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Professor Alfred Esimatemi OPUBOR, Ph.D. Secretary-General, WANAD Centre. Cotonou

Alfred Esimatemi Opubor was a communicologist. A graduate of the University of London, (B.A. Honours, English, 1961), and the [|University of California, Los Angeles], (M.A. Linguistics, 1963), he was among the first generation of students of communication as a behavioural science at [|Michigan State University], MSU, graduating with a doctorate degree in 1969. His specialization was in message systems, with application to mass media and cultural industries, and communication for development.

He was appointed on graduation in 1969 as assistant professor of communication at Michigan State University, and in 1971 was promoted Associate Professor of Communication and Director of the African Studies Centre. In 1975 he accepted the Professorial Chair and Headship of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of Lagos. There he taught generations of journalists and communication professionals, and introduced post-graduate programs, until withdrawing 1986. From 1978-1982 he was National Director of the UNFPA/UNESCO Project on” Communication Strategies for Family health, Family Welfare and Family Planning in Rural and Semi-Urban Nigeria”, based at the Department of Mass Communication. At the University of Lagos, he also served as University Orator and Chairman of the Board of the Centre for Cultural Studies.

One of the founding fathers of the African Council on Communication Education, ACCE, he was elected Vice-President of the International Association for Mass Communication Research (1978-1982). He served as Chairman of the Communication Sector of the Nigerian National Commission for UNESCO from 1975 to 1985. A member of the UNESCO International Panel on Communication Research, (1971-1981), that defined the parameters of the New World Information and Communication Order debate, he was elected in 1981 as the pioneer Rapporteur-General of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication, IPDC. He was re-elected to the Bureau and served three terms till 1987.

He was founding Chairman of the Board of the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, (1979-83), and Chairman of the Board of the Bendel Newspapers Corporation, 19 77-1982. In 1986 he established Multimedia, a private communications consulting firm in Lagos focusing on training and research in media, culture and development issues. During that decade, he also chaired the Friends of the National Museum in Lagos. In 1988 he was elected Chairman of the Conference of Information Experts of the Organization of African Unity, OAU. In that capacity he supervised the drafting of the African Communication Policy and the Statutes of the Pan-African Advertising Union.

Between 1980 and 1988 he was Communication Consultant to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Directorate of Social Mobilisation, the Ministry of Health’s Department of Population Activities, and the Federal Ministry of Information; Chairman of the Inter-ministerial Committee for the preparation of the National Environmental Policy; Chairman of the National Committee on Information and Chairman of the National Committee on Census Publicity and Public Enlightenment

From 1980 to 1981 he was Member/Rapporteur of AFRICOM, the Eminent Persons’ Group appointed by UNESCO’s Director- General. He also served as research coordinator of the African Council on Communication Education, ACCE, and Chief Consultant for the UNESCO Regional Communication Office, both based in Nairobi, Kenya. From 1983 to 1986, he lived in Dakar, Senegal where he was Information Adviser to the newly established Pan-African News Agency, PANA, with responsibility for research and editorial training. From 1986 to 1990 he was Chief Consultant on Information to the Secretariat of the Organization of African Unity, OAU; and from 1989-1990, he served the Economic Commission for Africa, ECA,as Consultant for the Working Group on the Dissemination and Popularization of Population information.

For nearly a decade (1990-1998), he served as Senior Technical Adviser in Information, Education and Communication with the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, first in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, subsequently moving to the Country Support Team, CST, in Harare, Zimbabwe, covering more than 20 countries in east, central and west Africa. His assignment involved numerous diagnostic and planning missions, organizing scores of training workshops for national partners and collaborators, and writing dozens of sector analysis and strategy documents on the relationships between communication, culture and the arts, and their use in education, population, reproductive health and social development programmes.

His expertise in strategic communication has been requested by several national, regional and international organisations, especially within the United Nations system. As National Consultant to the ILO in the 1980s, he prepared the communication strategy to support the population and development programme. In collaboration with UNESCO, he organised activities for the creation and consolidation of the Nigerian Association of Media Women, from 19981 to 1986. Through his company, Multimedia, he also helped to establish Artists for Population and Development, with funding from UNFPA, in 1987.

In 1999, UNFPA and UNAIDS assigned him to lead the team of consultants that prepared a report on HIV/AIDS advocacy based on field research in six African countries. The report recommended diagnostic and strategic tools for national communication and advocacy programs that are currently widely used. In 2000, he led a consultation organised by FAO in defining procedures and tools for the establishment of national communication policies in Africa.

With the World Health Organisation he conducted training workshops and prepared projects on the future of health communication in Africa. He was a communication consultant to the World Bank for the urban water reform in Ghana, as well as the preparation of a development communication strategy for the Government of Ghana. In 2002 he served as a Ford Foundation consultant to mentor the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana as well as providing technical assistance to the National Film and Television Institute in Accra. As Senior Consultant to the Chairman of the African Union Commission, he proposed the conceptual framework and operational procedures for the establishment of a Pan-African radio and television network in 2005-2006.

Among other more recent activities, he has been: Chairman of the African Script Development Fund; Member of the Board of the Centre For African Family Studies, CAFS, the leading regional NGO in reproductive health, based in Nairobi, Kenya; and Secretary- General of the New Africa International Network, a Pan-Africa media research organisation.

He is an active member of the Advisory Committee of the Nigerian Community Radio Network, an advocacy and capacity-development group working for the recognition of community broadcasting as the third tier of broadcasting in Nigeria. He was nominated in 2004, by the Federal Government, to an Experts' Working Group to review the national communications policy, and subsequently, in 2006, was appointed Chairman of the Community Radio Policy Drafting Committee.

From 2002 to 2007, he served as Coordinator of the Working Group on Communication for Education and Development, COMED. Co-sponsored by ADEA, the Norwegian Education Trust Fund and the World Bank, COMED is located at the WANAD Centre, in Cotonou, Republic of Benin. The COMED Working Group trains journalists reporting on education, as well as information and communication officers of ministries of education.

In 2003, Professor Opubor became Secretary-General and Chief Executive of the West African News-media and Development Centre, WANAD. The WANAD Centre later received approval from the Ministry of Higher Education in Benin to initiate the Institut Supérieure de Communication pour le Développement, a  path-breaking tertiary institution that will undertake capacity-building for civil society, private sector and government departments  in a crucial and neglected area of African development. He was also Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Panos Institute (West Africa), and Member of the Africa Board of Inter-Press Service, the Rome-based international news agency with regional headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa.