MALI: Mahamane Hamèye Cisse
Mahamane Hamèye Cisse is a media consultant and journalism trainer. He is an editor of two newspapers: Le Courrier, a weekly newspaper established in 1996, and Le Scorpion, a weekly satirical newspaper which he founded in 1991. Cisse has published several training handbooks for young journalists and is a co-coordinator of the Institut pour la Démocratie et l’Education aux Médias au Mali (Institute for Democracy and Media Education in Mali). He is also a member of the Observateur Sahelo-Saharien de Prévention des Crises (Sahelo-Saharan Center for Crisis Prevention).
Cisse was trained as a journalist at the Centre Ouest Africain de Formation et d’Etudes Bancaires (West African Training Center for Banking Studies) in Senegal and at the Center for Foreign Journalists in the United States. He is the 2007 laureate of the Prix de la Libre Expression (Prize for Freedom of Expression) from l’Union Internationale de la Press Francophone (International Francophone Press Union) and l’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (International Organization of the Francophonie).
UGANDA: Patrick Luganda
Patrick Luganda is a commercial farmer, renowned journalist and ecological activist with a focus on climate change and biotechnology. He is the editor-in-chief of the Farmers’ Voice newspaper, and he also serves as the chairperson of the Network of Climate Change Journalists in the Greater Horn of Africa.
Luganda was trained by the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction in the United States and the World Federation of Science Journalists in Canada. He has written extensively about and hosted a radio show on agriculture-related issues. A 1998-99 winner of the A.H. Boerma Award for agricultural journalism from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Luganda is also a goodwill ambassador of the Nile Basin Initiative on sustainable water use.
ZAMBIA: Susan Musukuma
Susan Musukuma is an agricultural journalist, media consultant and journalism activist with a focus on development and the environment.
Musukuma has worked as a journalist for the National Agriculture Information Services. She has also been an agricultural columnist for the Zambia Daily Mail newspaper and a producer of several television documentaries, including one for the European Union’s Urban Market Development Programme. The past vice-president of the Press Association of Zambia, Musukuma has organized journalism training workshops, including one at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa in 2002.
Musukuma holds a degree in mass communication from Edith Cowan University in Australia. She is a member of the Zambia Media Women’s Association and of the Media Enviro-Forum.