Improving Agriculture Policy Processes in Ghana: Policy LINK Engages Media
Participants in Policy LINK's media engagement workshop (photo: Policy LINK).
February 24, 2023 - In recognition of the media’s key role in policy processes, the Feed the Future (FtF) Policy LINK Activity on January 21 and February 22 organized introductory media engagements for selected national and sub-national level journalists.
The events held in Accra (national level) and in Tamale (sub-national level) were to enable the media to better understand the Policy LINK Activity and explore opportunities for collaboration to transform the agriculture policymaking and implementation processes to improve the lives of Ghanaians.
In his opening remarks at both events, Mr. Yunus Abdulai, Country Lead for the Policy LINK Ghana Activity, revealed that although some media groups participated in the inception meetings held with several stakeholder groups at the start of the Activity implementation, this was the first time the Activity is engaging a single stakeholder group.
A national-level participant making a contribution at the event (photo: Policy LINK).
“This engagement is purposely for the media, and this indicates how we acknowledge you as a key stakeholder in policy processes,” said Mr. Abdulai. “You all play an essential role in the governance and development of our nation, and so we want you to actively promote agriculture policy issues and get so much interested in food security and nutrition-related issues affecting our country.”
Efua Idan Atadja, the Strategic Communications Lead, for her part said that Policy LINK is an Activity that values collaboration and co-creation and further assured participants of the willingness and readiness of the Activity to support the media’s work to ensure critical issues within the agriculture sector, such as climate and environment-related issues, get the needed attention for redress.
The highly interactive events saw Policy LINK’s Activity Leads and the journalists discussing and sharing insights on the various issues within Ghana’s agriculture value chain and how the Activity and key actors and institutions, including the media, can collectively improve upon the existing situations.
A total of 88 participants comprising editors and reporters were engaged at both events, with 23 representing national-level media and 65 representing sub-national media. The sub-national media were drawn from the four regions of USAID’s Zone of Influence (ZOI): the Northern, North East, Upper East, and Upper West Regions. The journalists were selected based on their interests in agriculture policy issues and their respective organizations' reach, influence, interest, and demographics.