Donor perspective- improved partnership

“Donors can be better partners, we can be more sensitive to the needs, the local needs of media organisations. I'm hoping that the principles can help with that.” -Donor Representative

Areas of improvement:

Quantity of support: During the meeting, donor representatives recognised that media assistance is a small portion of the total development assistance (0.3% of official development assistance (ODA).

“The combination of diplomacy, regulatory work, and norm-setting is very necessary. But we also need to emphasise and realise that more support is needed.” -Donor Representative

Structure, modalities and type of media development support: Donors noted there is still too much short-term and inflexible assistance, speaking about the critical importance of long term support, core support and ensuring grantees are not straining their capacities to fulfil burdensome administrative requirements.

A donor representative noted that, as a community, donors and development actors generally have a limited understanding of the media development sector, which is not a classic development area. They observed media development is a political area, which donors cannot support without having a political stance.