THE Editor’s Forum of Namibia (EFN) said veteran journalists Gwen Lister and Toivo Ndjebela are the champions for World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) 2021.
The event will be held in Namibia in honour of the 30th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, and for the first time in the country.
It will take place from 1 to 3 May.
Lister is the chairperson of the Namibia Media Trust, founding editor of The Namibian, and a recipient of several international press freedom awards, including the Inter Press Service Journalism Award, and the Committee to Protect Journalists Award for Bravery.
In 2016, she was the first recipient of the Windhoek Declaration scroll conferred by the EFN.
Other recipients include Bheki Makhubu of eSwatini, Jacques Pauw of South Africa, and posthumously Jamal Khashoggi of Saudi Arabia.
Ndjebela currently serves as editor of daily newspaper Namibian Sun.
According to the forum’s chairperson, Frank Steffen, the two champions will be spokespersons for the Namibian media during the event.
“They will provide unique insight into how they negotiated the seismic shifts journalism and press freedom have endured over the last three decades, and what they think the future may hold for us,” Steffen says. He says Lister was the co-chair of the historic 1991 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) seminar, together with the late Pius Njawe of Cameroon, where the Windhoek Declaration was developed and adopted on 3 May.
Ndjebela represents everything the post-Windhoek Declaration era brought forth, Steffen says.
“We want to thank Gwen and Toivo for making themselves available as champions, and we look forward to their sharing of the realities faced by journalists in their pursuit of information that serves the public good.
“We are especially keen to hear their experience of working in a country that is consistently rated favourably by international press freedom and free expression rankings,” Steffen says.
He says Namibia not only gave the world the seminal Windhoek Declaration, but can also serve as a positive role model for press freedom in Africa and beyond.
Steffen says the 2021 WPFD International Conference, a partially virtual and physical gathering, will be in line with Covid-19 regulations, and will be attended by a limited number of journalists and other media practitioners from across the globe.
“The conference will be preceded by a host of activities to celebrate the anniversary, led by the Namibian government, Unesco, and a range of partners, including the EFN,” he says.
Minister of information and communication technology Peya Mushelenga last month said the theme for this year’s event, ‘Information as a public good’, is befitting as the government would soon finalise the access to information bill.
The bill seeks to promote Namibians’ access to public and private information.
“This bill further aims to strengthen the country’s democracy and its continued efforts for accountable, transparent and inclusive governance,” the minister said.
