Media Progress

proudly incorporating african communication

Who we are

Who we are

Director Bent Nørby Bonde

Bent (Danish) is a highly experienced manager with more than 25 years executive management experience in private, public, semi-public and non-profit media and international organizations. He has worked in more than 50 transitional and developing countries around the world on programs aimed at preventing conflicts, building peace, and using media to facilitate dialogue between civil society, regulatory bodies and politicians. His expertise covers:

• Design, management, evaluation and advice in media policies and development for countries in transition to democracy such as the Baltics, the Balkan states, the Middle East and North Africa, West and East Africa;
  
• Design and implementation of media and communication strategies preventing violent conflicts and contributing to sustainable peace in Europe, Africa and Asia;
• Design, implementation and evaluation of strategic communication, public awareness, visibility and media strategies at the national, regional, and international level in Europe, Africa, and Asia;
• Coordination and collaboration between donors, international organisations, NGOs, local governments and civil society organisations in the Balkans, Afghanistan, the Baltics, the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.

His PhD dissertation in Communications, Media and Journalism focuses on the use of media and communication in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.

Experts - Media in Peace, Democracy and Development

Partner Eran Fraenkel

Eran (American/German) is a PhD who for 16 years was a director of international NGOs in Macedonia, South East Europe, and Indonesia. His expertise includes:

• Assessment, design, development, and evaluation of media, communication and civil society programmes for positive social change, particularly in fragile environments that have passed or are threatened with violent conflict. Creation of cutting edge media assessment tool;
• Design and production of awareness raising programmes including radio dramas, access to justice programme and TV public service announcements;
• Development of communication strategies, creation of programme templates, and training practitioners from civil society organisations in ‘intended-outcomes’ programming for conflict prevention and transformation. Experience from around the world;
• Management, training and evaluation of teams working in television, radio, print, as well as music and pop videos with a particular focus on  peacebuilding processes.

Partner Waseem Mahmood

Waseem (British) has more than 25 years experience from media, international NGOs and private companies as producer, manager and consultant. He has been awarded the OBE (the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for services to the reconstruction of media in post-war countries. His expertise includes:

• Development and implementation of Public Diplomacy communications projects addressing radicalization. Experience from multimedia cross dimensional de-radicalization projects in Pakistan;
• Development, assessment and implementation of post conflict media initiatives involving political authorities, public and private media as well as civil society organisations. Experience from Afghanistan, South Asia, the Middle East, and South East Europe;
• Media development and communication strategies including identification of needs, strategy development, liaising with civil society, Governments and donors. Experience from Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, South East Europe, and the Baltics;
• Strategic communication addressing issues of poverty reduction, gender equality, human rights, minority rights, child rights and issues of good governance, democratization and electoral reform. Experience from the Baltics, South East Europe, South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Partner Senad Kamenica

Senad (Bosnia-i-Herzegovina) holds an M.A. in Post-War Recovery Studies and has comprehensive experience in working with media in post-war recovery and peacebuilding contexts. A former Media and Political Advisor to the Commander of EU Force in Bosnia, Senad is now Senior Media Advisor at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. His expertise includes:

• Hands-on and theoretical knowledge of defence and security issues in the region of South East Europe;
• Management and implementation of media development projects. Establishment of news exchange networks and building media associations across South East European borders as a means to build peace in the region;
• Communication and media coverage of events with a regional impact on peace building, reconciliation, tolerance and non-discrimination between ethnic groups in the region of South East Europe;
• More than 25 years of experience as a news journalist and editor with Bosnian and international print and public service media.

Partner Francis Rolt

Francis (MA) (British) has worked in radio for 20 years and has for the past 10 years at the forefront of practice and thinking on the use of radio as a peace- building tool. He was director of radio for Search for Common Ground, and now runs his own company. His expertise includes:

• Project management, working with governments, media and civil society to develop strategies and priorities for communication on major policy initiatives. Experience from West and Central Africa;
• Project identification and implementation dealing with programme production and media management. Experience from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia;
• Training of television and radio scriptwriters of drama series targeting young people and offering alternative narratives to violent extremism;
• Training of radio practitioners in the use of radio for conflict prevention and management. Experience in training more than 700 media practitioners from 21 countries ranging from Venezuela to Sri Lanka to Sierra Leone.

