The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Multi-sectoral office Abuja has said it is developing media capacities of twenty (20) community radio content producers and twenty (20) investigative journalists on professional and ethical journalism.
These activities are to implemented under the Empowering young people in Africa through Media and communication on irregular migration with the support from the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation.
According to a statement on Monday by the National Professional Officer, Communications and Information Sector, Olushola Macaulay, the activities are slated for the 28th to 30th August 2019 in Minna, Niger State and 5th and 6th September 2019 in Lagos respectively.
It added that the capacity building workshops will equip media professionals with the ability to produce better informed journalism that seeks to inform rather than inflame public discussion of the issue.
The statement further read, “It will encourage journalists to deal ethically with vulnerable communities and refugees crises and to consider the social impact of their storytelling and news production.”
The UNESCO Migration Regional Project is a long-term efforts needed to promote the social and economic development of Africa as well as the efforts to manage and control borders and mass illegal migratory flows, and to eradicate trafficking of human beings in order to put an end to the tragedies that are multiplying in the Sahel and the Mediterranean.
Since the 1990s, a continuous but irregular flow is trying to reach the European coasts at the risk of their lives.
Apart from Southern Africa, no African region is spared from this phenomenon, especially in West Africa.
This is confirmed by the ranking of the top ten nationalities of migrants who landed in Italy between January and November 2016.
Nine of them are indeed African, mainly from Nigeria (21% of the total), Eritrea (11.7 per cent), Guinea-Conakry (7.2 per cent) and Côte d’Ivoire (6.7 per cent).
The official launching ceremony of the three-year project ‘Empowering young people in Africa through media and communication’ on irregular migration took place on 13 May 2019, at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, with the presence of the Italian Deputy Minister for Foreign and International Cooperation representatives of the Italian Permanent Delegation and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation representatives of African delegations to UNESCO; as well as members of the Project Advisory Committee.
The launch reflected on relevant global and regional trends in a bid to strengthen access to information by raising awareness to achieve better knowledge and understanding of migration related issues in the region (Senegal, Guinea-Conakry, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger, Ghana and Mali).
