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Meeting report

A meeting report from the MENA regional meeting organised by GFMD and ARIJ on 30 November 2023.

This meeting was held under the Chatham House rule

When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

You can find the report here:

The meeting will be recorded for record-keeping and to enable accurate reporting. The video will never be shared or published.

This meeting is not for the solicitation of funding

The meeting, which gathered 80 GFMD members, partners and donors working in the MENA region included:

Quotes and testimonies from the meeting:

Regarding crisis coordination for journalists and media in Gaza:

UNESCO outlined their efforts on the ground, informing the participants that the Ramallah office has been maintaining regular communication with partners both on the ground and in Gaza. They have established a safety officers network, initiated six years ago, to build a network of journalists with safety capacities in various media outlets.

On the topic of the ongoing OECD consultation on relevant and effective support to media and the media environment:

A discussion on GFMD's code of conduct similarly addressed the donor-recipient relationship and the feeling of deep dismay of the local media community at the sudden withdrawal of international support and funding:

In response, one international mediadev expert said:

In terms of solutions:

Main outcomes

GFMD’s regional MENA meeting resulted in a number of significant outcomes:

Improved regional communication and verification of social media accounts

  • GFMD used dedicated email lists – for the MENA region and for Palestine – to facilitate information sharing and joint action, including collating a spreadsheet of social media accounts of trustworthy independent news organisations in Palestine and neighbouring countries.

  • This list was shared with META’s policy team to be added to their “Cross Check” scheme and with TikTok

The full meeting report can be found here.

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