biased.

Berna Namata, a Rwandan journalist who was a panelist in one of the day’s sessions on Wednesday told The New Times that an African peer review mechanism would be a timely phenomenon because in recent years "we have many” African media organisations re-inventing themselves on the world stage.

"Increasingly, we are seeing African owned media organisations and African journalists trying to tell their story,” Namata said.

She said as long as there is a competent and professional team carrying out research, the results will reflect the reality on the ground.

Self-regulation critical

The dialogue which attracted seasoned journalists and media experts from seven countries, including Uganda, Kenya, DR Congo, Zimbabwe, and Belgium, discussed at length, Africa’s experience in media self-regulation.

At the end, it was recommended that whereas the role of Governments in regulation is critical, the independence of media self regulatory bodies should not be compromised.

Namata said that she thinks that media practitioners should be given a chance to regulate themselves.

"While at the beginning it might be a difficult task given that the industry is still very young, with time the profession will grow just like what we are witnessing in other sectors of the economy,” Namata said.

Wangethi Mwangi from the African Media Initiative and former editorial director of Kenya’s Nation Media Group moderated the session on self-regulation.

He said the self-regulation mechanisms have advantages that include; building public trust in addition to building a culture of accountability in the media.

The dialogue on "Media Peer Review on Self-Regulation and Access to Information in Africa” was organised by the Rwanda Governance Board, the Rwanda Journalists Association and the Rwanda Media Commission (RMC) – the local self-regulation body.

The key stakeholders in the ongoing reforms in Rwanda are the Swedish embassy, UNDP and IWPR.

Top government officials and senior diplomats also attended the dialogue. The Minister for Local Government, who opened the gathering, told participants that the media is key component of the country’s development agenda – the EDPRS 2.