This document recommends that the Obama administration significantly strengthen US government support for local, independent media around the world and ensure access to digital communications technologies as a centerpiece of foreign assistance modernization.

Based on decades of experience in international development, we believe a foreign policy goal of universal access to quality local information would reflect the strategies and values of an Obama presidency. Local media and communications technologies can empower communities to make their voices heard, connect to the global marketplace of goods and ideas, and build grassroots democracy. Media and information technologies can exponentially amplify American “soft power” approaches to development, diplomacy and national security.

Recommendations

President Obama should declare that media and information technologies are a centerpiece of foreign assistance modernization.
International media assistance should be adopted as a core development strategy across all sectors of development.
Strengthening the capacity of locally owned media in the local language should be central to our overall strategic communications and public diplomacy agenda, with funding levels adopted accordingly.

President Obama should direct USAID and the State Department to accelerate the spread of independent media and digital communications technologies to everyone. This can be done through activities such as support for independent media outlets, especially those that reach the information-poor; distributing circumvention software in closed societies to avoid government censorship; advocating for laws and policies that open Internet and mobile phone markets and lower connectivity costs through telecom competition; and providing education and training for professional and citizen journalists to enhance the quality of news and information.

The Case

Development— Reducing poverty requires good governance and empowerment of the poor with information they need and a voice in their future.

Quality information strengthens development. It has been famously noted that no country with a free press has ever had a famine. Significant improvements in public health, the environment and humanitarian relief directly correlate with local media development and access to quality information.
New digital technologies, especially mobile phones, have proven to be drivers of economic development and have unprecedented potential to empower the poor and dispossessed. (Every 10% increase in mobile phone use increases GDP 0.6 percent.)
A free press is necessary to achieve transparency, accountability and good governance, which, in turn, improve economic development.
Free and independent media are as important as elections in establishing democratic civil society.
Ending information poverty benefits both the information-poor and the information-rich by creating larger markets, more efficient governance and a reduction of conflict.

Public Diplomacy—Barack Obama’s election presents a historic opportunity to build faith in America’s leadership. Strengthening the capacity of local media should be central to our overall strategic communications agenda, with funding levels adopted accordingly.

In the digital age, government and “official” sources of information have less credibility than they used to, but the USG can help spread information tools that can empower grassroots democracy activists.
Local media development is extremely cost-effective and impacts the people who are hardest to reach, in the countries we are most concerned about.
Professional training of local journalists often results in coverage that is more consistent with US values of openness and tolerance. US media NGOs have trained tens of thousands of journalists and helped start thousands of independent television and radio stations, print and online publications which reach hundreds of millions of people in strategically important regions of the world. Yet there is still a need for vastly more media development.

The information revolution must be an integral part of any 21st century foreign policy.

We appreciate your consideration of this important element in foreign assistance modernization.

Signed:

Chris Boskin, Board Chair, Corporation for Public Broadcasting*
Jeanne Bourgault, Chief Operating Officer/Sr. VP for Programs,
      Internews Network*
Kathy Bushkin Calvin, Executive Vice President and COO,
      United Nations Foundation*
Gregory C. Carr, President, Gregory C. Carr Foundation*
Lorne Craner, President, International Republican Institute*
James X. Dempsey, VP - Public Policy, Center for Democracy & Technology*
Michelle and Robert Friend, Friend Family Foundation*
Addie Guttag, President, AJG Foundation*
David Hoffman, President, Internews Network*
Markos Kounalakis-Tsakapoulos, President and Publisher Emeritus,
            Washington Monthly*
James A. Leach, United States Congressman (Ret.)*
Jamie Metzl, Co-Chair, Partnership for A Secure America*
William Orme, Chief of Media,
            United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)*
Carlos Pascual, Vice President and Director,
      Foreign Policy Studies Program, Brookings Institution*
Ambassador John Shattuck, CEO, JFK Presidential Library Foundation*
Suzanne Saunders Shaw, former TV News Anchor;
            President, Saunders-Shaw Properties*
Tara Sonenshine, VP, Planning and Outreach, U.S. Institute for Peace;
      Obama campaign core advisory foreign policy team*
General Anthony C. Zinni (Ret.), U.S. Marine Corps*

(*organizations and affiliations listed for identification purposes only)

Advice to the President

See other policy recommendations on Advice to the President, a nonpartisan web site where a selection of the ideas and reports produced by analysts, scholars, and policymakers to help shape the agenda of the Obama adminstration are being aggregated.

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