Partner Francis Sowa

Francis (Sierra Leone) has experience in media production, management and media regulation. He was regional coordinator of a network of community radios focusing on elections and governance related issues and manager of the university teaching radio. He has over ten years experience as producer, editor, reporter and presenter with influential media in Sierra Leone. His expertise includes: 

• Media regulation; Media Law and Ethics; Communication and Human Rights; Media Management; Research; Media and Politics, His newspaper articles contribute to discussions in Sierra Leone on human rights, freedom of expression, empowerment and corruption;
• Election observation and reporting covering the electoral process, participation, civil society and citizens’ perception of the election. He is a trainer/facilitator on journalism/communication, election reporting, women in media production, media ethics, radio station management and political advertisement during elections. 

With a MA and M.Phil in Mass Communication Francis is seeking an opportunity to become a Ph.D. candidate.

Partner Cees van Zweeden

Cees (Dutch) is a Legal Correspondent and Media Law Consultant. Since 1990 he has been based in London, Paris, Budapest, The Hague, Pristina and (again) Paris respectively before moving to Luxembourg. He was a Chief Foreign Editor and Foreign Correspondent, but started to divert into media development in 2005. Today, his focus is media law. He holds an LL.M in intellectual property law.

Experts - Strategic Communication and Public Relations

Partner Samra Luckin

Samra (Bosnia-i-Herzegovina) has diplomas in PR and media management in addition to a 25-year career spanning project management, team coordination, supervision and coordination of teams, PR, media, communications, journalism, and advertising in non-EU member countries. Her expertise includes more than 15 years of professional experience in:

• Event management and organisation, coordination with local stakeholders, coordination with EU organisations;
• TV and radio production, trainings, technical financial management, quality assurance and backstopping, project conduct, overall coordination;
• Creation and implementation of major PR and communication activities, public information campaigns, promotion, assistance in creation of advertising strategies;
• Media monitoring, media analysis and social media.

Samra is currently handling a number of PR portfolios for international and local clients and has collaborated with political parties, governments, international organisations and NGOs.

Partner Glenn O’Neil

Glenn (Swiss/Australian) is a senior evaluation methodology expert and frequent blogger. His reviews and evaluations of media, humanitarian aid, government and civil society projects in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Oceania and Europe focus particularly on the effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the projects’ communications, advocacy and capacity-building dimensions. His expertise includes:

• Methodological support (e.g. in developing indicators, theories of change and evaluation frameworks);
• Design and use of evaluation tools including surveys, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, panel studies, website audits, contribution analysis, process tracing and quality control (review of methodology, tools and reports);
• Design and evaluation of communication strategies, in particular with the International Red Cross, NGOs and UN-organisations;
• Evaluation and review of advocacy and resource mobilisation for development projects;
• Design and evaluation of web-based communication platforms and networks;
• Use and know-how of software for online surveys, blogs, e-marketing, project management, qualitative and social network analysis.

Glenn is a Ph.D candidate in evaluation methodology with an MA in communications management.

Partner Niels Jørgen Thøgersen

Niels Jørgen (Danish) has an MA in political science and a long career as the director of communications in the EU Commission. He is the Vice President of the "Club of Venice" (an informal club of directors of communication in EU member states and candidate countries), member of the Chinese-European "Hanwang Forum" on sustainable development, and President of "Europeans throughout the World". He has been involved in numerous successful initiatives such as Europe by Satellite and Euronews aiming to increase EU citizens' knowledge of EU affairs including its politics and processes. His fields of expertise are:

• Communications 2.0. The democratic potential of using interactive social media, electronic networking tools and public communication for citizen journalism and involving citizens in politics especially in countries in transition;
• Communication of clean-tech project aimed at showing citizens in European countries the advantages of green communication; 
• Communication of online platforms aiming to channel ideas and suggestions from EU citizens to EU decision makers on a number of key policy areas EU, international organisations and international politics;
• EU expert.