Forging a network of Southern journalists

BY Rupa Chinai| IN Media Practice | 15/08/2008

At a time when the media has a crucial role in educating the public and policy makers on issues of national interest – for instance the pros and cons of nuclear power – where is the in-depth knowledge and the skill to explain complex issues that can be technical and difficult to interpret?  

For Indian journalists increasingly subjected to management pressures in ¿dumbing down¿ news and the influence of commercialization, opportunities to deepen their knowledge  and skills base; to travel and draw from the experience of other countries; to understand the forces that shape our world, is rare. The decreasing space for ¿real¿ news, based on first-hand insights and legwork is a world-wide phenomenon.

Given this context, an interesting initiative to set up a "global network of journalists" has provided media people from countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America a forum for interaction within the profession, as also with international bodies that shape developing country policies. Although the process is still wrought with imperfections and subjected to donor agendas, it is an idea that opens up a wholly new world view.

In an increasingly globalised world, where the South is likely to play a more dominant role, the forging of journalist networks holds many possibilities. It enables Southern journalists to bring the voices of communities to international policy makers. It provides scope for engagement in an environment of equality, where Southern realities can be better understood. It also creates a forum where accountability can be demanded and new ideas imbibed.  

Such possibilities became apparent during a recent workshop on ‘Access to Health’ organized in Geneva by Media 21, which has pioneered this ‘global network of journalists’ initiative along with Infosud, a Swiss news agency. The duo have been active over the past couple of years, organizing workshops on issues as varied as climate change, unequal trade and development, media ethics or peace and conflict resolution. These have highlighted the new frontiers of the media’s role, where it moves beyond mere reporting to a more incisive role in creating in-depth understanding of key issues.  

For participants at the recent Geneva workshop on health, (which was followed by a field trip to Haiti or Uganda), the exposure highlighted the sharp polarization of perspective that continues to exists between the countries of the North and the South.

Even as Southern realities cry out for access to real, nourishing and affordable food, clean water, sanitation, means of economic survival  and access to comprehensive health care, -- interventions that would have an across-the-board impact on health, there appears to be little shift in the Northern perspective.

The focus of major funding and policy diktat from the North remains obsessed with the pumping of more technological interventions – drugs, vaccines, diagnostic kits or food fortification therapies (a pre-dominance of expensive lab produced chemicals to fortify food as against natural, real food). This approach is contrary to their own experiences in health achievements, which was gained through a revolution in hygiene, sanitation and water. Southern experience shows that a technology driven approach cannot have a tangible impact on malnourished populations who lack means of basic survival.    

The opportunity for interaction and   engagement     over    these      two

perspectives was however, an important beginning.  But it was an uphill

task.

The observation of a South African journalist voiced the feeling of many others: "There is a weariness listening to international panelists at this workshop talk yet again of us needing more drugs and vaccines. They do not represent what communities want. The common man is concerned with issues of economic survival, the need for real, nourishing food that is affordable and access to general health care. One is forced to ask, ‘from whom are you getting your information?’

The last was a crucial question because international organizations seldom pay attention to the voices of communities. Policies are shaped on the basis of their dialogues with bureaucrats or politicians who are equally distant from ground realities.

HIV/AIDS for instance, is a major obsession of Western agencies influencing developing country policies. There is mounting criticism internationally that the enormous funds earmarked for AIDS has been at the expense of all other diseases and the creation of comprehensive primary health care services.

Journalists who have long followed the story of AIDS patients in their countries revealed at the Geneva workshop that the concerns of the common man, as outlined by the South African journalist, are also the crying need of AIDS patients, whom the international aid agencies fulsomely claim to support. Along with such broad-based interventions these patients also seek access to traditional medicines, an issue that aroused considerable interest at the workshop.

"We need access to available AIDS treatment and we need to know if it is working, but we also need to explore our traditional medicines through systematic research", an African journalist said. "A white, western perspective within South Africa’s media and research community scoffed at African traditional medicines and that has hurt the sentiment of ordinary people. Africans have strong faith in their systems and culture. This has led to a widening gap of distrust", she added.

The introduction of ARV through the public health system was initially resisted by the South African government but it was forced to succumb under pressure of the HIV/AIDS lobby both nationally and internationally. African journalists said the South African health minister made the mistake of creating an ‘either/or situation’ by promoting traditional drugs and opposing ARV, which led to an avoidable confrontation.   Today South Africa has half a million patients on free ARV drugs. 

Apart from the huge concentration of funds on a single, expensive therapy for one disease, (which holds no promise of a cure), patients on ARV need access to standardized laboratories and regular tests conducted by well trained technicians. South Africa like most developing countries lacks basic primary health infrastructure, laboratory facilities and food aid that can support these patients through their treatment.

