No sophisticated understanding of crisis in Rwanda – trade analysts

East Africa has covered the global economic crisis well, but mainly focused on events in the United States and other flagging economies in the developed world, two trade analysts said.

Jide Sodipo, a trade consultant in

Kigali, Rwanda.

 

Nigerian Jide Sodipo, a trade consultant in the Rwandan capital Kigali, said there was a lot of interest in Rwanda on how the crisis would pan out in the United States, and journalists reacted by asking the east African country’s policy makers how  Rwanda would be affected.

“At the time of its peak, inevitably, you will find references to the financial crisis, to the US, you will find it in the local media. We found a lot of media interest, asking policy-makers how the financial crisis was impacting Rwanda and how Rwanda was trying to mitigate the effects of the crisis,” said Sodipo, a former trade adviser to the Rwandan government.

“There was certainly a whole lot of media interest. I think it is fair to note that there was probably not a very sophisticated understanding of some of the issues amongst some of the local media here, but it was not from a lack of interest, just a lack of understanding of some of the more complex issues.

“Even some of the experts, until now, do not fully understand the issues. There was coverage of it, but it was more in terms of how it would impact on Rwanda and what the government was trying to do to address or mitigate the impacts.”

Lisa Cummins, a Barbados diplomat

that serves as a trade adviser to the

Ugandan government.

 

Lisa Cummins, a Barbados diplomat that serves as a trade adviser to the Ugandan government, said media in Uganda was fairly active in issues happening externally in terms of the US response to the financial crisis, the European response, and how other African countries were responding.

She also noted the lack of a good understanding of the issues, which she said media training could help plug.

“What I would like to see is a bit more training for the members of the media to enable them to analyse what they are seeing. What you have at the moment, a lot of times, is simply reporting on news and it does necessarily have the depth of analysis that would be very useful to the business community here, in terms of the role that the media can play.

“But they have been on top of reporting events as they have happened; what is missing is the depth in terms of their analysis.”