The Advisory Group is made up of seven leading media practitioners from across Africa drawn from the key stakeholder constituencies; professionals, civil society organisations, media managers and leaders from both public and private media and reflects geographic, gender and language diversity.

The input of the Advisory Group is being sought on each of the three critical phases of the project; the research, the technical workshop and the Media Summit.



Luckson Alfred Chipare

Regional Director
Media Institute of Southern Africa

Luckson Chipare is a Zimbabwean national currently working for the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) based in Windhoek, Namibia.

He joined MISA in January 1996, first as Finance and Administration Manager and, since August 2000 as Regional Director.

Luckson was instrumental in setting up the organisation's systems and procedures and he has guided the organization through its consolidation phase into a major free expression and media freedom advocate in Africa.

From June 2004 to February 2006, he was the International Freedom of Expression (IFEX) Convenor, leading the largest network of free expression in the world now made up of 72 members.

Prior to joining MISA, Luckson worked in Zimbabwe as a Finance Director of a group of companies with construction, engineering and insurance interests.

Luckson is a qualified Chartered Management Accountant and Chartered Secretary and holds a Masters in Business Administration obtained in 1989.


Wilfred David Kiboro

Chief Executive
Nation Media Group

Mr. Kiboro led the largest and fastest growing media house in the East African region, the Nation Group, with a multimedia platform comprising print (newspapers and magazines), television, FM radio and internet services in the East African region of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

He also has experience as director of the subsidiary companies of the Nation Media Group, including Nation Newspapers Division, Nation Broadcasting Division, Nation Carriers Division, Nation Marketing and Publishing in Kenya, Monitor Publications Limited and KFM radio in Uganda, Mwananchi Communications Ltd publishers of Mwananchi and Mwanaspoti and The Citizen in Tanzania, East African Magazines and Property Development and Management Limited in Kenya.

Internationally, Wilfred Kiboro is the chairman of the International Press Institute (IPI), East African Business Summit and a member of the International Who's Who of Professionals.

He also sits on The Rhodes Trust in Kenya as Honorary Chairman and is a member of the International Organisation of Employers' (IOE) Enterprise Advisory Group.


Dr. Arlindo Lopes

Journalist
Mozambique

Dr. Arlindo Lopes has 34 years experience on various newspapers - including the national daily Notícias (as reporter, news editor and director), Tempo weekly news magazine and the Sunday paper Domingo, both as staff writer.

He spent five years as head (Chairman of the Board and CEO) of the national broadcaster Televisão de Moçambique and during his tenure there, he also served for two years as president of the Union of National Radio and Television Organizations of Africa (URTNA).

Furthermore at African and international levels, he has played an active role in different capacities in the development of communication and broadcasting in particular, as a member of the Steering Committee of the recently formed African Broadcasters Partnership Against HIV and Aids, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Media for Global Health Group.

On a regional level, he was the Chairman of the former Committee of Officials for Culture Information and Sports of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and has held the post of Vice-chairperson of the Southern Africa Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) for six years.

Previously, from 1987-1994, he served in the government as National Director at the then Ministry of Information, and from 1995 to 2002, as Director of the Office of Information reporting directly to the Prime Minister. He has an MA in Media Ecology from New York University.


Moeletsi Mbeki

Chairman
KMM Review Publishing Company (Pty) Ltd

Moeletsi Mbeki is a private business entrepreneur. He is a director of several companies, and is Chairman of KMM Investments (Pty) Limited, Endemol South Africa (Pty) Limited, African Resources & Logistics Corporation (Arelco) (Pty) Ltd and sits on the board of Comazar (Pty) Ltd.

He is Deputy Chairman of the South African Institute for International Affairs; an independent think tank based at the University of the Witwatersrand and is a political analyst for Nedcor Bank.

After returning to South Africa in 1990, he was appointed Head of Communication for the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions, (Cosatu) and Media Consultant to the African National Congress.

During most of the 1980s he was a Senior Journalist for Zimbabwe Newspapers. As a result of the outstanding work that he did for Zimbabwe Newspapers Features Department, he was awarded a Nieman Fellowship by Harvard University for the 1988/89 academic year.

Mbeki began his journalism career in London in 1979 as a contributor to Africa, New African, Africa Now magazines and the BBC Africa Service.

He studied Building, Building Management and Sociology in England, obtaining an MA degree in Sociology from the University of Warwick in 1982.


Edetaen Ojo

Executive Director
Media Rights Agenda
Nigeria

Edetaen Ojo is Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, an NGO in Nigeria, which works to promote media freedom and freedom of expression.

He is also Vice Chair of the Board of the Media Foundation for West Africa, a regional non-governmental organization based in Accra, Ghana, which works in the defence of media freedom in West Africa.

Mr. Ojo is also currently Chair of the International Press Centre in Lagos, Nigeria; an International Associate of the Open Democracy Advice Centre in Cape Town, South Africa; and an Honourary Member of the Advisory Council of the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, UK.

He is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD).

He has 20 years experience as a journalist and is a former visiting media fellow at the DeWitt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism at Duke University in North Carolina, USA; and a British Chevening Scholar.

Mr. Ojo is currently serving as a consultant to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the post-conflict reconstruction of the media in Liberia and is coordinator of the international Partnership on Media and Conflict Prevention in West Africa, which is made up of international, regional and national media freedom and media development organizations providing relief for media affected by conflict in the region.


L. Muthoni Wanyeki

Former Executive Director
African Women's Development and Communications Network (FEMNET)

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is a political scientist who works on development communications, gender and human rights and has published in these areas.

Former Executive Director of the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), a pan-African membership organisation working towards African women's development, equality and other human rights through advocacy at the regional and international levels, training on gender analysis and mainstreaming and communications.

She is a columnist with a sub-regional weekly, the East African and serves as a board member/regional advisor for several African and other organisations including being a member of the Media Council of Kenya and the Vice President of the World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC).


Amadou Mahtar Ba

President and Director
AllAfrica Global Media

Mr. Ba is the president and director of AllAfrica Global Media, an international multi-media content service provider, systems technology developer and the largest electronic distributor of African news and information worldwide.

As early as 1993, Mr Ba's interest in new technologies led him to develop PANA's Internet strategy, making it the first African news agency to have an online presence.

He has consulted for a variety of international organisations, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP); has worked on assignment for the London bureau of ABC television (U.S.); and has assisted prize-winning novelist and filmmaker Ousmane Sembene in collaborative pan-African film productions.

Mr Ba is a trustee of the Johannesburg-based AfricaNet Trust, a foundation producing original radio and television programs for broadcast and distribution over the Internet.

Mr Ba is a founding member and on the board of directors of the Africa Technology Forum.

He is also a co-founder of the Observatoire sur les Systèmes d'Information, les Réseaux et les Inforoutes au Sénégal (OSIRIS), which has been instrumental in shaping Senegal's new technology policies.

Mr Ba holds a degree from the Ecole Française des Professionnels de la Communication (EFAP Communication) and a degree in Languages and International Relations from the University of Paris VII-Jussieu. He is fluent in several languages, including French, English, Spanish, Fulani and Wolof.