BETTER
INFORMATION
FOR A BETTER
TOMORROW
CFI — Canal France International — supports the journalists and citizens working for independent news, all over the world.
Its aim is to optimise skills and media content to provide verified, reliable and diverse information.
The agency supports the media and civil society via training, strategy consulting, experience sharing, networking and funding projects. It also leads an international community of independent media outlets, bloggers, activists and influencers.
CFI’s programmes are planned over the long term, affording plenty of opportunities to foster special ties with local partners. Each project lasts one to three years. They are designed by agency staff alongside their partners, the expert network and the beneficiary media outlets and individuals.
Every year, some 50 projects are implemented in nearly 35 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab world, Asia and EU neighbour countries.
THE FRENCH MINISTRY
OF EUROPE AND
FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
MAIN DONOR
CFI was founded in 1989 as a public operator mainly funded by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) to help implement France’s policy of solidarity-based development. The main directions and priorities defining CFI’s remit are shaped by an annual convention signed with the MEAE.
The agency’s other two main sources of funding are currently the EU (directly or via Expertise France) and the Agence française de développement (AFD).
A SUBSIDIARY OF
THE GROUP FRANCE
MÉDIAS MONDE
CFI is a listed company. Since 2017, it has been a subsidiary of France Médias Monde (FMM), the group in charge of French international broadcasting. France Médias Monde comprises the trilingual rolling news channel France 24, the French radio station with global reach RFI and the Arabic-language radio Monte Carlo Doualiya (MCD).
Together, these entities form an international media hub capable of leveraging leading-edge skills on all the themes covered by the agency.
A GOVERNMENT AGENCY TO SUPPORT THE MEDIA
OUR KEY PRIORITIES
PUSHING BACK
ON DISINFORMATION
CFI plays an active part in pushing back on the spreading of fake news, by conducting projects mainly in Africa and the Arab world, as well as in the Balkans, Ukraine and Southeast Asia.
PROTECTING
THE ENVIRONMENT
Given the climate emergency and its irreversible consequences on our planet, the agency is raising awareness among journalists as to their role as whistle-blowers.
PROMOTING
GENDER EQUALITY
Given the media’s fundamental role in transmitting values and representing identities, CFI has chosen to make gender equality a priority.
PROMOTING
DEMOCRACY AND
CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
The agency is convinced that the media play a crucial role in promoting citizenship and human rights. CFI staff thus deploy projects to promote democratic values.