As a partner to media development and in support of media freedom, the Media Development Initiative (MDI) was given the opportunity to talk about the importance and work plan towards PNG Journalism.
PNG Media Council and the United Nations Office invited the MDI as a partner in harnessing the work of media in the country.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation International Development (ABCID) Team Leader, Hare Haro spoke about MDI and the progress over the years in PNG.
“MDI has a work plan that has been reviewed annually, our current work plan runs up until June 2023, we will be going into a process of reviewing that, reaching out to Media to see what else needs to be included going forward.
“The work that we do is sort of ‘what needs to be done’ to help support the media. We do not just pluck it out of the sky, listen to government and as much as I love our Australian support, however we really base our activities on what the media in PNG needs, what support it needs, how it needs to start interacting and coordinating each other to improve,” stated Haro.
She shared that ABCID were able to work with the media and supporting them in different capacities. MDI was established in 2003-2004 to firstly assist NBC with capacity building and development but then expanded to other media houses over the years.
“There is a survey that we are going to do be doing we will be reaching out to CEOs from various media organizations and identify what those needs are in terms of capacity building in each organization,” she added.