Learning from History: Know How Fund
FCO
to talk about the media projects, I will ask Michelle to do that in a minute because they come under her area. On the reversibility issue, yes, as I said before, there are reverses. Egypt is a case in point, where we have seen a counter-revolution, effectively; a very popular counter-revolution. What comes next in Egypt is indeed a very hot debate; how we can support a system that emerges in the future, that does not simply replicate the past. Just to pick up a point that is germane to the earlier question about Israel – and as Tim put it – the nature of the states were why people were on the streets. We cannot forget that about 40% of the economy in Egypt is managed by the army, who have now retaken power. Even during that whole revolutionary period, there was never any threat, as you might remember. One of the deals done by Morsi, with regard to the military, was not to interfere with them when he let el-Sisi in that was the deal; you change the old guy, Tantawi, you bring in el-Sisi but you do not interfere with the military. The structural things that I was talking about earlier, that we need to have aligned if we are to get real reform, they are in question in many of these countries. Hence, the possibility of reverses is there all the time, less so, perhaps, in Tunisia, less so in a couple of other places. Maybe Michelle should talk, because we have some great media programmes? Michelle Burns We do have some great media programmes, some of them are overseen by BBC Media Action, but I think what you are hinting at there is, is there an opportunity to work within the region to develop more independent media, and how do we go about doing it? There are a couple of projects that we have, that offer a variety of things, but I think the things that I am most impressed by is the capacity-building component, to get them to understand how to present a balanced message. That is incredibly important, as we are seeing in increasing situations in places like Egypt, where the spaces to discuss a variety of opportunities is shrinking by the day. The ability to be able to offer a balanced approach; it is not just about how you use a medium or a mechanism. It is actually the information that you are gathering in order to present a balanced story. So that is a key area that we are continuously interested in, so we have that plurality. The second thing is that we are very keen to look at instances where vulnerable and excluded members‟ experiences are accessible in a way that makes sense, not just to them, but to the wider community. I think that where we are most proud, are projects that do that, that create the space and the opportunity to offer a balanced, different approach, and it is something that we definitely want to continue to work on, keeping in mind some of the components that both Tims have spoken about, which is the structures that we have to work with within those countries to try to make that information available, and some of the mediums we have to use in order to make that happen. Barney Smith For our sins, when we were running the Know How Fund, at the end of the first year, the word came down from on high, „You must write a report on what you have been doing, instancing every country and all the projects that you have funded‟, and the next year we had to do exactly the same thing for that year. Then for the third year, you will not be surprised to learn, we had to do exactly the same thing again. I wondered if there was sufficient parliamentary or media interest in what you are doing to make you have produced such a document, or might in time make you produce such a document? Picking up on the point that Graham Ward made about taking risks, I recall the famous sailor who won the gold medal in the Olympics, who said, „If you are not across the line one time in six, you are not close enough to the line.‟ It seems to me that if you are under the pressure to produce that sort of a report for a wider public, then perhaps you should be?
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