Dr. Ibrahim Seaga Shaw : Chairman and Information Commissioner, RAIC

Dr. Ibrahim Seaga Shaw is Chairman and Information Commissioner, Right to Access Information Commission (RAIC) in Sierra Leone. Before taking up this post in October 2018, Dr Shaw worked as Senior Lecturer in Media and Politics at Northumbria university in Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK  since September 2011.  He was Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) between 2012 and 2016 following his election at the organisation's biennial conference in Japan on November 24-28 2012.  As head of IPRA, Dr Shaw organised the organisation’s 25th biennal conference at the Bintumani conference centre in Freetown in 2016 with over 500 peace researchers from 82 countries from all the continents of the world in attendance. He was nominated Best Lecturer for student-led teaching by the Northumbria Students Union In 2013, 2015, and 2016, and in 2014 for an award for Communication for Social Change run by the Centre for Communication for Social Change at Queensland University, Australia.

Dr Shaw’s current leadership of the RAIC since taking over in October 2018 has transformed the institution from one which very little was known about to one that has created both national and international impact if his achievements documented in the Commission’s first ever annual report covering the 2019 financial year is anything to go by (copy of which is available on the RAIC first ever website: www.raic.gov.sl . Dr Shaw was elected member of the Executive Committee of the International Conference of Information Commissioners (ICIC) in March 2019 a position he is still serving. Under Dr Shaw’s abled leadership, the RAIC became an accredited member of the ICIC in September, 2019, among the first 24 countries in the world to be accredited. Moreover, under his abled leadership, the RAIC played a pivotal role in making Sierra Leone to be among 6 countries that co-sponsored the adoption of the Draft Resolution A/74/L1 which necessitated the Proclamation by the UN General Assembly of September 28 as the International Day for the Universal Access to Information on 15th October 2019.

Dr Shaw contributes his expertise to scholarship and policy in the following areas: Media and human rights; Human Rights Journalism; Humanitarian Journalism, media, conflict and development; Media and Business; Business and Journalism; Intercultural Communication; Media, democracy and Human Rights; Media, Digital Media and Political Economy;  international development, public diplomacy, Media, Culture and Human Rights; Political Communication, Media History, peace journalism; global journalism; and media and humanitarian intervention.  He taught journalism and mass communication and supervised four PhD students working on human rights journalism, conflict, social media, political communication, and public diplomacy to completion. He has examined six PhD theses as external examiner (four in the UK and 2 in Sierra Leone) and several master theses (in the UK and Sierra Leone).

Dr Shaw’s background is in journalism as a reporter, editor, sub-editor and correspondent in Sierra Leone, France and the UK(www.ibrahimseagashaw.com). He was founder, editor and publisher of Sierra Leone’s award-winning Expo Times newspaper published in print in Sierra Leone between 1995 and 1998, and since 2000 available online (www.expotimesonline.net). He worked as sub editor in London and correspondent in Paris for New African magazine between 2000 and 2003. Expo Times under Dr Shaw’s leadership as editor in chief won the best-selling newspaper award from the Sierra Leone Newspaper vendors Association in 1996

Dr Shaw holds a PhD from the Sorbonne in Paris in Information and Communication, MSc in Development Studies from the London South Bank University, and BA International Relations from FBC, USL, and has published several articles in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Global Ethics and International Communication Gazette. He is author of five books, including Business Journalism: A Critical Political Economy Approach. (2015, Routledge), and ‘Human Rights Journalism’ Palgrave Macmillan (2012), and contributed chapters to over 10 books by world leading editors and publishers. Dr Shaw has also guest-edited three special issues of leading academic journals published by SAGE and Routledge Taylor and Francis

Dr Shaw was commissioned by UNESCO to do a module on humanitarian journalism as a contribution to the revised UNESCO journalism Education Model curricula (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002211/221199E.pdf) launched by the organization’s Director General in July 2013. He served as editor of the newsletter of the Black and Minority Communication Commission of the Association for Journalism and Communication Education between 2012 and 2013. Before taking up his academic post at Northumbria University in 2011, he served as Senior Research Fellow in media and politics, and Project Manager of the Refugees and Migrant Support Hub at the University of West of England in Bristol. He also served as a Commissioner for the Bristol Legacy Commission between 2008 and 2011.