DW Akademie hosted a regional webinar on Thursday to present key findings from its latest report, State of Media Development 2025, focusing on the Asia-Pacific region including Nepal. The webinar discussed how international media assistance aligns with six OECD principles of “Development Cooperation Principles on Relevant and Effective Support toMedia and the Information Environment”.
The event brought together media development practitioners, journalists, and researchers from across Asia. It was moderated by Dr Dennis Reineck, Senior Research Consultant at DW Akademie.
Umesh Pokharel, a Nepali media researcher and DW Akademie’s Asia Research Consultant, and author of the Asia-Pacific chapter, presented the findings of the regional assessment. He emphasized that while international assistance continues to play an important role in supporting public interest media, many donor interventions are fragmented, short-term, and, in some cases, inadvertently harmful.
“Donor visibility, strict branding, and oversight requirements have in several instances triggered legal and reputational risks for local media development organizations in the region including in Nepal,” Pokharel said during the webinar.
The research examined how donor practices align with key principles such as “Do No Harm,” “Increase Financial and Other Support,” “Whole-of-System Perspective,” “Strengthen Local Leadership,” “Donor Coordination,” and “Investment in Learning and Innovation.” The finding suggests that the first principle, Do No Harm, was found to be only minimally fulfilled. Financial and Other Support—was not fulfilled at all. The third principle—Whole-of-System Perspective—was partially fulfilled. The report raises the issue that donor assessments about the media ecosystem tend to focus on capital cities, often ignoring rural, community-based, and minority-language media. The fourth principle, Strengthening Local Leadership and Ownership, was also partially fulfilled. The report also found that local actors remain sidelined due to donor-driven agendas, strict eligibility criteria, and language barriers. The fifth principle, Improve Coordination, was again only partially fulfilled. Local media development partners’ efforts are often reactive, with weak data sharing, overlapping funding, and limited inclusion of local actors. The sixth and final principle, investing in Learning and Innovation, was minimally fulfilled.
Further, country-specific insights were shared by panelists including Ahmad Quraishi from the Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC) and Mrs. Khashkhuu Naranjargal from Mongolia’s Globe International Center. Both echoed the need for more contextualized, long-term, and locally driven donor support to media development organizations.
DW Akademie plans to take the findings forward to engage with donors and regional stakeholders.
