Dubawa

Dubawa, on Friday 6 November 2020, held a virtual fact-checking training for members of the Communications and Corporate Affairs Department of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) as part of the two parties’ partnership in public sensitisation engagements against misinformation and disinformation.

The Dubawa-NCCE partnership which started during the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic was primarily designed to ensure that the Ghanaian community received accurate information on the pandemic. The focus of the partnership has since been extended to cover Ghana’s elections. 

Speaking on behalf of the NCCE Chairperson, Director of Communications and Corporate Affairs, Mrs Joyce Afutu, said the training was timely, coming at the time the nation heads to the polls soon.

“I must say the training has been insightful and as a civic education institution, the information gleaned from these sessions, will enhance our online communication engagements and also our grassroots sensitization activities, as fact-checking can not be overemphasized with respect to this age of people just filling the airwaves with all manner of information,” Mrs Afutu said. 

Caroline Anipah, Programme Officer and Editor Dubawa (Ghana), extended her appreciation to the Commission for its willingness to work with Dubawa on this important national project:

“As a fact-checking organisation with the mandate to amplify truth and ensure citizens have access to accurate information for decision making, we are aware that we are unable to tackle the threat of dis- and misinformation alone. This is why we have collaborated with the NCCE, the agency with a mandate to educate Ghanaians on civic matters and also with direct contact with citizens. We believe an engagement with the Commission will be one way of effectively addressing the threat of ‘fake news.” 

Anipah added, “We hope that knowledge and skills gained here will be passed on to citizens.” 

The training was facilitated by Editor of Dubawa Nigeria, Kemi Busari, and Deputy Programme Director, Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, Adedeji Adekunle, who equipped the NCCE staff with basic tips on identifying and combating fake news online through fact-checking. 

The NCCE is an independent, non-partisan government organisation, with the mandate of promoting and sustaining democracy by educating Ghanaians on civic matters. 

It is anticipated that trained staff members of the Commission will spread the knowledge gained from the training to colleagues who will in turn pass insights from the training to citizens to facilitate their efforts to identify election-related misinformation. 

Dubawa has partnered with the largest domestic election observation network in Ghana, Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), to fight election-related misinformation and disinformation during Ghana’s December 7 elections.

The partnership, which also includes GhanaFact, another fact-checking organisation in the country, is in line with the parties’ commitment to stemming all election-related misinformation that can threaten the nation’s peaceful climate. 

CODEO, who will have a deployment of observers across the country, will provide on-site verified information to the two fact-checking organisations, whose responsibility will be to subsequently prove or disprove all election-day and election-related information. 

CODEO is an independent and nonpartisan network of civil society groups, faith-based organisations, and professional bodies who observe Ghanaian elections. The CSO has observed every election in Ghana since it was established in the year 2000.  

As Dubawa is charged with keenly executing this mandate, an intensive two-day fact-checking training, supported by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, was organised for 10 leading Ghanaian bloggers last week.

The training, which was facilitated by the Dubawa team (Dapo Olorunyomi, Adedeji Adekunle and Kemi Busari) as well as legal and media expert, Zakaria Tanko, centered mainly on identifying the need to combat misinformation with basic tools for fighting misinformation online and propagating the legal ramifications of spreading misinformation to the electorate.

The training ended with a joint agreement by Dubawa and the bloggers to promote  accountability, transparency and accuracy in election-related stories.

In the agreement, the bloggers, recognising misinformation and disinformation as a threat to the December 7 elections, committed to do the following as a social service in support of Ghana’s democracy:

1. Help maintain an election devoid of the corruption of information, otherwise called “fake news”.
2. Collaborate with Dubawa to identify viral misinformation and disinformation in the media space and on social media ahead of the December 7 elections.
3. Sharing verified or fact-checked information by Dubawa on our various platforms including social media before, during, and after the elections.