AllAfrica Global Media will launch a new convening platform for the AllAfrica Media Leaders’ Summit (AMLS) 2024 from May 8 to 10, 2024, in Nairobi.
The platform under the theme “Re-engineering African media in Times of Critical Transformation’ is re-established after a 10-year hiatus 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 while championing human development.
The event is expected to 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 a press statement sent to newsrooms, AllAfrica Global Media said the pan-African media leaders are gathering to discuss the role they could play in addressing critical issues that threaten to exacerbate civil unrest and conflicts.
“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,” said the statement.
It was further noted that in the media industry, increased digitization, the introduction of Artificial Intelligence, widespread misinformation and disinformation campaigns, as well as the use of deep fakes, have created a new reality full of opportunities that threaten to exacerbate conflicts.
The objective of the summit is to share an understanding of the forces shaping Africa’s integration and align on the role of Africa’s media in crafting the continent’s economic transformation and integration narrative, to support media leaders and practitioners through an era of rapid change brought by Artificial Intelligence, digitization, the scourge of disinformation and misinformation, as well as economies responding to the post-pandemic recession.
It also aims to share and discuss new ideas in order to shape and support Africa’s future by strengthening the continent’s collective efforts towards African integration and economic progress in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2063.
The summit’s six agenda items include African economic transformation, artificial intelligence technology and digitization, regional integration and peacebuilding, misinformation and disinformation, governance, standards, and capacity building for creating sustainable business models.
By Bernadette Khaduli
