GFMD IMPACT regional coordinators

The coordinators from five regions (Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, The Middle East and North Africa, Asia and the Pacific and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus) work with the GFMD IMPACT team to collect relevant resources, experts, literature in the area of media development and journalism support in their respective regions.

The coordinators are helping the GFMD IMPACT team identify and coordinate the work of consultants with proven networking and engagement experience, academic, research or consultancy work in media development in the specific region.

Asia and the Pacific

Waqas Naeem

Waqas Naeem is a media development professional based in Pakistan. He has previously worked as a journalist and journalism teacher. His current areas of work include monitoring and evaluation of journalism support projects, building the capacity of public interest in digital media, and conducting research and advocacy on freedom of expression.

Faisal Karimi

Faisal Karimi is an emerging new media scholar, media entrepreneur, and professional journalist from Afghanistan. He is the founder and managing director of the Afghanistan Institute for Research and Media Studies, Afghanistan Women News Agency, and Kaashi Digital Media. He has 20 years of journalistic experience in different positions and levels, mentoring and teaching journalism and communication in Afghanistan. Karimi has also worked as an assistant professor of Journalism and Communication at Herat University of Afghanistan for 12 years. Since 2002, he has worked as a TOLONews Reporter, Chief-Editor of People’s Radio, IWPR Coordinator, and deputy director of Afghanistan Journalists Center.

Eastern Europe and the Caucasus

Giorgi Jangiani

Giorgi Jangiani is a media policy analyst and consortium manager at People in Need Georgia, where he is currently leading the 'Strengthening Democratic Resilience in Georgia' project. The project, which is funded by USAID and the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, unites leading fact-checking organizations to fight disinformation and aims to improve media literacy skills among ethnic minorities. Giorgi holds a joint master's degree in European Public Policy from the University of York and the Central European University.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Emy Osorio Matorel

Emy Osorio Matorel is a Colombian Social communicator, with a concentration in Journalism and Culture. She is a member of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and has been a fellow of both the European Union in Greece, and the Kettering Foundation in the United States. She is passionate about media development and international cooperation in the contexts of conflict and post-conflict. Some of the organizations in which she has worked are La Silla Vacía, Fundación Gabo, Women’s Link Worldwide, and ODAR, among others. She has also worked as a media correspondent in the Caribbean region of Colombia. Currently, she is a consultant for several organizations, including the GFMD.

Middle East and North Africa

Basma Elmahdy

Basma Elmahdy is a freelance journalist and media researcher from Egypt, who is currently based in Berlin. She holds a Joint Master's degree in Journalism, Media, and Globalization with a specialization in War and Conflict Reporting from Aarhus University and Swansea University. Her stories, focused on migration, politics, and Arab culture in Germany, appeared in the international services of the German News Agency (DPA).

Suha Oda

Suha Oda is a journalist from Iraq, the director for the Women's Voice for Peacebuilding Project for Media Production, and an investigative journalist who won first place in the Najiba Hamrouni competition in Tunisia in 2019. She currently works in written, visual and audio media, and has previously managed several media projects in conflict areas in Iraq, including a radio department that aims to promote transitional justice in conflict areas after the stage of ISIS in 2017. She has also been working in media production and press training for seven years, and has provided many international trainings in cooperation with international institutions such as the Deutsche Welle Academy, the French CFI, and MiCT. She works as a mentor and trainer for Yemeni journalist with Internews.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Haron Mwangi

Haron Mwangi has an accomplished career in media and communication practice. He is an expert with extensive experience in media governance, freedom of expression, access to information, media policy and regulation, media innovation, and sustainability. He has successfully offered leadership in media law and policy, legislative processes, and building consensus between the media, civil society, and the governments on regulation systems in Africa. He has extensively trained on media freedom and democracy in Africa and Europe. He has also consulted widely on access to information, open governance in both the private and public sector, and researched extensively in media economics, the role of civil society and media coalition in media reforms and democracy in Sub-Saharan, and media regulation. He is the immediate former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Media Council of Kenya (MCK), a self-regulatory body for the Kenyan media industry, and has closely worked with media regulators and journalists across different continents. He has experience in institutional development and management, leadership and governance, and has held top management positions in media houses in both the public and private sectors of Kenya. He is currently the Director of Programs at PANOS Great Lakes, Regional Coordinator for GFMD International Media Policy and Advisory Centre (IMPACT), Thematic mentor for the International Training Programme in Media and Democracy in East and Central Africa funded by SIDA, consultant for several international media development partners including FOJO, IMS, Global Reporting, NIRAS, UNESCO, CHARM, CIVICUS, USAID, SIDA and a visiting professor of Media and Communication at the University of Rwanda, Kigali. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Media and Communications from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

Vusumuzi Sifile

Vusumuzi Sifile is a journalist and specialist on communication for development and knowledge currently serving as the Executive Director of the PANOS Institute Southern Africa, a regional media advocacy and communication for development organisation based in Lusaka, Zambia , and working across Southern Africa. He previously served as PANOS’ Knowledge Management and Communications Manager, and also as the head of the organisation’s Environment and Natural Resource Management Regional Programme. Before joining PANOS, Vusumuzi worked for various local and international media outlets, as well as non-profit organisations, including as a Senior Staff Writer for The Standard, an independent Sunday newspaper in Zimbabwe, a reporter for the now-defunct Parade Magazine, and the Weekly Times (both in Zimbabwe), Communications Assistant for the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Southern Africa, and had a brief stint in Botswana as Editor of The Mirror newspaper. Vusumuzi was also a correspondent for the Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency, the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), the Radio Voice of the People, among other online-based publications with a focus on Zimbabwe and Southern Africa. Vusumuzi has academic qualifications in Journalism and Media Studies (undergraduate), and in Knowledge and Information Systems Management (Postgraduate). He also has professional qualifications in Multimedia and Online Journalism, Conflict Management and Mitigation, Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation, Web 2.0. and Social Media for Development, among others.