In the last decades, professional media has been identified as a transformative leading force to induce development at multiple levels. The input that media can have on educational and health-related projects, the contribution of journalists to give a voice to the “non-heard” or the so-called ‘watchdog’ role on governments and institutions -just to mention a few structures- have been some of the aspects highlighted to refer to the potential of media to advance towards more prosperous, stable and democratic societies.
This rational has positioned media development interventions in the global agenda particularly after the mid-1990s. At present, under the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals media development is also included in the Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).
Target 10 of SDG 16 refers to “Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms” as an intimate component of the process to achieve accurate, impartial and media. Freedom of the press and the right to information is considered in that Goal as something crucial to sustainable development.
However, the global climate change emergency and the traditional reluctance from governments in developing nations to facilitate media development pushes, have diminished investments of donors to media development. This paper intends to identify what are the challenges and opportunities of media development together with the needs of this discipline in the coming years to further expand and allow the media contribute to the Agenda 2030 in full.
The research developed in this paper has been based in an unprecedented consultation exercise involving all international media development organizations (of multilateral nature like UNESCO, from the NGO field like Internews and those of academic basis like university departments). With more than 100 participants, the goal of this consultation has been to bring the voice of these organizations that have lead media development efforts across the Globe and to identify not only the challenges faced but the opportunities ahead and how to capitalize upon those.
This paper is not only a compilation of views and experiences. It also has a pragmatic angle: it aims at being considered an advocacy tool to address donors and multilaterals on the need to continue enhancing support to media development as key catalyst to achieve the Agenda 2030 in all its dimensions.