Nigeria leads the African continent in donor-supported investigative journalism, according to a new report issued by the Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD). The report reveals a massive structural mismatch in the funding of African media, as well as “a major disconnect between media assistance budgets and the wider economic context of African media markets.”
According to the report, titled “Mapping of Media Assistance and Journalism Support Programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa,” which presents a mapping of 326 media assistance and journalism-support programmes implemented across Sub-Saharan Africa between 2020 and 2025, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, which host the continent’s largest media markets, strongest investigative journalism ecosystems, and most active civil society advocacy networks, emerged as the core “high-volume” recipients of both Official Development Assistance (ODA) and philanthropic funding.
It provides an overview of how bilateral donors, philanthropic foundations, and international and local organisations are supporting sub-Saharan Africa’s media and information ecosystems. It also includes insights into how funding flows, thematic priorities, implementing partners, and structural gaps are shaping media development.
The report stated that total funding commitments by donors for media assistance in the region between 2020 and 2025 were $518,372,715.73, while $254,174,824.48, less than half of the funding commitments, was disbursed during the study period.
It said the majority of funding is concentrated in southern and eastern Africa, with Zambia, Nigeria, and Mozambique receiving over 60 percent of the total commitments. Southern Africa received 51 percent of total committed funds, approximately $266.5 million, while Central Africa received a mere 5 percent, amounting to about $25.4 million.
The report highlighted “a major disconnect between media assistance budgets and the wider economic context of African media markets”, stressing that “Commercial media markets across the continent are expanding rapidly and are projected to generate USD28 billion by 2029 in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya alone. Yet official development assistance dedicated to media remains marginal, accounting for just 0.3 percent of global ODA – approximately an annual average of USD620 million worldwide, with Africa receiving only a portion of this.”
It noted that the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Foundations (OSF) fund investigative outlets such as the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Premium Times, Daily Trust Foundation, and The Cable, adding that “Nigeria’s Big Cabal Media and other digital-native outlets attract venture and philanthropic capital, signalling a hybrid innovation ecosystem rarely seen in other African countries.”
Among the study’s key findings are the fact that Kenya and Nigeria receive extensive support for anti-corruption reporting, election information integrity, and strengthening oversight institutions, from donor initiatives such as the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), Media for Accountability support, and the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN), the EU’s flagship democracy support programme in Nigeria, which is designed to complement the efforts of the Nigerian government to strengthen democracy.
It emphasized that across the donors discussed in the report, “there is a clear geographic concentration of funding in a few key Sub-Saharan countries viewed as democratic anchors, media hubs, or governance priority contexts. These countries include Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. Donors consistently prioritise independent journalism, civic participation, digital rights, disinformation response, media sustainability and community media strengthening.”
The report noted that across all the countries of focus, funding priorities converge around a narrow set of themes, namely democratic governance and elections, freedom of expression and digital rights, investigative journalism, and misinformation/information integrity, adding that: “Philanthropic actors, such as the OSF, Luminate, MacArthur, and Ford Foundation are increasingly becoming visible, especially in South Africa and Nigeria, through their investments in digital transformation, innovation, and sustainability.”
It, however, observed that “donor portfolios are dominated by short-cycle, election-linked, and project-based support, with limited core and institutional funding, resulting in weak long-term sustainability.”
The report also noted that rights-based and regulatory themes are central for Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, particularly as “Nigeria’s donor landscape is shaped by restrictive legal frameworks, prompting significant investments in legal defence, fact-checking, and media freedom advocacy.”
In addition, it said regional and global safety mechanisms supported by donors and international media support organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), GMDF, International Media Support (IMS), and the Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ) feature strongly in Zimbabwe and Nigeria, where journalists face legal and physical threats.
It pointed out that the distribution of media assistance funding across individual countries in sub-Saharan Africa showed significant disparities, with support concentrated in a small number of countries, adding that based on the data presented, Zambia (22.1 percent), Nigeria (20.6 percent), and Mozambique (18.3 percent) account for more than 60 percent of all mapped funding.
The report explained that “Nigeria’s allocation reflects its size, geopolitical importance, and role as a regional media hub while Zambia and Mozambique appear to have benefited from substantial multi-year programmes associated with donors’ governance priorities in these countries in the last five years.”
It stressed that despite their modest global share, Africa’s media and entertainment markets are already worth several billions of dollars annually, vastly exceeding the volume of development aid channeled to the sector.
The report noted that recent Africa Entertainment and Media Outlook data from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a multinational professional services network based in London, in the United Kingdom, for 2022 to 2026, 2023 to 2027, and 2025 to 2029 show that by 2029, South Africa alone is projected to reach an entertainment and media market value of about US$17.4 billion, with Nigeria and Kenya reaching US$5.8 billion and US$5.2 billion per year in entertainment and media revenues.
In terms of regional distribution of funds, both committed and disbursed, the report said West Africa, despite being home to vibrant media environments and population centres, such as Nigeria and Ghana, received a smaller portion of support (19 percent), possibly due to increased political stability in some parts of the region.
The mapping exposed a significant “support gap” for fragile states as funding is heavily concentrated in a small number of “reform priority” countries, pointing out that “despite escalating risks, journalist safety, digital rights, and gender-focused media support remain critically under-resourced”.
The report warned of a looming “renewal risk” as many major projects approach their end dates, noting that “Currently, only $290 million of the total $518 million commitment is tied to ongoing projects.”
The situation, it said, is further complicated by the exit of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which previously accounted for approximately 26 percent of all media assistance in the region, adding that “This withdrawal is expected to undermine democracy-linked media support and professional capacity-building.”
The report also highlighted that the “traditional” nature of funding continues to hamper long-term growth, as about 93 percent of all support is grant-based, with only 1 percent of funding provided as core, flexible support that allows organizations to build institutional resilience.
The foreword to the report, written by Catherine Gicheru and Zoe Titus, highlights how global digital platforms are reshaping advertising markets and drawing value from local journalism without accountability.
They warned that emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) are entering newsrooms unevenly, adding that: “In this context, AI risks deepening existing inequalities, accelerating disinformation, and amplifying online abuse, particularly against women journalists.”
To address the gaps, the GFMD recommended a shift toward multi-year, risk-tolerant, and core funding models, as well as stronger regional mechanisms managed by Africa-led organizations, which currently handle 41 percent of implementation but struggle to access large-scale, flexible financing.
The report warned that as governments increasingly use economic and platform rules to shape media environments indirectly, the decisions made now will determine the viability of independent African media for years to come.
