The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) will from July 23, 2018 embark on building the institutional capacities of some seven radio stations in four targeted districts across Ghana.
The project follows an identified need for institutional support to these local-based radio stations by the Foundation in a previous project implemented in 2017.
In the 2017 project, the MFWA organised capacity building trainings for journalists, local assembly officials as well as citizen journalists to promote information demand and disclosure. The project also created platforms to support citizens-authorities’ engagements.
As a build-up on the 2017 project, the MFWA is providing institutional capacities for the seven radio stations to enable them improve reporting on issues of development in the districts.
Therefore, in the next few weeks, the MFWA will assign consultants to the targeted radio stations to provide in-house trainings that focus on well-structured radio programming, innovative dialogue programmes and standard editorial policies. The Foundation will also support the stations to develop an audience-engagement guide to sustain communication with the public.
“We realized that it was not enough to build journalists capacities and provide platforms for citizens-authorities engagement alone especially, if we want to promote participatory and accountable governance. It is an all-inclusive approach; – the people and the institutional structure in terms of how to produce content, reports, edits, documentaries, organizational policies and how this is communicated,” Adizatu Moro Maiga, Programme Officer of MFWA, explained.
“We have to take into consideration, the whole system. Otherwise, we will be doing a one sided work which will not yield any result. It is our hope that by the end of this project, the radio stations will have the right resources to carry out their duties in a more professional way to achieve the results we all aspire,” she added.
The beneficiary radio stations of the initiative include Radio Progress and W93.5FM in Wa, Arise FM in Twifo Ati-Morkwa and Obonu FM in Tema. The remaining are New Day FM, Westend Radio and Radio Ankobra, all in Ellembelle.
As part of the project, the MFWA will also support district assemblies in the targeted districts to develop communication strategies to facilitate citizens-authorities’ engagements.
This initiative is part of MFWA’s local governance project to promote participatory and accountable local governance in districts across Ghana. The capacity building project is being implemented with funding support from DW Akademie based in Germany.