21st Highway Africa conference held

By Ama Amankwah Baafi

Grahamstown, South Africa

The 2017 edition of the annual Highway Africa Conference took place in Grahamstown, South Africa from 31^st August 2017 to 1^st September 2017.

The two-day conference which was on the theme, 'Media, Accountability and Local Governance,’ was hosted by the School of Journalism and Media Studies at the Rhodes University.

The 21st since its inception, the conference brought together seasoned editors, journalists and civil society activists to explore ways to build the capacities of the different actors especially the local media within the accountability framework.

The Conference Director, Mr Chris Kabwato, said building capacity for the media has become important as they are the hope for the struggles of countries.

Ahead of the conference, a pre-capacity building workshops for journalists from selected countries were held.

 

These include the Barclays Data Journalism Master class, which three journalists from Ghana participated; The Gates Foundation Science Journalism; and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) Media and Local Governance training.

Background

Touted as the largest annual gathering of African journalists, the conference has been the fulcrum of debates on Journalism, media and information and  communication technology.