Conditions of poor health infrastructure meanwhile, are no different in Latin America. A week’s field trip to the Caribbean island of Haiti, as part of the Media 21 fellowship programme, revealed a story of total collapse of health infrastructure. The government hospital, the only health facility in the rural district of Jacmel, serving a population of 500,000, has no doctors, drugs or electricity. Access, particularly for those living in the interior areas, is difficult because of poor roads and absence of public transportation. 

For those who do reach the hospital, it could still be a wasted journey. In the women’s ward of the hospital, the nuns-- the only caregivers seen-- watch in despair as women writhe in pain, slip in and out of coma or lie bleeding profusely. The hospital does not provide free life-saving drugs and the women are too poor to buy them.

Apart from AIDS, Haiti’s main health problems relate to high maternal and infant mortality; TB, malaria, high blood pressure and dental problems. Haiti’s high maternal mortality rate – 630 per 100,000 – is mainly on account of anaemia which leads to pregnancy related complications such as eclampsia and hemorrhage and the birth of low birth weight babies.

Its infant mortality rate is 87 per 1,000 for children under five years of age; 53 per 1,000 for those under age one. The main cause of death is pneumonia and diarrhea. Chronic and acute malnutrition affects 23 per cent of Haiti’s children. A mark of ten per cent ‘acute malnutrition’ (affecting some parts of the country) warrants pulling of the ‘emergency trigger’, according to UNICEF.

"In the regional context it is a very bad situation", said a UNICEF spokesperson. "There is no country in the Americas region which has comparable indicators. The maternal mortality rate is comparable to the worst in African countries. There is extreme vulnerability because of poor nutrition", she held. 

Even the World Bank, "not known for its concern for social indicators", refers to chronic malnutrition in Haiti as the "main hurdle" in bringing the country out of poverty, the UNICEF spokesperson pointed out.

Health agencies working in Haiti, including UNICEF are clear that drugs and food therapies do not address the key issue – the national production of food and restoration of agricultural self-sufficiency. 

The bulk of aid money coming into Haiti focuses on HIV/AIDS and involves "very big players" for whom "money is not a problem" says UNICEF. At the forefront is the US, which is Haiti’s biggest donor, and a major supplier of pharmaceutical drugs. Its major concern however is not with the needs on the ground but how aid money can be ploughed back to US industries which have heavily invested in HIV/AIDS drugs and diagnostics.

The Bush government for instance, initiated the ‘President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief’ (Pepfar) which is a major programme to provide Anti-Retroviral (ARV) drugs and the diagnostic kits for detection of HIV/AIDS.  While the number of HIV/AIDS affected in Haiti was projected to be five per cent in 1989, it was recently scaled down to 2.2 per cent following more comprehensive community studies.

Despite this US funds for AIDS drugs to Haiti has steadily risen from US $ 28 million in 2004 to the present $ 100 million in 2008.

The Geneva workshop revealed that although 75 per cent of health expenditure comes out of the pockets of the poorest in developing countries, they have no say in setting priorities. Meanwhile money from the donors – up to $16 billion until 2006, according to the WHO – has come with conditions that distort national health priorities. Money poured into technology interventions is considered inadequate while the gains in health remain intangible. There is little understanding of the wider linkages that affect access to health or concern for research in the neglected diseases that add to the burden of ill-health and death.

But one takes heart from the advice of the Ugandan Vice-President, Professor Gilbert Balibaseka Bukenya who said "We have to put on a crocodile skin to develop our country". He spoke of how the World Bank had threatened to stop giving money when his government refused to follow its diktat on the issue of Uganda obtaining Indian-made generic ARV drugs and technology transfer. 

For many journalists striving to connect the theory and technical input of Geneva to a wide angle lens through which they viewed Haiti or Uganda, the experience highlighted one lesson. That technology by itself can never be a magic wand. It can be a boon and a gift of life when it is based on other broader interventions that have to be in place first. 

For Southern journalists this exposure gives rise to a challenging thought. Is it possible to forge networks between the media in Asia-Africa-Latin America through Southern initiatives? Can we raise our own funds and thereby have the freedom to set our own agendas for experience sharing, skills and knowledge building? Journalists in Haiti expressed keen interest in visiting Africa as also countries like India. They said they are keen to learn English and also look at some of the health and development initiatives that would hold relevance for their country. Such partnerships, in view of the emerging food and energy crisis – key issues for the coming years – are crucial for the developing world which must evolve its own sustainable solutions.