Gambia - The 2011 workshop on Taiwan's Media Development, which was conducted from February 22nd to March 7, organised by the International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF), last Monday ended with a closing ceremony held at the Golden China Hotel in Taipei City, Taiwan. Attended by 10 participants drawn from African countries; namely The Gambia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Swaziland and South Africa, the workshop was meant to expose participants to Taiwan's media development, Taiwanese culture, as well as the digitalised world, among other issues. Speaking at the closing ceremony, Chao Chia-pao, deputy secretary general of TaiwanICDF, congratulated the participants for their high-level participation and courage throughout the workshop.

He gave a brief history of the TaiwanICDF, noting that it was founded in 1996 to consolidate and manage international assistance that the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan has been offering through technical cooperation programes; to establish friendly relations with African countries, the Middle East, Central and South America, East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. He expressed hope that participants will implement the lessons learnt from the workshop into their various media organisations and move in tandem with the digitalised world.

Eileen Chang, the manager of the TaiwanICDF, also congratulated the participants for accomplishing the task of the two-week workshop. She recalled that the TaiwanICDF has over the years offered various seminars, workshops, training programmes and scholarships that benefited more than 7, 334 participants from 118 countries worldwide.

She finally thanked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China on Taiwan for sponsoring the workshop. At the end of the workshop, participants were awarded certificates. Assan Sallah, news editor of the Daily Observer and Fatou Sanneh-Ceesay, principal producer at GRTS attended the workshop from The Gambia.

Assan Sallah

The Daily Observer/15/03/2011