Star-Ghana to fortify democratic frontiers

STAR-Ghana, multi-donor pooled funding mechanism, on Tuesday re-affirmed its commitment to fortifying Ghana’s democratic frontiers through empowerment of the civil society and media.

This is to inject accountability and responsiveness in government, traditional authorities and the private sector.

Mr Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu, STAR-Ghana Programme Manager, said these during a consultative encounter with the Editorial Department of Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Accra on Tuesday.

He said: “There is the need to institutionalize, strengthen and improve the role that civil society organizations, media and Parliament play in influencing the way Government conducts business.”

Mr Amidu said it was necessary that the media, especially GNA, monitored the implementation and impact of policy changes on the lives of ordinary citizens, bring to government’s attention both successes and instances where policy had either not been implemented or had not achieved the desired impacts.

He said through grant disbursement and technical support, STAR-Ghana was working with and through partner organisations to support citizens to exercise their human rights, assert their dignity, thereby having access to better service delivery from government.

Mr Amidu said: “We are also providing capacity development support to our grantees to enhance their operational competence, efficiency and capabilities in their respective chosen activities to enable them effectively fulfil their mandates and represent their constituencies.”

Ms Docas Ansah, an official of STAR-Ghana, said based on the ultimate aim to influence the behavior of government to improve the quality of supply-side governance, STAR-Ghana was seeking strategic partnership with the GNA.

She said STAR-Ghana considered the GNA as a strategic media partner, especially as the nation prepared for Election 2012.

Ms Ansah said: “GNA plays a critical role in the dissemination of news and with its wider national coverage our partnership will inject dynamism in the media landscape”.

Mr Theophilus Mawusi Afele, GNA Acting General Manager, explained that the Agency had played essential role in providing balanced, uninhibited platform, to all political parties and other democratic stakeholders to reach out to the electorate.

He said: “GNA continues to play crucial role in deepening Ghana’s democratic dispensation through the maintenance of healthy working relationship with strategic democratic institutions and civil society organizations.

“As the largest and only wire news gathering organisation with its chain of reporters and part-time correspondents in every corner of the country, GNA will continue to serve as Election 2012 buffer stock.”

Mr Afele noted that in spite of the challenge of Information Communication Technology, recently the Agency has been revamped with technical support.

He said: “We will continue to provide a solid platform for communicating information to and from the people as well as providing fast, accurate, reliable, qualitative and comprehensive news to subscribers across the globe".

Mr Mohammed Nurudeen-Issahaq, Head of GNA Home Desk, said the Agency communicated Government policies to the people, educated them on what affected their daily lives and, provided the Government with a raw feedback of the effects of policies and actions on the people.

He said the Agency over the years had become a strategic national asset that had the responsibility to maintain a cohesive nation-state, strengthen human rights, be the voice of the voiceless and to promote peace and stability.

Mrs Yaa Oforiwaa Asare-Peasah, GNA News Editor, said the Agency had strong tradition of being an independent medium that had created the platform to all news-makers, to disseminate truthful unbiased and developmental news as its commitment to the growth of democracy in Ghana.

He said: “GNA with its strength in truthful and unbiased news continues to rise above the challenges of the new media with its good, reliable and positive developmental news.

“GNA focuses on deep indisputable content, tells the untold success stories of the development of the country. It offers a platform for debates for the good of the country.”**