CONTINENTAL media representatives leaders and other key stakeholders will in May converge in Kenya for the AllAfrica Media Leaders’ Summit (AMLF) as they seek to tackle some of the emerging challenges confronting the sector in the 21st century .
AMLS will be held from the 8th to the 10th of May this year in Nairobi, Kenya under the theme “Re-engineering African Media in Times of Critical Transformation“.
The summit was held successfully from 2008 to 2013, bringing together media stakeholders including influential journalists, senior editors, civil society organizations, academics, business leaders as well as heads of state and leaders of Africa’s most prestigious institutions, such as the African Union, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. What began with fifty attendees grew to more than 500 participants.
After a 10-year hiatus, AllAfrica is launching a new annual initiative, the AMLS. AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic.
“This vital convening platform is re-established as part of a broader campaign to support media practitioners with the skills, enhanced contextual knowledge and structures to play appropriate and essential roles in driving regional integration and the transformation of African economies, whilst championing human development, organisers of the summit said in a statement.
“AMLS 2024 will bring together over 250 top African media leaders, owners and operators (representing almost all African countries and territories), global media players and opinion leaders, government officials, corporate leaders, academics, civil society champions, and development partners to discuss the business of media and the critical role it must play in shaping Africa’s future.
“In response to pressing appeals from many media practitioners and stakeholders across Africa who believe a free, independent, professional and thriving media industry is essential to the continent’s future, AllAfrica Global Media has agreed to launch a new convening platform: the AllAfrica Media Leaders’ Summit (AMLS).”
Some of the key topics which will be discussed during AMLS include African economic transformation, the impact of Artificial Intelligence, technology and digitisation; regional integration and peacebuilding; governance, standards, and capacity building and creating sustainable business models
“As with journalism institutions elsewhere in the world, African print and broadcast media have witnessed major changes in their industry. They need to address the challenges they face collectively,” the statement reads.
“The adoption of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is seen by many as a game changer, with immense potential to usher in an era of development and prosperity. In the media industry, increased digitization, the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI), widespread misinformation and disinformation campaigns, as well as the use of deep fakes, have created a new reality full of opportunities – but at the same time, threaten to exacerbate civil unrest and conflicts. In this context, a new annual convening of Africa’s media leaders can play a critical role in addressing critical issues that concern everyone.”
On November 4th, 2008 – the same day the world witnessed the election of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States of America- AllAfrica Global Media was making its own history, three thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean, in Dakar, Senegal.
The company organized a continental media gathering of fifty of Africa’s most influential media leaders in Dakar with support from the World Bank, Ecobank, Coca-Cola and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch what would become known as the African Media Leaders Forum (AMLF). The Forum quickly emerged as the most important annual gathering for Media leaders and Media Stakeholders across the continent and ran annually in collaboration with AMI for 6 years, growing with each edition.-STAFF WRITER
