As part of efforts to contribute to peaceful elections in Ghana, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) will on Wednesday July 20, 2016, hold a Public Forum on the topic: Media, Hate Speech and Peaceful Elections in Ghana.

The forum will feature both local and international speakers. It will feature deliberations on emerging issues regarding media professionalism, campaign communication and the role of the media in contributing to peaceful elections.

The forum forms part of the MFWA’s Campaign Language Monitoring project, titled: Promoting Issues-based and Decent Language campaigning for peaceful elections in Ghana.

This was contained in a stamen published on the MFWA’s website.

MFWA further stated that participants will include stakeholders from the media, political parties, elections experts, academia, civil society, government representatives, members of the diplomatic community and the general public.

The MFWA’s campaign language project tracks the use of abusive campaign language on selected radio stations across the country. The project also monitors how moderators and show hosts of the target stations handle their programmes.

The project names and shames politicians who use abusive language and radio stations; and presenters who allow their platforms to be used to abuse others.

The project is being implemented with funding support from OSIWA, STAR-Ghana, the Embassy of France in Ghana and the EU (through Socioserve-Ghana).

“Elsewhere in Africa, hate speech and unprofessional media conduct during elections have resulted in electoral violence. This is what the MFWA seeks to prevent.

This forum is thus, an important event for sharing perspectives on the issue of hate speech and unprofessionalism in the media” said Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director, MFWA.The 2016 annual meeting by the Association of Power Utilities in Africa (APUA) brought together Chief Executives and Managing Directors of Power Utilities in charge of generation, transmission and distribution of power in Africa.

Some of the countries present were Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Liberia, Madagascar, Niger, Central African Republic, Congo, Senegal and Togo.