1. UNION OF AFRICAN JOURNALISTS
SITUATION IN AFRICA: Solutions from the front lines
45th Training Course for Young African Journalists Declaration Paper of May 21, 2015.
This paper was drafted by the Solutions Portfolio Committee on behalf of the Union of
Journalists member states.
COMMITTEE
1. Nuruddeen M. Abdallah - Nigeria
2. Issa Siguire - Burkina Faso
3. Ruth Kedikilwe - Botswana
4. Souleymane Diam - Senegal
• African countries must devise latest scientific and technological ways of preserving and
conserving water resources for consumption and agricultural purposes.
• Improved scientific measures must be adopted by African nations to protect their people from
diseases such as cholera, among other water-related diseases.
• African countries must foster stronger cooperation in enhancing trade and investments among
themselves.
•Protocols and bureaucratic bottlenecks that slow down trade and investments among African
countries must be eliminated and replaced with friendly-policies such as tax regime, free trade
zones, single currency, regional central bank, among others.
•Inter-regional rail system and road networks must be established within Africa to ease transport
of goods and services.
• African leaders must be proactive in nipping potential intra and inter-states conflicts in the bud
through broad based dialogue before they snowball into full scale violence.
• African Union peace keeping force should be fully trained, funded and strengthened to
intervene where conflicts become violent without recourse to foreign countries or United
Nations.
• Democracy and constitutionalism should be deepened in African political culture, where the
wishes and aspirations of the citizens hold sway at all times.
• Free and fair periodic elections with time limits not more than two tenures must be the only
way of choosing leaders in Africa and political leaders must respect this.
• Soft-power that include a de-radicalisation education policy must be embarked upon by African
countries to counter terrorism.

2. • Youth unemployment must be addressed by African leaders to dissuade youths from being
recruited by terrorist organisations.
• Adequate investment must be carried out by African leaders on health infrastructure to enable
them fight diseases and epidemics such as Ebola, HIV|AIDS, malaria, among others.
•Africa must project and showcase its beautiful and positive culture as a means of telling the
African story, thereby soaring the continent’s tourism potentials.
• African states-owned information services must be seen to be serving the corporate interest of
the states not the wishes of the ruling class as it is now.
• A single news agency must be funded to serve as African source of information on economy,
politics, culture, investment and general news from the continent.
• The African leaders attitude of relegating youths to the background must be changed to avert
the Mediterranean Sea horrors where youths lost their lives trying to cross to Europe.
•Critical infrastructure must be put in place with a view to create a conducive environment for
African youth to realise their optimal potentials in job creation.
• Endemic corruption which has been the bane of Africa's development must be drastically
reduced by empowering anti-graft instruments and policies.
• African nations must stop relying on natural resources such as oil and solid minerals, but invest
in renewable and eco-friendly resources such as Information Technology and human
development.
• African leaders must make deliberate policies to make politics less attractive thereby reducing
desperation by power-seekers who view it as a money-making venture.