Fackson BANDA is the Chief of the Unit for Documentary Heritage at UNESCO. The Unit serves as the Secretariat for the Memory of the World Programme. He has served at UNESCO for almost 15 years working on media literacy, journalism education and media development. He is the winner of the 2008 MISA (Media Institute for Southern Africa) Press Freedom Award and was the SABMiller LTD-UNESCO Chair of Media and Democracy in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.

A scholar of African political thought and media, he has taught and published in the areas of postcolonial theory and media, technology and development, civic education, China in the African mediascape, and communication as well as community media and policy, among others.