Eco Africa: A German-African affair | Press | DW | 11.06.2021
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WELTZEIT

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.

“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 magazine 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. Afterwards, 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 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 networking began. Support first came from 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.

The plan succeeded—and we have productions from Africa for audiences in Africa. Today, we get a steady supply of reports from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa.

Weltzeit | Behind the scenes of Eco Africa

Behind the scenes of Eco Africa: The team continuously explores best practice projects across Africa and Europe.

The DW team is also continuously learning, too. A topic like plastic recycling seemed worn out to many in Berlin, but with all its facets it cannot be shown enough in Africa. We also found European environmental issues that could resonate in more than 50 countries in Africa. Meanwhile, the spectrum of topics now ranges from a portrait of a marine conservationist in Mozambique to a training in organic farming in Burkina Faso or a German startup that recycles batteries to promote the expansion of electromobility in Zimbabwe.

For us, the first live meeting with Nneota Egbe and his co-host in Bonn at the Global Media Forum in 2016 did not feel like a first meeting—we had been a family for a long time and embraced each other. We even had to lend him a jacket to keep warm during the filming of Eco Africa on the Rhine. The following year, our Senegalese partners welcomed us with unexpected cordiality when we came to train their crew. And since no meeting is possible without gifts our editorial office in Berlin has become packed with African artwork and handicraft. 

To this day, the Eco family has grown steadily and our dealings with production partners in Africa have changed the way we perceive being German. Not a single week goes by without someone saying: “We have the clock—you have the time.”

Happily, the Eco Africa “TV experiment” has proven successful. It is acclaimed in Africa and Europe and has even been imitated. But we have become more courageous since those early days. In 2017, a French edition was launched and produced with partners in Senegal and Cameroon. In 2020, we added a Portuguese edition, hosted by Daliá Langa from Mozambique. Each new version expands our international production team. This is an experience that no one would want to miss out on.

The Eco family co-production model has also proven successful in the Indian market. Nature and the environment are a global concern, affecting all societies. Eco Latinoamerica recently celebrated its premiere.

Looking back on five years of Eco Africa is looking back on five years of intensive partnerships. We are connected by more than just a program—we have met good journalists and made good friends in Cameroon, Senegal, Uganda, Mozambique and, of course, with our very first partner in Nigeria.

Eco Africa

The idea for Eco Africa was born in the run-up to a trip by DW Sales to partner Channels TV in Nigeria by Head of Sales Petra Schneider together with the then Head of Business, Science Environment Manuela Kasper-Claridge and DW Director General Peter Limbourg.

The format is produced in English, French and Portuguese, and broadcast by 66 partners across Africa. A new co- production in Hausa with Wonderland TV in Nigeria is planned. The English version is co-produced with Channels TV in Nigeria and NTV in Uganda and featured by 45 partners, among them Africa Health Trading in Ethiopia, Citi Television in Ghana, Switch TV in Kenya, Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation, Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, Channels Incorporated also in Nigeria, Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation, TV 7 in Togo and NBS Television in Uganda. The French version is co-produced with CRTV in Cameroon and EXCAF Télécom in Senegal who also broadcast it together with Golfe TV in Benin and TV 7 in Togo. The Portuguese version is a co-production with Soico TV in Mozambique.

 Eco India is a similar format co-produced with Scroll.in in English and Hindi and broadcast also by DW English, Doordarshan’s DD1, Epic Channel and EPIC ON. The Tamil and Bengali language editions will be launched in 2021. Eco Latinoamérica is a shorter format, soon to be extended and broadcast in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

 

This article is part of the 2021 English issue of the DW corporate magazine Weltzeit. Read the full magazine here: Weltzeit: Local insight, global reach. Working in a strong network with partners. 

EINSCHRÄNKUNG DW Personenfoto | Corporate Communications | Carla Hagemann

Carla Hagemann

Corporate Spokesperson and Head of Corporate Communications

 

T +49.228.429.2042

communication@dw.com