FE ATUR E A RT ICLE S
Eco Africa: A German-African affair Through a solution-oriented approach, the Eco Africa TV magazine showcases innovative concepts to inspire people to protect the environment. by Thomas Mandlmeier and Julia Henrichmann, DW editors
28 Weltzeit 2 | 2021
often meant “sometime before midnight” for Lagos and Nairobi. As a result, we spent many late hours in the office putting together the first shows. But the biggest challenge still lay ahead: Where do we get all the contributions to fill an entire program every week with topics from on the ground? That is when the
etworking began. Support first came from n the DW Africa department and our correspondents across Africa, but we also looked online. Via our personal contacts in Africa, we reached out to new people and had them send in proposals. Together with our African producers, we worked out the basics of magazine journalism for television. ©©DW
“You call that a traffic jam?” Laughter. “Well, come to Lagos, that would be great if the streets looked this empty every day.” I remember these exact words from our Nigerian host Nneota Egbe after seeing a report about a startup from Hamburg that calculated traffic flows to better guide commuters. This is just one example of everyday life working at the weekly environmental maga zine Eco Africa, which is co-produced with five African partners in three languages and aims to find topics that reflect the realities of life for an African and European audience. But let’s start at the beginning. In 2016, we launched the “TV experiment” Eco Africa, a pan-African-European environmental program with five diverse reports on the environment. Presented in Africa, the program was first co-hosted by Edith Kimani in Kenya and Nneota Egbe in Nigeria. After wards, together with the actual reports, everything was compiled at DW in Berlin. The first weeks were difficult as it was unfamiliar territory for all the partners. When do we receive the links? Monday evening
Behind the scenes of Eco Africa: The team continuously explores best practice projects across Africa and Europe.
