Portraying the Developing world Seminar

The Africa Centre’s Development Education programme in conjunction with Dóchas held a seminar ‘Portraying the developing world: The whole truth and nothing but the truth?’ on the 10th of September 2009 at the Irish Aid Information and Volunteering Centre on O’Connell Street at 9.30-12.30 pm.

The seminar will looked into how the developing world is portrayed in Ireland? What perceptions do the public formulate from communication about the developing world and do we ever stop to think of the affect these images and messages have on the people especially those who now live in Ireland? It also emphasized the southern perspective on the way that we communicate information on developing countries and also looked at the role of image-makers (photo and video) in building visual representation of development issues in developing countries.

Also that led to Dóchas coming up with the Code of Conduct on Images and Messages for the NGO sector in using appropriate images and messages in their communication supporting their development work to make informed decisions. 

As a discussion forum, we are hoping that after the seminar, journalists, development educators, individuals and groups present will pave a way of collaborating in future to facilitate a fairer representation and reporting on the developing countries in the use of images and messages in their communication.


This year 2010, the Africa Centre will be hosting an International Conference on Images and Messages on the 14th and 15th July. More information will be available soon.