Johannesburg - The African News Agency (ANA) on Thursday announced a new partnership with the News-Decoder youth news service, which breaks down international current affairs and analyses this from a young reader's perspective.
The partnership is set to strengthen ANA's coverage of international and regional events, while at the same time deepening the Paris-based service's ties to the African continent and its youth.
Under the agreement, signed by ANA Chief Executive Grant Fredericks, and founder of News-Decoder, Nelson Graves, ANA will publish News-Decoder's articles, written by a team of highly experienced foreign correspondents and by talented youth around the world.
A team of News-Decoder writers will produce a regular series of articles for ANA focusing on important developments in Africa, while the News-Decoder file, aimed at young people around the world, will strengthen ANA's engagement with millennials in its target markets.
News-Decoder will work with talented young Africans who produce multi-media articles for ANA to bolster its own global reporting and to identify youth who can contribute to News-Decoder's international community of young people eager to expand their horizons.
"Africa's youth is its future and we are providing stories that will not only interest them but also offer them as many perspectives as possible -- from our continent, to Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East," Fredericks said.
"ANA is not only an information agency, it is also an education agency and our partnership with News-Decoder will enhance our provision of both."
Commenting on the partnership, Graves said: "Our partnership with ANA marks an important step in News-Decoder's strategy of extending its global footprint. We cannot pretend to have a rounded, global perspective without hearing the voices of African youth, who carry the dreams of a continent with so much promise but misunderstood by so many outside the region."
ANA was set up in 2015, in the wake of the closure of the South African Press Association (SAPA), with Sekunjalo Holdings holding a large stake, alongside a number of African, Middle Eastern, European and American private investors.
News-Decoder is a Paris-based not-for-profit, backed by a large pool of highly experienced foreign correspondents who have lived around the world and covered virtually every major international news story in the past 30 years. News-Decoder works with academic institutions around the world to connect young people, interested in international affairs, with one another and with world-class experts.