Journalism Education Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Examination of the Norwegian Model in Ethiopia

Recent trends in journalism education in Africa indicate a substantial increase both in scope and specialisation. While this increase is usually attributed to higher education institutions' response to market trends, certain journalism education programmes are born out of development assistance initiatives that envision nation-building imperatives of democratisation and development. The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) is notable for its involvement in higher education journalism training at a graduate level in select countries in the Global South. This article assesses the presently discontinued involvement of NORAD in the establishment of a graduate journalism programme at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia between 2004-2007. In doing so, it reviews what has been learned over the lifespan of NORAD's sponsorship of the programme by discussing what worked and what did not work. Findings generated from document analysis, an online survey, and interviews indicate the project fell short of its mission due to its top-down, "magic-bullet" conceptualisation of democratisation that failed to take into account the political and legal-rational conundrums of the Ethiopian state. However, unanticipated yet useful contributions emerged from the project in terms of forging small-scale partnerships that yielded favourable results in the development of journalism education in sub-Saharan Africa.