Capacity Building and Professionalisation of the Media in Rwanda

The Rwanda Media Programme

To support the developments achieved and spur continued progress, Fojo Media Institute (Fojo) and the Swedish Radio Media Development Organisation (SR MDO), together with the local partners PAX PRESS and RBA, are implementing a five-year media programme, focusing on professionalisation in line with international journalistic core values of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability.

The programme engages three main areas in Rwandan media:

1. Commercial and Non-Profit Media. The programme aims to strengthen the ability of Rwandan media and journalists to become independent and financially sustainable and to produce high quality public interest journalism. This will be achieved through measures to strengthen media houses, journalists and media managers, both with regards to business management, audience research and with capacity building of journalistic skills and the management of a multi-media newsroom.
2. The Public Service Media Provider, RBA. The programme also aims to strengthen the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA) in its transformation to become an independent, trustworthy and sustainable Public Service Media (PSM) provider, according to international journalistic and public service standards. This will be done through continued peer-to-peer institutional capacity building between RBA and SR MDO, drawing on expertise from all three PSM providers in Sweden.
3. Journalism Education Institutions at University Level. The programme will strive to strengthen journalism education in Rwanda to enhance its contribution to the professionalisation of the journalism sector. The relationship between the Rwandan media sector and journalism schools will be strengthened, journalism education institutions will be offered opportunities to update their curricula, increase their skills concerning practical journalism as well as their awareness of gender issues. The programme will also connect them to international experiences, including research conferences.

Fojo’s work in Rwanda began in 2015 and has been financed by the Swedish Embassy in Kigali (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), and is since 2020 co-financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.