By Omodele Adigun
Ecobank Group, the leading pan-African banking group, and AMA Academy, the pan-African e-learning platform providing free training to African journalists, recently announced that the inaugural cohort of journalists have graduated from their fintech-focused Finance Journalism Training Programme. The Programme is a ground-breaking initiative providing five weeks of training modules covering the history of financial services, blockchain, open banking and the fintech transformation of financial services and regulation.
The course is specially designed to train and build the capacity of journalists covering finance, business and technology by equipping them with the skills, knowledge and experience that they need to fully understand and accurately report on the issues, challenges, opportunities and benefits of the African financial sector.
Eloine Barry, Managing Director of the AMA Academy, said: “The Finance Journalism Training Programme delivers on the huge need to provide high-level knowledge and understanding to African journalists on the emerging trends in finance, and especially those relating to the rapidly evolving fintech landscape. It is particularly fitting that we are collaborating with the Ecobank Group for this programme as it shares our vision of creating a world where everyone should be able to learn about the new trends that affect the development of our continent.”
Christiane Bossom, Communications Manager, Ecobank Group, said this fintech training course aligns with Ecobank’s strategy to support the growth of the African fintech ecosystem. “We applaud this first graduating cohort for their willingness and curiosity during these training modules. They and future attendees of this programme will help to ensure the robust media reporting necessary to drive public education and awareness of the financial sector across the African continent. We also thank our partner AMA Academy for successfully implementing the programme,” Bossom said.
In August 2022 over 400 journalists from 30 African countries were selected to participate in the Programme.
Mr. Felix Abely, Editor-in-Chief of Congo Media Plus from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Joseph Ndamu Sandu, Editor of Business Times in Zimbabwe, won the Fintech Journalist of the Year Award for Francophone Africa and Anglophone Africa respectively.