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DUBAWA Ghana, with funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, organised a two-day residential training for the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and other parastatals from Ghana’s 16 regions. The training, which took place at Alisa Hotel on July 11 and July 12, 2024, focused on strengthening DUBAWA’s long-standing relationship with government institutions to effectively promote the culture of truth and verification in a seemingly chaotic information environment ahead of Ghana’s election.
The training aimed to enhance the skills of 20 participants, who engage citizens daily with fact-checking and digital verification ahead of Ghana’s 2024 election. The idea is to build capacity and share knowledge that will enable public officials to uphold values of transparency, balance, accuracy, accountability, and independence in their operations, with the hope that the foregoing values will trickle down to citizens within the regions.
The training was attended by 17 regional representatives of the National Commission for Civil Education (NCCE), including one from the headquarters, communication officers from the Information Services Department (ISD), the National Media Commission, and a key member of the Ghana Community Radio Network.
In his opening remarks, Akintunde Babatunde, the director of programmes at CJID, highlighted the relevance of policy communication to the public good, especially as the country prepares for its election in December.
During his session, “Policy Communication, Media Relations, and The Role of Government Institutions During and Beyond Elections,” Akintunde urged participants to intentionally communicate government policies to avoid disruptions in the current chaotic information ecosystem.
“If we really want to avoid the kind of breakdown of law and order like what just happened in Kenya, then we have to pay attention and be intentional about how we communicate government policies,” he said.
He added that the dynamics of information dissemination have changed, and parastatals must build the capacity to identify and match perpetrators of misinformation globally. He encouraged parastatals to find effective ways to grab audiences’ attention to drive home government policies to enhance democracy.
“We have to redesign our approach to get the right audience and capture attention,” he said.
He also encouraged participants to curate different concise, clear, and coherent messages to meet diverse audiences on social media platforms and drive civic education and engagement in this digital age.
In his session, Mr Stephen Tindi, a communications lecturer at UniMAC—GIJ, encouraged participants to use the Internet and social media to their advantage. He exposed participants to current data on Internet penetration worldwide, particularly in Ghana, and how they can use that to reach many people with their messages. With the current Internet penetration, he encouraged government institutions to engage the Internet and maximise digital communication to meet their audiences where they are.
Mr Stephen Tindi and a cross-section of participants during a session. Image Source: DUBAWA
Maxine Gloria Danso, the CJID’s expansion lead, introduced participants to the state of the information ecosystem and how information disorder manifests in it. She also exposed participants to how misinformation and disinformation can sway the public significantly ahead of the elections. She expressed how this can influence election results and distort democracy.
On his part, Nathan Gadugah, the editor for DUBAWA Ghana, took participants through various steps to identify false narratives in public discourse. He advised that parastatals must identify these narratives and carefully craft clear messages to influence public opinions and alter public behaviour.
Nathan Gadugah, Editor at DUBAWA, and a cross-section of participants. Image Source: DUBAWA
Other sessions at the workshop covered the role of parastatal media information literacy in a safe information ecosystem during elections, multimedia digital verification techniques, digital safety, social media monitoring, and insight-generating tools. This session was led by Jerry Sam, executive director at Penplusbytes, Roselena Ahiable, programmes manager at DUBAWA, and Silas Jonathan, CJID’s head of investigations, respectively.
Some of the participants shared their experiences after the workshop.
“After the first two sessions, I communicated with my boss at the Information Services Department about a possible collaboration with DUBAWA to tackle misinformation and disinformation in Ghana,” said Bridget Mensah, deputy director at ISD.
“One thing that I have learned, which is very important, is that even when you are debunking, proof with multiple evidence so that you leave no doubts in anybody’s mind. Also, the fact that we keep saying ‘fake news,’ but there are multi-dimensions to fake news, so just saying fake news is not enough. We must identify the type and know how to tackle it,” she said.
She added that she would use the knowledge gained to help the ISD revamp its website and tackle misinformation and disinformation targeting governmental institutions.
Emmanuella Obeng-Koranteng, the communications officer at NCCE’s communication and corporate affairs department, emphasised the relevance of the training on policy communication, especially during election season.
“I must commend DUBAWA for a job well-done training representatives from the NCCE. This is crucial in our work as civic educators because of our large audience across the country, from students in basic schools to youth, religious, security, and other civil society organisations,” she said.
Participants’ presentation during the training. Image Source: DUBAWA Ghana
Ralph Osei-Agyemang, an executive council member of the Ghana Community Radio Network, emphasised the workshop’s importance for the network going into the election. He appreciated the workshop and promised to share it with 24 other community radio stations in his local network.
“To be honest, I have had very good and fruitful sessions yesterday and today. I have a peculiar job of transferring knowledge to almost 24 stations, and I might fall on you along the line,” he said.
