Media urged to play active role in environmental governance

Journalists and media practitioners have been urged to actively get involved and play a leading role in environmental governance.

Ms. Kathleen Addy, Deputy Chairman, Finance and Administration of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), who made the call said the media had a crucial role to play in effective public education and engagement on environmental governance.

Addressing journalists at a day’s media advocacy workshop on environmental governance at Fumesua near Ejisu, she said the media was a crucial partner in fostering environmental management systems.

The media advocacy workshop was on the theme; “Effective Public Education on Environmental Governance and Amendment of Relevant Constitutional Provisions in Relation to Anti-Corruption Laws: The Role of the Media”.

It brought together selected media practitioners and journalists from the Ashanti, Ahafo, Bono East, Bono and the Western North Regions.

It was organized by the NCCE under the Accountability, Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Programme (ARAP), which is being funded by the European Union.

It aimed at sensitizing and integrating the inputs of the media practitioners and journalists into how best environmental governance could be well managed and sustained in the country.

Ms. Addy, said, appropriate environmental governance was crucial to sustainable socio-economic development, especially for those who depended on the natural environment for their survival.

She stressed the need for the media to be recognized as a pivot of environmental governance, and provide them with the requisite resources to ensure their smooth operations to attain the expected positive results.

“Viewing the natural resources and the environment as both a global and local public goods, there is the need to utilize the powerful strength and influence of the media to advocate for the good environmental governance process as well as facilitate the process of positive social, political and economic changes in our societies and nation at large”, she emphasized.

Mr. Yahaya Al-hassan Seini, Former Legal Director at the Legal Aid Commission, said, the media as a fourth estate of the realm, was very relevant in the governance structure of the nation and there was the need to empower them both technically and financially, to play their roles effectively.

This would help cause the needed positive change in the political, social, and environmental policies, programmes, projects and governance.

Mr. Sulemana Braimah, Executive Secretary of the Media Foundation for West Africa, commended the NCCE for the workshop and urged the media to seek support from other relevant stakeholders to generate funds to promote the agenda of sustainable environmental governance.

Mr. Arthur Wilson, the Ashanti Regional Director of the NCCE, urged the media to be very circumspect, strategic, clear in producing and communicating news and stories related to environmental governance to the people, especially, those in the rural communities, to achieve a positive change in environmental governance.