"As such, a National Fund for Journalism (NFJ) is a dedicated structure that is designed with a strategic sectoral purpose to provide long-term funding and financing to an independent journalism ecosystem in a particular country, region or place (as a Local or City Fund for Journalism, for example). It can take different forms, but in essence is designed to redress shortcomings, barriers or imbalances in a particular media market, or to incentivise, catalyse or accelerate new entrants or transformative processes in that market. A National Fund for Journalism (NFJ) can complement and reinforce other policy measures aimed at improving and strengthening the independent media ecosystem. NFJs are ideally nationally- or sometimes regionally-governed funding structures that are independent of the funders - including governments, bilaterals, multi-laterals, foundations, tech platforms and others - that provide them with financial resources. Even if underpinned principally by public money - either from a domestic government or from international government donors or both - their transparency and independence reduces the risk of the funder being seen to be interfering in the media landscape/market or in individual grantees. This can also help to give confidence to other sources of funding, such as philanthropic, tech, corporate or individual donations, where such donors are wary of being seen to fund media directly. Given these primary sources, NFJs need to operate with a high degree of accountability and transparency, and in general, NFJs are designed and administered by independent and professional bodies, with independent governance and transparent structures and processes. NFJs ideally include representation from diverse parts of the media sector, and potentially from citizens. An NFJ may be centrally administered through a single body or may be a mechanism to decentralise funding through diverse bodies or sub-funds to particular regions or communities, to counteract spatial, racial or other inequalities. As a sector-level intervention, an NFJ should have a longer horizon than project or programmatic funding schemes. In many locations, NFJs will need to address the need for long-term stable funding and therefore, if not established in perpetuity, could be designed to last for a minimum of ten years. NFJs should be established to exist beyond electoral or political cycles, emergencies or short-term project cycles. In many cases, for example, where funds are provided through regulatory mechanisms, they may be established in law." (Pages 4-5)