IMPORTANT NEWS!

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In the course of 2025, the board of Stem van Afrika (SVA) has been rethinking its strategy. Part of this process was an external evaluation, which included a meeting in Nairobi with representatives from some grantees and with other stakeholders active in the field.

Among other things, we learned that many partners that received SVA grants have generated valuable impacts with the – limited – resources they received from SVA. We also learned that SVA is only a very small actor in the field and that the physical and cultural distance between the board and the local realities is not altogether helpful in providing partners with comprehensive and strategic support.

Drawing on all the lessons learned and on the feedback from a broad range of actors in the field, the board has decided to discontinue the current grantmaking process. In 2026, we will be working with independent African Community Media experts to develop a new grantmaking mechanism that transfers decision-making on policies and specific grants to African actors who are closer to the realities of Community Media in Eastern Africa and more knowledgeable of their needs and priorities. This strategic transformation means that from now on we will no longer consider any project proposals submitted to CAMECO or directly to SVA. For news on the ongoing progress of this co-design process to develop an alternative, please check our website.

LOOKING AT THE FUTURE!

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De ondersteuning van community media in Afrika is en blijft onze missie, maar het huidige SVA-bestuur wil af van de traditionele manier van werken waarbij de donoren met het geld in het Noorden de macht hebben, de prioriteiten en de spelregels bepalen en alle beslissingen nemen, terwijl de partners in het Zuiden het werk doen, door donoren bedachte formulieren moeten invullen en gecontroleerd worden. We willen de verhoudingen veranderen:  #shiftthepower heet dat in de wereld van internationale samenwerking.

Terwijl het bestuur van SVA nadenkt, discussieert en praat over hoe, wat en wanneer die verandering vorm te geven, zijn externe evaluatoren sinds begin dit jaar bezig om de te-leren-lessen uit onze ervaringen van de afgelopen tien jaar te destilleren en om feedback te verzamelen van onze huidige en voormalige partners en andere relevante (community media) organisaties in Afrika. Op basis van al die overdenkingen gaan we eind van 2025 onze nieuwe aanpak presenteren. Als je ideeën hebt, aarzel niet ze te delen. To be continued!

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Supporting community media in Africa will continue to be our mission, but the current SVA board does want to move away from the traditional way of working in which donors with the money in the north have the power, set the priorities and rules, in short take all the decisions, while the partners in the south do the work, fill in forms devised by donors and are subjected to controls: we want to change these relationships: in the world of international cooperation that is called #shiftthepower.

While the SVA board is thinking and talking about how, what and when to shape that change, external evaluators have been working since the beginning of this year to distill the lessons to be learned from our experiences of the past ten years and to collect feedback from our current and former partners and other relevant (community media) organizations in Africa. Based on all these reflections, we will present our new approach at the end of 2025. If you have ideas, do not hesitate to share them. To be continued!