GJA , Star Ghana, CSOs Collaborate for Effective Governance At Local Level

By Kingsley E. Hope

Kumasi — Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and Star Ghana's enhanced media and civil society organisations (CSOs) partnership project for effective economic governance at the national and sub-national level has been held in Kumasi.

The 18-month project with funds from Star Ghana, expects the media and CSOs to gain more insight into the political economy of Ghana, especially at the local level and frame issues from informed perspectives to influence advocacy, policy-making and implementation.

Under the project, the GJA is expected to partner civil society actors to strengthen a seemingly weak collaboration between them so as to demand accountability from local and national political leaders, with the collaboration expected to contribute to enrich citizen's access to quality information through structured media platforms and CSOs outlets.

Participants were drawn from Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions.

Addressing the meeting, the National Organiser of the GJA, Albert Dwumfuor urged media practitioners to write more articles centred on decentralisation to educate the grassroots so as to "enable them feel that governance is about them".

"Information flow is key for development in democratic governance to empower the grassroots to be aware of what political leaders are doing", he said.

Mr Dwumfour, who is also the chief executive officer of Atinka Media Village, mentioned that the media need to ensure accountability, stressing that funds from the central government for projects were not misappropriated and projects were carried out for the benefit of the general public.

Mr Kojo Impraim, the Project Manager observed with grave concern that most citizens rise to attain political positions and "forget they had once been citizens at the grassroots, relegating issues concerning the masses to the background".

He called on the media to effectively team up with the civil society actors to demand accountability from people in high positions for the betterment of the nation.

According to Mr Impraim, journalists/media practitioners and CSOs should build capacity on critical local governance issues to shape public policy.

The Project Coordinator, Rebecca Ekpe, on her part, said it was time for journalists to start writing stories to reflect the society.

Acknowledging that most journalists did not have time to do more research, she urged them to collaborate with the CSOs to get the best of stories about the grassroots in order to let citizens have a feel of governance at the local level.

Earlier, Ashanti Regional Chairman of the GJA, Kingsley E. Hope, in his remarks, observed that media/CSOs advocacies had been characterised by weak collaboration and poor harmonisation as a result of inadequate policy literacy and capacity among journalists, civil society actors and citizens at the local government level.

He noted that the weak collaboration had undermined responsible journalism, civil society activism and developmental governance at the local government level, and stressed the need for effective collaboration between the media and CSOs toward accountable governance at the local level.

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