My experience covering the African Development Bank meetings in Korea
Delegates pose for the camera during the Africa Development Bank meetings in Busan, South Korea. This is the 53rd edition of the meetings. Photos by Edgar R . Batte.
Traveling is in many ways a pleasure because it allows us meet people, explore places and partake in experiences that ultimately become memories. This week is a busy one given the work at hand as I put my professional skills to good use here in Busan, Korea’s second largest city.
The Annual African Development Bank (AfDB) meetings are on and will last a full week. It is an opportunity to interact, mix and mingle with some 3, 000 delegates, including presidents, ministers, bank governors, international media and key stakeholders from various sectors on the African continent and beyond.
Plainly put, it is a big event and a good chance and to engage multimedia skills of writing stories, taking photographs, record interviews, shoot videos and also edit for Daily Monitor newspaper from where my superiors recommended me.
From morning to evening, there is a meeting or press conference taking place which means that at any one time, there is something to engage a delegate or journalists. This calls for proper planning on where to put priorities a night before or early in the morning before it all starts.
The programme comes in handy to guide you on which event you will attend over another or why you need to schedule a meeting or interview as opposed to sitting in meetings or conferences.
Bexco Exhibition and Conference Centre, in the heart of Busan is the main venue.
It is quite inviting, first because it is spacious and beauty and then for the personnel manning the security. Koreans are warm, friendly and polite no matter the sector or meeting point.
Be it the hotel, restaurants, tourism attractions, offices, they are courteous and willing to help even though English is not commonly spoken here. Africa is well-represented in the South Korean city this week.
The AfDB meetings provide a perfect platform to network within and outside professional circles. The press or media room is busy all through since journalists are crisscrossing, in and out of the room and conference centres, to file stories and attend briefings respectively.
BBC’s Alan Kasujja smartly clad in a shirt with colourful African designs shares a light moment with fellow delegates during the Annual African Development Bank meetings in Busan, South Korea. Photo by Edgar R. Batte
The spectrum of media platforms we are reporting for is wide. There the print, online, radio and television journalists from within and outside of the African continent. This has naturally cultivated the multiplicity of languages so the services of language interpreters is crucial and useful.
As such, the AfDB organising committee assembled a big team to handle the need so that everyone attending the meetings is able to follow the deliberations in real time. This year’s meetings are the 53rd edition and are being held under the theme, “Accelerating Africa’s industrialisation” which, as the bank’s president, Akinwumi Adesina explains is timely to spur industrial growth on the continent, in sync with the choice of venue.
Korea which has managed to grow economically from a low to a mega industrial economy, and in effect from a third to first world country.
The lessons Africa can pick from its journey of development are many. Reporting while out of station and off routine home ground turf is challenging but ultimately an opportunity to learn.
It calls for speed and a creative way of packaging stories since much of the material or information availed speaks or targets a continental audience. In many cases, there is need to find a connection of the African issues discussed with those back home.
This necessitates finding the delegation from Uganda and the Minister of finance, trade and economic planning, Matia Kasaija willingly offered a few minutes to give a comment on what Uganda had to say in regard with the Bank’s theme.
Having facts and researching for more information is another source of information in order to have context. But it is not all work and no play. The light moments are not ‘forbade’.
The bank has hosted guests to cocktail parties to share drinks, snacks, jokes and more. Busan is a beautiful city and its nightlife offers experiences worth indulging into. You can go out to dine and take culinary adventures of meals that are not on local menus back in Uganda, for example snails, pig offal, lobsters, rice prepared with insect delicacies. There is plan to try out cooked ox blood.
I have been to a festival and admired artists make beautiful work out of sand at Haeundae beach, using their hands. Locals and foreigners alike, cannot help but take photographs using the artwork as backdrops.
Walking along the beach line, barefooted, has proved therapeutic after the long day’s work. It is relaxing feeling the sand softly crumble under the feet as the eyes stretch over the peaceful waters.
God must have been an idealistic artist to let nature offer its beautiful side in such a manner. It feels good being in a city where I don’t have to look over my shoulder or have a sunken heart on repeatedly reading stories of lost lives or the injured as a result of criminal activity.
Anyhow, your writer plans to visit some city suburbs to see and have a feel of what lies beyond the conference halls, the city and beach. It might be this or another time but it certainly is worth including in plans or on a bucket list.
