The Changing African Narrative: Myths or Reality

We are happy to invite everyone to our next SOAN Colloquium talk by our departmental guest, Mr. Eric Chinje, who will discuss "The Changing African Narrative: Myths or Reality." 

 
Eric Chinje is the Chief Executive Officer of the African Media Initiative (AMI) and a Visiting Scholar at the George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.  He continues to serve as an Adviser to the governments of Liberia and South Sudan on their strategic, development and international communications.  His work in both countries is an extension of work he did as a Senior Advisor at the Washington-based International Communications and Trade-relations firm, KRL International. He has been Director of Strategic Communications at the London-based Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Prior to that he led the Global Media Development Program at the World Bank Institute (WBI), and was External Affairs and Communications Manager in the World Bank’s Africa Region as well as the institution's spokesperson on Africa.  M. Chinje spent four years at the African Development Bank in Tunis as head of that institution’s External Affairs and Communications Unit. 
 
Mr. Chinje is a founding Board member of "Africa Check", a nonprofit and non-partisan organization established to improve fact-checking and news gathering in Africa. He has served as Vice President of the African Advisory Board of the National Museum of African Art of the prestigious Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC.He served as Vice Chair of the World Bank/IMF Africa Club from 1996 – 2002 and organized the Bank's first Africa Business Forum in 1998, the largest gathering of African businessmen and women ever held in the United  States.
 
Mr. Chinje studied in the universities of Yaounde (Cameroon), Syracuse (New York) and Harvard (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and lectured in the Yaounde University School of Mass Communication in Cameroon.  He is fluent in both English and French.
 
He was the first head of News and Programs and Editor-in-Chief of Cameroon Television and, at various times from 1984 - 1991, a contributing correspondent for CNN World Report, and a stringer for the BBC World Service, Voice of America, and Deutschewelle Radio. Mr. Chinje is an Officer of the Cameroon Order of Merit and an Officer of the Dutch Order of Orange Nassau.  He has written and lectured extensively on Communication and Development in Africa.