03-10-2007 (Paris)
Members and staff of the Rwandan High Council of the Press (HCP) increased their understanding of the role of a professional, independent and transparent media regulatory body during an in-house training in Kigali. Part of a wider project of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), this training was funded by the United States of America.
HCP is an independent public body created by law and instituted by article 34 of the 2003 Rwandan Constitution. The week-long training took place in September 2007 and was led, in the spirit of South-South cooperation, by Luc Adolphe Tiao, President of the Burkina Faso High Council for Communication and an expert in communications regulation. Three staff members of HCP and ten members of its administration took part in the training, together with the vice-president and permanent secretary.
Inaugurated in the presence of the HCP president, M. Dominique Karekezi, the training covered:
- international standards, general principles and theories pertaining to media regulation, with a special focus on their role in developing countries, emerging democracies and post-conflict/transitional environments;
- issues related to professional standards;
- regulation, co-regulation and self-regulation;
- analysis of the Rwandan media legislative framework and the upcoming draft laws presently under discussion in the Rwandan Parliament.
In the framework of the same IPDC project, HCP members travelled to East Africa, last June, to visit regulatory and self-regulatory bodies and journalist associations, such as the National Press Council and the National Journalist Union in Ivory Coast, and the News Agency and the Journalist Association in Ghana. During the trip, the Rwandan regulators had the opportunity to exchange views on issues concerning regulation and protection of journalists, media legislation and the application of international media standards as well as updating existing laws.
The project includes a second trip to expose HPC members to international best practices in media regulation and a follow-up in-house training.
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