UN says media work is vital to poverty reduction

By Isabella Gyau Orhin

The UN Resident Coordinator in Ghana Mr. Daouda Toure has said the role of the media in eradicating poverty is vital to development.
Speaking at a conference on Media and Development in Accra last Monday Mr. Toure said the provision of information by the media to the people helps them to make a sense of their lives.
“Covering issues relevant to those living in poverty and those at the margins of society have been central in development organisations such as the UN for years,” he told the conference which was organized by the National Media Commission (NMC) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
He said in the year 2000, a poverty survey done in partnership with the government of Norway and UNDP revealed that people living in poverty wanted a voice or a say in decisions that affect them.
“This comes way ahead of money,” he said.
According to him, the extent to which the perspectives of those living in poverty are reflected in the media is becoming equally important.
Current development strategies he said are rooted in two central assumptions mainly ownership and accountability.
He said gone are the days when in development assistance when hundreds of donors, thousands of organisations and millions of people were involved in a multiplicity of sometimes small piecemeal development projects.
“A revolution is taking place in development assistance and development strategies,” he said.
Mr. Toure who is also The UNDP Resident Representative explained that global development efforts is now structured around meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which is a graduation from chronic poverty.
“Halving the number of people living in abject poverty by the target date of 2015 was a major milestone in development assistance,” he said adding, “Another milestone is the creation of methodologies and strategies to achieve these goals.”
This in the UN is reflected by the increased harmonization of activities and programmes with others, especially among UN agencies themselves under Country Programme Action Framework.
He also said development partners have committed themselves to work much more close together according to a set of frameworks developed by developing countries themselves.

He also said that the analysis of media treatment of issues be it the MDGs or Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategies (GPRS II) have repeatedly shown a poor level of coverage.
“Analysis suggests “lack of technical skills among journalists to report on economic development and issues specific to sectors such as health, education and agriculture,” he said.
Also he said there was lack of interaction between Non-governmental organizations, Civil Society organizations and the media.
If this occurs, the UN Resident coordinator said it might lead to enhanced media understanding and engagement.
Failure to address the external dimension of development, the partners’ performances, the hindrance linked to external markets, the potential role of Diaspora, and the promotion of Ghana as an investment climate and insufficient support for mature media are some of the lapses on the part of the Ghanaian media.
Mr. Toure also said one of the central conclusions of a report by the UN Commission for Africa says because so many conditions were imposed on development assistance , developing countries governments felt more accountable to western donors than they did to their own citizens, an issue the Commission and current development thinking and practice hope to change.

The Minister for Information and National Orientation Mr. Kwamena Bartels on his part said the some media houses are abusing the freedom of speech guaranteed under the constitution.
Some people he said are fond of using the Phone-In programmes of radio stations to heap personal insults on citizens.
He said it is important for Ghanaians and the conference to think about how to empower the National Media Commission to check these abuses without violating the constitution.

“How can we strengthen the NMC with sanctioned powers to sanction erring media practitioners without infringing the constitution?” he asked.

He said the government is prepared to expand the frontiers of free speech and this is evident in the abolition of the Criminal Libel law and the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act and the Whistle Blowers Bill.
The Chairman of the National Media Commission Mr. Paul Adu Gyamfi said media activity can lead to chaos in a society if not checked and as such their work demand scrutiny.
He said his expectation was how the NMC could be empowered to offer the best services to the benefit of society chaos.