By Michael Kofi Kenetey
The Hunger Project Ghana has organised a capacity-building workshop for selected media practitioners in the Eastern Region in Koforidua, the Regional capital, to strengthen sub-district institutions for community-led public services in Ghana.
The workshop is to empower media practitioners to hold duty-bearers at the local level accountable and also to champion quality development at the sub-district level. The training is also to encourage and enforce media practitioners and media houses to improve the education and information of community members about their rights and responsibilities at the local level.
The media practitioners were also taken through the decentralisation process, especially the preparation of medium-term development plans and how to improve social accountability at the assembly level.
The Country Director of the Hunger Project Ghana, Samuel Erasmus Afranie, noted that if media practitioners can hold duty-bearers at the district assembly level accountable and the district assemblies are working efficiently and effectively, the workload on the central government will be lessened.
He noted that engagements with the media during workshops over the past years have been one of the best things that the Hunger Project Ghana has done.
In an interview with GBC Sunrise FM, a Consultant of the Hunger Project Ghana, Eric Banye, mentioned that it is only the media that provides the link between duty-bearers and the communities, thereby bringing issues of the communities to the assemblies as well as sending issues from the assemblies to the communities.
He urged media institutions and practitioners to develop programmes that will ensure that development is participatory.
The Director in Charge of Partnership-Building and Resource Management of the Hunger Project Ghana, Isaac Olesu-Adjei, noted that the media has a critical role to play when it comes to transparency and accountability of duty-bearers, hence the need for the workshop.
He noted that the media has championed and helped to bring about a lot of development, change, and difference in society, and the Hunger Project will always count on the media to ensure good governance in the country.
The Project Officer of the Hunger Project Ghana, Solomon Amoakwa, noted that the Hunger Project Ghana has, for the past years, partnered with communities to initiate development projects for various communities in the country.