Building Media Capacity for Children Sustainability in Africa: Educational and Partnership Imperatives

Abstract

The “African common position” during the Special Session of United Nations (UN) General Assembly on children was that “Today’s investment in children is tomorrow’s peace, stability, security, democracy and sustainable development.” However, the African child remains the most neglected species in the continent as millions of them are still living in poverty, deprived of education, suffer from malnourishment and discrimination, abandoned and vulnerable to abuses including being used as child soldiers in warfare. This situation demands a revisitation of the world union’s call to care for the interest of the child as specified in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In this regard, the media is fingered as having a role to play in ensuring the realization of children’s many unfulfilled dreams, a responsibility that requires greater capacity. Unfortunately, the current African media capacity for children is very low, a situation traceable to lack of skills and inadequate knowledge base. It is in this direction that this article argues that African media requires an educational framework purposely devoted to children and instituted within the media training purview, as well as partnership to effectively cater for the interest of the child in ensuring sustainable generation for the Continent.