Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan )

Central Asia is a region that is a central concern of IMS. The activities have comprised several initiatives and actions in more than one part of the region. The activities started with a Fact Finding/Identification Mission Report. The report has been characterised by our expert on the region in the Reference Group – Vibeke Sperling - as a “brilliant paper”, and she adds that it

(…) in an edited form could be published as a valuable introduction for a broader public to an area, which due to the developments in Afghanistan have gained in

strategic importance, but unfortunately has not yet obtained the appropriate international attention.

The report identifies most of the international and local organisations already engaged in assistance to and monitoring of the media in the region, and it also outlines several possible and very relevant interventions. The report furthermore emphasises convincingly why it is so important to interve ne in Central Asia because of the very substantial threats to freedom of expression and democracy that exist in several countries.

The region is a difficult one for organisations such as IMS to engage in. There are many actors there- international as well as local ones. It is not easy to identify credible local partners. Many of them are more interested in pursuing private interests than common goals. And it is difficult to create the basis for long-term strategies. In Central Asia and other regions of the former Soviet Union there have over the past decade been many seminars and workshops concentrated on topics that in themselves are important enough and useful: e.g. ”Quality Journalism” and ”Financial viability”.

A journalist from the area has expressed the problem in the following way: ”They are seminaring us to death”.

The results of the fact finding mission so far seem to have been the attempt to establish a Central Asian Media Retreat whose activities according to the project paper will consist of among others a seminar to be organised early 2003 to be followed up by further acitivities concentrating around the following broad themes:

quality journalism; financial viability, web publishing, safety, project funding.

One workshop was organised in Moscow February 17 – 20 2003, and the participants were mainly Uzbek journalists. Another was conducted in Baku in March 20 - 22, organised by Open Society Institute. The workshops involved the cooperation and participation of, and input from, other organisations such as IFEX, Open Society Institute, Centre for Journalists in Extreme Situations. The general theme of the workshops was media monitoring in a broad sense of the word.

The results of these workshops have been assessed by the evaluation team based on reports by the Danish journalist, Michael Andersen, who served as a consultant for the Uzbek project, as well input to IMS from IFEX, and discussions with the IMS staff. It is nevertheless not entirely clear from the papers that the evaluation team has had access to, what the operational side of the two workshops that IMS was involved in, really consisted of, and how they differed from other similar arrangements.

IMS’ activities are to be followed up by FRESTA in more long-term projects. The Central Asia intervention is thus a good example of how IMS may serve as both an initiator and a catalyst for further activities.

Findings

• While workshops and seminars are important, they also have limited importance if they are not followed up by concrete long-term projects. These kinds of initiatives have somewhat unkindly at times been described as

“parachute engagements”, and it is a question of whether the money spent is in proportion with the practical results. Thus it is important to move from the

seminar stage to a more long-term strategic stage, and it is in this connection that IMS ought to employ its potential as a catalyst for the bringing in of long-term projects. And it seems that it is this direction that the project is moving, and it is thus a good example of an IMS project in progress.

• In depth training in media monitoring issues must consist of more than what can be achieved at short workshops, and it is particularly important that this training takes into consideration local and national circumstances and institutions, e.g. the legal situation and the need for legal awareness. It is our impression that it is not sufficient to rely on the more general training framework used by e.g. IFEX. Training in legal issues related to journalism and monitoring must be the basis for the work. And it must be detailed and based on expertise knowledge of the local background.

• It is difficult to identify the most relevant cooperating partners in the region. It seems that often the same participants go from one seminar organised by one international organisation to another arranged by yet another NGO. This is of course a problem that also exists in other parts of the world, but it may be particularly acute in this region. It partly is the result of limited knowledge by Western organisations. Lack of proper language competence is of course also an issue. Furthermore it is easier for international actors to work with groups and people who already are part of a known circuit and already have international contacts. At the same time it appears as if there particularly in this region exists a certain group of people who use their contacts to further their particular interests rather than the course of democracy and press freedom.

• If the IMS initiative in the Central Asian region is to have any lasting effect it must be followed by further interventions that are more focused than the more general and short workshops that have so far come out of the excellent report.

This implies for instance that a series of interrelated media monitoring projects need to be initiated. And furthermore a concrete project of journalistic cooperation in the Ferghana Valley could be both innovative and of great importance. This is an area where IMS is trying to establish follow up activities.

• There is a need for coordination and information sharing among the Western donors working in the area. It seems that the presence of several uncoordinated and even competing donors and outside actors leads to unnecessary duplication of initiatives as well as jealousies and competition between actors who should ideally have been cooperating. According to the reports that the team has received, this is the case in more than one instance in the region. According to IMS this is a problem they are aware of and that they are trying to address, and which they feel they by not being in the business of providing long-time assistance may have a tactical advantage in being able to solve. It seems, however, in order for IMS to be able to do so there is a need for long-time engagement in some form of other in the region as such.

• The IMS support to the re- launching of the exiled Tajik newspaper Charogi Ruz is an excellent project with a very appropriate partner.

• The Media Retreat planned in Kyrgyzstan seems to be a good idea. It presupposes very active and dedicated local and regional partners, and a follow-up from international partners that also may serve as coordinators of the project.

• In Central Asia as well as in several other areas where IMS has been engaged, the background work seems very thorough and useful. In this case it appears to have been of an extraordinary quality.

• The partners that IMS has been able to cooperate with particularly from Russia and other areas e.g. CJES, seem to have been very capable and their input have been of great importance.

• It appears that IMS has an ability to identify good local cooperating expertise.

• There is a need for a more thorough discussion and evaluation of the impacts of the interventions – workshops, and how they can be followed up by IMS or by other actors.