AFP Foundation Launches Media Training on Development

In collaboration with the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) and Canal France International (CFI), the Agence France Presse Foundation on Wednesday began a training program to promote local coverage of stories related to development.

The two-year media development program was inaugurated in Beirut on Tuesday by AFP chairman and chief executive Emmanuel Hoog, Lebanese acting Information Minister Tareq Mitri, UNDP's Lebanon representative Robert Watkins, CFI director Etienne Flatte and AFP Foundation director Robert Holloway.

The AFP Foundation will train local print and radio journalists to raise public awareness of development issues while CFI will train television journalists.

The first workshop began Wednesday with the participation of 30 journalists.

"Recent events have made clear the link between freedom, information and economic development," Hoog said.

"These values are central to AFP and to the essence of democratic development."

Holloway said: "I hope that this project will help us create ties among journalists of all sides and confessions and contribute to a spirit of citizenship."

Mitri, for his part, expressed the hope that the program would allow local journalists to turn their attention increasingly to development issues.

Watkins drew attention to the timing of the workshop, which coincides with the 36th anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon as well as current events in the Middle East and North Africa.

The program, conducted in Arabic, aims to strengthen the capacity of Lebanese journalists to cover development issues.