The MFWA is delighted to announce the members of the jury for the 2025 edition of the West Africa Media Excellence Awards.
The jury comprises distinguished and celebrated media editors and experts in Africa who will assess and shortlist deserving entries for the 8th edition of the Award. They will also determine the ultimate winners of the various categories in the Awards of the 8th edition of WAMECA, which will be held on October 11 at Alisa Hotel in Accra, Ghana.
Below are the profiles of the judges for WAMECA 2025:
Joseph Warungu—Kenya
Joseph is a media and communication trainer and consultant with over 30 years of international journalism experience, 20 of which were spent at the BBC in London, where he was head of the BBC African News and Current Affairs Department. He is also an ICFJ Knight International Journalism Fellow, who is widely travelled in Africa and beyond, working as a journalist, trainer and moderator of public debates on radio and TV.
Warungu specialises in media management training and enhancing the capacity of media to tell in-depth and compelling stories on development issues such as health, education, climate and energy, business and technology. He also works with non-media organisations, including private companies, public entities, NGOs, academic institutions and international agencies to support their communication needs by equipping them with various skills and tools for effective communication and media engagement.
For many years, Warungu taught at the Aga Khan Graduate School of Media and Communications in Nairobi while also running Top Story – a national mentorship programme for young journalists in Kenya, in partnership with 25 national universities. Top Story, which took the form of a popular reality TV show, won the 2019 Global Youth & News Media Award in Paris for making an outstanding contribution to media literacy.
Warungu has an MA in Media Management from the University of Leeds. Some of the organisations Warungu has trained for include Médecins Sans Frontières; Luminate Africa; Unicef Kenya; UNDP (Oslo); Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (South Africa); United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Nigeria); Shell (UK); World Conference of Science Journalists (Doha); Human Rights Watch Africa; Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (Ethiopia); National Democratic Institute; Human Rights Watch; Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
Renée Mendy—Senegal
Renée Mendy is an international journalist and TV presenter with more than thirty years of experience in the media. She has worked with leading outlets such as BBC World Service, RFI and TV5 Monde, where she anchored news bulletins and hosted programs on economics and society.
Respected for her clear voice, poised delivery, and sharp analysis, she is recognised as a trusted figure in francophone journalism. Her expertise covers politics, business, climate, gender, and culture, with a particular focus on African realities and achievements. At COP27, she conducted over seventy interviews with heads of state, ministers, and civil society leaders, ensuring African perspectives were strongly represented in global climate debates. She is also an experienced moderator of high-level international panels.
Alongside her journalism, Renée Mendy is a media trainer and public speaking coach in French and English. She has advised international institutions, NGOs, and media leaders, notably through CFI’s Equal Voices program, where she mentors editors and executives on gender equality in the media in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.
She is also the founder and editorial director of Femmes au Pluriel and FPTV, a platform dedicated to inclusive storytelling and inspiring voices.
Catherine Gicheru – Kenya
Catherine is an ICFJ Knight Fellow. She’s the founder of the Africa Women Journalism Project (AWJP), a project she founded in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. AWJP brings together female journalists and data analysts to produce data-driven coverage of underreported health, gender and economic issues.
Catherine Gicheru also leads a team of editors, mentors, data specialists and designers who work with women journalists in eight countries — Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa and Senegal.
Earlier in her Knight fellowship, Gicheru led a panAfrican women’s data journalism network, WanaData (“daughters of data” in Swahili), a project developed in a partnership between ICFJ and Code for Africa, one of Africa’s premier organisations promoting digital journalism.
Gicheru also co-founded Kenya’s first fact-checking news site, PesaCheck. She has kept up the fight against mis- and disinformation by sharing effective techniques across the Sub-Saharan region.
Gicheru is the founding editor of the Star newspaper in Nairobi, and also the first female news editor at the Nation Media Group, the largest and most influential media group in East Africa.
She is a recipient of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Award. She was also named by New African magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans of 2018.
Gicheru is a member of the board of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and also serves on the board of directors of the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF). She is also a member of the advisory committee of the recently launched Nigeria Media Innnovation Program.
Gicheru is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Reuters Institute Journalism fellow at Oxford University, and a 1992 IWMF Courage in Journalism award winner.
Hamadou Tidiane Sy—Senegal
Hamadou Tidiane Sy is a distinguished Senegalese journalist, media innovator, and educator with over three decades of experience across Africa and the global press. He founded E-jicom (École Supérieure de Journalisme, des Métiers de l’Internet et de la Communication) in Dakar, which has emerged as a premier and pan-African institution for training ethical, digital-savvy media professionals.
He also founded Ouestaf News, an award-winning West African online news platform, celebrated for its rigorous investigative work, its in-depth reporting and commitment to credibility and high standards. Under his leadership, Ouestaf News has contributed to major global investigative collaborations, including the Panama Papers, Swissleaks, and Fatal Extractions.
Tidiane’s earlier career includes roles as reporter or correspondent with leading news organizations including the BBC, AFP, Channel Africa, Global Radio News, RFI, etc. His work covered major political, economic and social developments across the continent, giving him a unique vantage point on Africa’s transformations.
He has earned an array of international accolades: the Media Leadership Award at the Rebranding Africa Forum (Brussels, 2021) for his transformative contributions to African media and communications industry, through Ouestaf News and E-jicom. He is also recognized as a social innovator in the fild of “News and Knowledge” by the Knight and Ashoka Foundations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was named among the 16 Africans providing the most effective responses through his initiative “Reliable information against disinformation”.
Beyond his editorial influence, Tidiane has served in the past on the board of West Africa Democracy Radio. He still sits at the boards of Africa Check and Sci-Dev, playing a leading role in the advancement of good journalism worldwide. He has played an instrumental role in the introduction of fact-checking in Francophone Africa.
His vision and leadership have made him a respected mentor, shaping the future of media across the continent and underscoring journalism’s critical role in democracy, innovation and civic engagement.
