AFP Foundation expands board, mandate

The AFP Foundation, the news agency\'s media development arm, said Tuesday it had expanded its board and its role to include work in France. \"Following a modification of its statutes, the foundation will now be able to contribute to improving social cohesion in France through activities promoting equal opportunities, the re-entry into society of former prisoners, and support for the disabled,\" it said in a statement. Previously the foundation focused solely on work in developing countries. The statement also said the foundation\'s now eight-member board had been expanded to include Sylvie Kauffmann, a commentator at Le Monde, Florence Biedermann, AFP\'s director for Europe and Africa, Jerome Clement, a writer and former chairman of ARTE and Axel Ganz, founder of Prisma Press. They join existing members including AFP CEO Emmanuel Hoog and Global News Director Philippe Massonnet. Set up in 2007, the AFP Foundation promotes freedom of expression by training journalists in developing countries. It has trained more than 1,300 journalists mainly in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Among its current projects are a two-year programme building contacts between media outlets that serve different communities in Lebanon and participation in a project led by BBC Media Action to train more than 1,000 journalists in countries neighbouring the European Union. Another major programme is the Africa Check project, which will be launched in South Africa in September to create a non-partisan fact-checking website based in the journalism department of the University of the Witwatersrand.