The Africa-China Centre for Policy & Advisory (ACCPA), in partnership with the Confucius Institute at the University of Ghana, hosted a one-day training in Accra for selected media professionals.

The Africa-China Centre for Policy and Advisory is a Sino-African research and policy think tank and advisory firm headquartered in Accra, Ghana. The Centre is dedicated to providing unbiased policy and market research as well as distinct views on Africa-China relations.

During the training, the select media professionals in Ghana (from TV, radio, newspapers, online blogs, etc.) were introduced to key insights regarding tracking, researching, reporting, and analyzing China’s relations with Ghana in particular and Africa in general.

This forms part of a series of Africa-China Media Capacity-Building programme of the ACCPA. According to the Executive Director of the ACCPA, Paul Frimpong, he strongly believes the media plays a critical role in shaping bilateral relations between Ghana and China. This is why his outfit, ACCPA, is committed to offering such trainings across the continent to help these professionals pursue rewarding careers.

Dr. Isaac Ankrah, a Senior Research Fellow of the ACCPA, spoke extensively about the historical journey of the media landscape and the roles that media reporting and analysis play in Ghana’s engagement with international partners, with case studies on Ghana-China media reporting.

Professor Jimin Wang, the Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute, also presented on the relevance of culture and people to exchanges between China and Ghana and, more specifically, elaborated on the opportunities available at his outfit to help Ghanaians who are interested in learning the Chinese language tap into the opportunities emanating from Ghana-China relations.

The Executive Director of the ACCPA and the host of the Media Professionals Training Program, Paul Frimpong, equally presented on Why China is now Africa’s favourite partner.

According to him, one of the key reasons for the continuous rise of Sino-Africa relations can be linked to the late 1990s, when many countries on the continent were in dire need of critical infrastructure, and the only country that showed up was China. This has yielded tangible infrastructure development across Ghana.

The media participants in the training expressed their keen interest in working with relevant stakeholders in order to be able to report accurately and factually on Ghana’s engagement with China.

The ACCPA reiterated its commitment to engaging the media regularly and being open to receiving questions from the media in respect of Ghana and Africa’s engagement with China.