Working with the Media

UNFPA Country Office has worked with the media for a long time and a number of journalists have been supported by UNFPA to attend courses on packaging population and development issues. The trained journalists mooted the idea of a media network five years ago in order to bring population issues to the fore. For over 4 years, it was difficult to develop the network due to lack of ownership by members and competing interests of journalists.

The network has now been revitalized and members have come up with a constitution and a structure. It is now registered and the members have started reporting on population and development issues which include Gender Based violence.  UNFPA has emphasized to the members that the network should be owned by them and not rely on UNFPA as the only donor. They should approach other donors and also look for other ways of sustaining the network.

The media network has held an orientation workshop for its new members where they discussed the network structure, the constitution and work plan for 2006. Some of the members have participated in regional media network meetings and will use the experience from these meetings to strengthen their network.

The new members will undergo a training on population and development concepts and how to package population and development stories.