The Center for Media Studies and Peacebuilding, Integrity Watch Liberia and donor partners have held an inception launch for a gender political participation initiative.
The project is titled, “Increase Capacity of Media Institutions and Journalists to Improve Gender Sensitive Reporting on Women in Politics and Elections”.
It is supported by UNDP through UN Women through funding from the Peacebuilding Fund.
Harold Marvin Aidoo, the Executive Director of Integrity Watch Liberia, said the new initiative seeks to encourage gender sensitive reporting and positive portrayal of women candidates across the country.
“This project will increase women’s political participation, and it seeks to promote gender-sensitive reporting to improve overall image of women candidates in the 2023 elections,” Executive Director Aidoo stated.
He said the project is necessitated by the real time challenges women candidates face in national election processes that seem to limit their chances at the ballot box.
Said Aidoo, “Activities under this project include strengthening capacity of journalists through meaningful training and ideal capacity enhancement so that they can report on female candidates from a gender sensitive view.”
The project will also incorporate the profiling of whole lists of women at the local level to have a team of grassroots women excel in politics and as well create a greater platform to work with journalists to advance political views of women candidates.
UN Women Program Analyst, Trokon Bryant, said the project is supported by UNDP and UN Women, but with funding from the Peacebuilding Fund.
Bryant said UN Women and its partners are “hoping to see a successful implementation of the activities under the project, which seek to enhance women political participation at the grassroots level”.
“I wish you all the best, and we are all here to support you. We look forward to imports from all in here,” he said.
Tenneh Dalieh Tehoungue, an independent consultant and Ph.D. candidate in Universal Jurisdiction and Transitional Justice, held a discussion on the topic, “Women in Politics: Challenges and prospects ahead of 2023 General Elections”. She highlighted the limited role of women candidates in elections, and pointed out challenges they face while confronting male candidates.
She mentioned the unfair and or uneven coverage of women candidates during elections, and encouraged journalists to be gender sensitive in election coverage.
“We cannot make our media institution a tool to get at women candidates,” she added.