African media leaders to gather in Nairobi

AFRICAN media leaders and other key stakeholders will next month converge in Kenya for the AllAfrica Media Leaders’ Summit as they seek to tackle some of the emerging challenges confronting the sector.

The summit comes amid the ever-changing media landscape in the face of digitisation, emerging technologies and developmental progress.

The summit seeks to support media practitioners with the skills, enhanced contextual knowledge and structures to play appropriate and essential roles in driving regional integration and the transformation of African economies while championing human development.

The 2024 AllAfrica Media Leaders’ Summit will bring together over 250 top African media leaders, owners and operators (representing almost all African countries and territories), global media players and opinion leaders, government officials, corporate leaders, academics, civil society champions, and development partners to discuss the business of media and the critical role it must play in shaping Africa’s future.

The summit will be held from May 8 to 10, 2024 in Nairobi, under the theme “Re-engineering African Media in Times of Critical Transformation”.

“The adoption of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is seen by many as a game changer, with immense potential to usher in an era of development and prosperity. In the media industry, increased digitisation, the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI), widespread misinformation and disinformation campaigns, as well as the use of deep fakes, have created a new reality full of opportunities – but at the same time, threaten to exacerbate civil unrest and conflicts. In this context, a new annual convening of Africa’s media leaders can play a critical role in addressing critical issues that concern everyone,” the summit organisers said.

The summit seeks to share an understanding of forces shaping Africa’s Integration and align on the role of Africa’s media in crafting the continent’s economic transformation and integration narrative.

It also aims at supporting media leaders and practitioners through an era of rapid change and constant technological disruption with the world as we knew it, pre-covid, morphing into a new reality in a context marked by AI, digitization, the scourge of disinformation and misinformation as well as economies responding to the post-pandemic recession.

The summit will share and discuss new ideas to gain enhanced contextual knowledge to shape and support Africa’s future by strengthening the continent’s collective efforts towards African Integration and economic progress in line with the UN SDGs and Agenda 2063 – The Africa We Want.