The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) will from September 2018 embark on the next phase of the project on promoting public participation in local governance through improved citizens’ access to information in eight Municipal, Metropolitan and District Assemblies (MMDAs) across Ghana.
The project, which originally commenced in 2013 to promote participatory and accountable local governance, has provided a series of capacity building, training interventions and support to local-based radio stations, citizens, citizen journalists and officials of several district assemblies across Ghana.
As a build-up on the previous interventions, the MFWA will on this phase of the project work with some selected MMDAs to develop Media/Communication Strategies to guide the Assemblies in their engagements with citizens. The MFWA will also train the Assembly officials on how to effectively utilise the Media/Communication strategy to ensure an increased citizens-authorities engagements.
The project will also provide support to MFWA’s partner radio stations and the selected MMDAs to hold Quarterly Live Broadcast Governance Forums. These Live Broadcast Forums will bring together all stakeholders, including officials of the MMDAs, citizens and CBOs to engage with duty-bearers on critical issues of development in their communities.
The partner radio stations will also be supported to feature the MMDCEs of the Assemblies every quarter to discuss the “State of District”. These radio programmes will further provide the Chief Executive Officers of the Assemblies a platform to interact with the citizens, inform them of activities and projects of the Assemblies and also account to community members on their activities.
As part of the project, the MFWA will also embark on a National level-media advocacy to address critical development challenges in at least three of the project MMDAs especially challenges around education and health.
The beneficiary MMDAs of the project include Wa West District, Wa East District, Wa Municipal, Lawra Municipal, and Sissala-East Municipal. The remaining are West Mamprusi Municipal, Twiffo Atti-Morkwa District and Ellembele District.
The MFWA’s partner radio stations for the project are Radio Upper West, WFM, Radio Waa, West Link Community Radio, and Radford FM. The others are Eagle FM, Ankobra FM and Arise FM.
This initiative is part of MFWA’s project on “Enhancing Public Participation and Demand for Accountability in Local Governance in Ghana” with funding support from STAR-Ghana.