By Rachel Kakraba
National Programmes Specialist on Information and Communication, United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization, UNESCO, Fauziatu Adam, says access to information on migration remains critical to empowering young people on the Continent, thereby underscoring the importance of the media.
She was unhappy over the years there has not been any document to guide media reportage on migration leading under reporting of migration related issues. For this reason she said, UNESCO under its project, “empowering young people in Africa through media and communication” is collaborating with the GJA to establish Guidelines on Reporting on Migration.
“We have done a lot of activities when it comes to access to information and our climax is with the GJA, because we have realised we need to have guidelines when it comes to reporting on migration”.
Madam Adam was addressing participants in Aburi at a GJA-UNESCO project on migration which among other things is to draft guidelines for migration reporting for the Ghanaian media.
The project is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Development cooperation (maeci) via the Italian agency for development cooperation (Aics) through the ‘Fondo Africa’, a financial instrument aimed at supporting interventions to revive the dialogue and cooperation between Italy and the African countries.
She said the project “empowering young people in Africa through media and communication” which was launched in 2019, has trained more than forty Ghanaian journalists on investigative reporting on migration as well editors.
Madam Adam added, community Radio stations have also been engaged to use local language to educate the populace to solicit for accurate information on migration.
“Community Radio stations because we noticed that issues of irregular migration happens in rural areas so the best way is to target them and do stories in local language for people to find ways or look for correct information when it comes to issues of migration”.
She indicated that UNESCO has published a migration manual which is accessible on UNESCO’s website and encouraged journalists to take advantage of it for information on migration.
Madam Adam was hopeful the brainstorming session would yield fruitful results by instituting migration desks in some selected newsrooms to have investigative stories published on migration.
“I am hoping the brainstorming session would yield fruitful results by undertaking the activity we intend to implement by having migration desks in some selected newsrooms so that we can have many investigative stories on migration from our country that we can relate to”.
Touching on key deliverables of the project, Lead, Project Management Unit of the GJA, Kojo Impraim, said formulation of the guidelines has become necessary because there is a void in that area.
For him migration borders on human rights and the brainstorming session for inputs of key stakeholders is to ensure the document is all an inclusive one and puts issues of migration into right perspectives.
“We could have as well engaged one person to carry out a research and provide us with a guideline which would have been equally ok, but it would not have been inclusive as you still need ideas that are essential for such a document. Therefore we thought we should have a brainstorming session to harvest ideas on what should go into the guidelines, what are the contextual issues that is informing migration in Ghana and the sub-region”.
Mr. Impraim, added the setting up of the Migration Desks in selected media houses is to ensure continuous reportage on migration related issues not only in Ghana but the sub Region. He said such dedicated desks when institutionalized will be reference points on migration issues and called for sustaining such engagements.
“The desk will not necessarily be a physical desk but online desk where reporters file stories. It will be interesting to have the desk now reporting on migration as they have a desk for health, environment, we also want to institutionalize. So how do we sustain such engagement for a very long time so that it becomes part of the media operationalization”
The project will among other things sharpen the writing skills of journalists to emphatic ways of migration reportage, increase and provide access to ethical material on migration reporting as well as open up discussions on migration.
