IDS and AllAfrica have teamed up to produce and distribute compelling multi-media content on critical issues for Africa’s future as part of a development reporting initiative. By combining the latest research from IDS and our partners with AllAfrica’s award-winning reporting, the intent is to inform and engage influential audiences and opinion leaders in the north and south.
The initiative examines the challenge of intractable poverty: the obstacles that have retarded more equitable growth despite booming economies; the increasing complexities of communities in a rapidly changing environment; challenges of access to healthcare and employment among both a burgeoning middle-class and those left behind; a continuing lack of adequate food and nutrition, despite a region where 70 per cent of people work the land; and lagging service delivery amid rapid population expansion.
At the same time, we want to call attention to promising efforts to address these challenges. The objective is producing and presenting a body of work – with and through allAfrica.com, its associated publishers and its global network of news providers and information distributors – which reaches both a wide public and decision makers; contributes to creative thinking and knowledge sharing; and spurs conversation and dialogue.
What we hope to achieve and what we feel is needed – both in the international policy debate and for effective coordination and implementation – is reporting that seeks out innovations and recounts real-life stories – combining human interest with factual, quantitative and qualitative research.
The project will result in a series of multi-media feature reports. In blogs, stories and images, AllAfrica will explore the challenges faced by communities in Kenya around food security and under nutrition, in Nigeria around local health services, and in Uganda focusing on maternal health.
The AllAfrica Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation whose staff are primarily African, working in Nairobi, Cape Town, Dakar and Monrovia. The website allAfrica.com, which is hosting the development reporting project, posts over 2000 items on an average day, in partnership with 130 African news organisations, and has a searchable archive of some three million pieces. They are committed to supporting African journalism and share our interest in evidence-based policymaking.
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