Hargeysa, Somaliland, July 12, 2008 (SL Times) – Through a live lecture delivered from Hargeysa, students at the Annenberg-Oxford Summer Institute were able on last Tuesday to discuss media issues in Somaliland and Ethiopia with Ms Nicole Stremlau, the head of the Africa Department in the London-based Stanhope Center for Communication Policy and Research and Mr. Yusuf Gabobe, chief editor of the Somali language newspaper Haatuf in Somaliland.
The Annenberg-Oxford Summer Institute is annually hosted by the University of Oxford and offers high level study of law, policy and regulation in a range of communication sectors.
Stremlau and Gabobe presented a comparative analysis of the differences and similarities between the media environment in Somaliland and Ethiopia .
Yusuf and Nicole, who studies media issues in the eastern and Horn of Africa region, have talked about how the EPRDF (the guerilla organization that took power in Ethiopia in 1991) and the SNM (the organization that liberated Somaliland from Somalia in 1991) have set the tone for the information system that came into being in Ethiopia and Somaliland following 1991.
Students at the 2007 Annenberg-Oxford Institute had also the opportunity to learn about the challenges faced by the media in the Horn from a joint presentation made by Nicole and Yusuf, both in the UK at the time.
This year's program is being attended by Somaliland Journalist Jamal Abdi who pro-actively took part in the question answer part of last Tuesday's video conferencing.
