Empowering women, better education, attention to youth and protecting the environment are some of the issues that were hotly debated at a recent seminar on the role of the media in assisting in the implementation of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

At the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, 149 heads of state, including Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah — who was crown prince at the time — and government representatives of 180 countries adopted the Millennium Declaration. By the year 2015, all 191 UN member states pledged to meet eight goals: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, promote gender equality and empowerment of women, improve maternal health, ensure environmental sustainability, achieve universal primary education, reduce child mortality, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and develop a global partnership for development.

Organized by the UN Development Program in Riyadh in coordination with the Ministry of Information and Culture, the two-day seminar and workshop was held under the auspices of Prince Faisal Bin Salman, chairman of the Saudi Research and Publishing Group.

Over a hundred academics and media personnel participated in the seminar; the majority of them were women. In his opening speech, El-Mostafa Benlamlih, UN resident coordinator in Riyadh, said that the Millennium Declaration has a set of 18 targets with a corresponding 47 indicators that could be translated in reality within a timeframe, but success requires the participation of everyone.

“The question is: How do we put indicators and capacities applicable to Saudi Arabia and how can we create the human capacity to achieve these goals?” said Benlamlih.

Human development was the key issue in the development goals and the focus of the seminar. Prince Faisal said in order to speak about the role of the media in human development we need to speak about developing human resources and talent in the media.

“The problem is the quality of the supply, and this problem is the result of poor training, the implications of which could be the reduction in the development process and production output,” said Prince Faisal.

While the Kingdom’s higher education system offers courses in media communications (which emphasizes public relations and marketing) there are no colleges dedicated to journalism at any Saudi university.

Abdullah Al-Jasser, deputy minister at the Ministry of Information and Culture, pointed to another obstacle. He admitted in his speech that there is a lack of media research in Saudi Arabia that would allow us to know the obstacles facing the media toward achieving the eight development goals. He also pointed to the role of the private media institutions in being responsible too for achieving these goals rather than focusing on commercial gains.

Following the opening speeches on the first day there were presentations and discussions on the role of the media in education and AIDS.

The education presentation had a lively and long discussion with former Education Minister Mohammed Al-Rasheed who tried to defend the ministry, its policies and how best it can cooperate with the media. He stopped short of outwardly blaming the media for its constant criticism of the ministry and the education system in hampering and disheartening all reform efforts.

One of the presenters at the AIDS session was Dr. Sana Filimban, director of King Saud Hospital, which is the center for caring for HIV/AIDS patients in Jeddah. She emphasized on the need to have positive coverage of the topic in the media rather than spreading fear and inaccurate information. After the sessions, three simultaneous workshops were held on the role of the media in achieving the millennium goals, the role of the media in education development and the role of the media in combating AIDS.

The second day saw intense debates over the more sensitive and controversial issues. The three sessions and workshops of the day were on the role of the media in women’s development and empowerment, the role of the media in child and youth development and the role of the media in environment development and protection.

Wafa Al-Rushaid, development consultant, set the stage on the issue of women by speaking about women in the media. First she said that Saudi women in general live between three discourses: the political, which is mostly theoretical, the religious, which relies on instilling fear, and the media, which treats women as a commodity. She then spoke about the reality of women in the media: there are few women in leadership positions, women are depicted in typical roles and images, women issues are presented with hesitation and the headlines on women are usually negative.

Following 9/11, which was a turning point in the media’s history according to many, Al-Rushaid said she believes that among the people who were victims of the attacks in the United States were women, because with the increased focus on Saudi issues following the twin tower attacks, the media failed to take an appropriate, fair strategy in presenting the situation of Saudi women.

Syrian director Hatim Ali and writer Dalaa Al-Rahbi talked about a TV drama series they worked on together about the rights of women in civil law, Sharia law and in society in general. Ali noted that although there was some censorship, most of the criticism and objections were from the public, particularly women. He gave some research statistics from Arab countries that showed how women are marginalized in television, stereotyped and subjugated.

Al-Rahbi, who is a lawyer by profession, gave a moving and rational religious and social account of women’s place in society as it is and as it should be and how the media have failed in presenting a realistic impression of women.

Ahmed Abdullah, a program host on Al-Arabiya satellite channel, caused uproar after presenting scenes from an episode of his program on the issue of divorce in Tunisia.

Tunisia is considered the most progressive Arab country when it comes to women rights to the extent of going against Sharia law. (Tunisia has a ban on the hijab for women state employees.) The episode tried to be balanced in showing both sides of the argument but it raised the question of whether granting women equal rights can go too far.

The second session was on children and youth. Ahmed Al-Sheqairi, who hosts a program on MBC focusing on youth issues, urged the media to be responsible because it is influential and inspiring. He also said that in order to persuade the youth to turn away from watching sensational programs we have to provide them with an alternative that is of good quality, entertaining, engaging and speaks their language.

Amr Qura, chairman of El-Karma Production for education and entertainment, spoke about the concept of edutainment for children and showed scenes from his company’s production of the popular children program Sesame Street in Arabic as an example.

Dr. Maysara Taher, a psychiatrist and a television host of a program for youth, gave some frightening statistics on the number of hours Saudi children spend in front of television and the psychological impact that has on their mental growth and communication skills.

The third and final session was on the environment. The women and youth sessions took a long time beyond what was scheduled, which left little time and energy for the participants to engage fully with the environment issue although the three presenters gave interesting information. However, the discussion revealed that there was a general lack of interest in environmental issues due to lack of awareness, lack of regulations and policies and lack of supervision and enforcement.

Following the last session were the three simultaneous workshops on the three issues of the day. The final recommendations made by each of the six workshops will be posted on the UNDP Kingdom of Saudi Arabia website.