Core Contribution to the Interna-tional Fund for Public Interest Me-dia (IFPIM)


Public interest media in low- and middle-income countries face existential threats, impact-ing sustainable development and peace. IFPIM is an organization backing the resilience and independence of public interest media. Through SDC’s contribution to IFPIM, Swit-zerland promotes democracy by combating dis- and misinformation and ensuring media freedom and access to reliable information.

Country/region Topic Period Budget
Global
Governance
Media & freedom of information
01.01.2025 - 31.12.2028
CHF  2’000’000
Background Public interest media, particularly in low- and middle-income countries face challenges like limited funding, government in-terference, media concentration, and inadequate infrastructure. Restrictive laws, cen-sorship, and government control reduce independent voices and spread mis- and dis-information. These undermine media credibility and public trust, leading to a misinformed population, reduction of independent voices, suppression of criticism, loss of pluralism, a more polarized society, more extremism and terrorism. SDC’s contribu-tion to IFPIM was a key part of Switzerland’s commitments at the second Summit for Democracy in 2023, presented by the President Berset.
Objectives
  1. More and better-informed people, in-cluding voters
  2. Greater accountability of those in power, including political, economic and social actors
Target groups Independent media outlets in low- and mid-dle-income countries that are working in the public interest and are in danger of extinc-tion or capture.
Medium-term outcomes

Outcome 1: Public interest media under fi-nancial pressure are sustained

Outcome 2: Public interest media improve their economic resilience, by evolving their business strategies and leveraging technol-ogies

Outcome 3: Public interest media better serve society, by growing their audience’s reach and/or engagement

Outcome 4: Innovations that unlock new, long-term sources of funding for public in-terest media are launched and developed

Results

Expected results:  

To Outcome 1: IFPIM provides grants to sustain media facing financial extinction or capture

To Outcome 2: IFPIM provides grants to enable media to experiment with and trans-form new models to fund, create and dis-tribute journalism

To Outcome 3: IFPIM provides facilitation of capacity strengthening and technical support for media

To Outcome 4: IFPIM provides financial and advisory support to test and develop systemic financing solutions to help solve market failures


Results from previous phases:  

The following results should be considered with the understanding that IFPIM's primary objective in the first phase was to establish a new international organization:

IFPIM has made significant strides in advancing its mission across the world since its start in 2022. It has mobilized approximately USD 52 million to support public in-terest media in low- and middle-income countries. It expanded the global coalition supporting its work, and increased its total investment in news publishers in its focus countries to over USD 8 million across 31 organizations. After the approval of IFPIM’s Statutes and the appointment of its Board, IFPIM transformed into a new multilateral entity with HQ in Paris as a quasi-interna-tional organization.


Directorate/federal office responsible SDC
Project partners Contract partner
Other International Organization
  • Other OI

Implementing partner
IFPIM

Coordination with other projects and actors Fondation Hirondelle (SDC partner); DAC GovNet and its mem-bers; Swiss offices abroad incl. Swiss Em-bassy in Paris; HQ SDC’s geographical units, PHRD, BAKOM.
Budget Current phase Swiss budget CHF    2’000’000 Swiss disbursement to date CHF    250’000 Total project since first phase Swiss budget CHF   2’499’998 Budget inclusive project partner CHF   7’500’000
Project phases Phase 2 01.01.2025 - 31.12.2028   (Current phase) Phase 1 01.01.2022 - 31.12.2024   (Completed)