Enhancing Press Freedom, Women's Digital Rights and Accountable Governance in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone Ghana is noted for its stable democratic governance that has seen peaceful transfers of power between the two main political parties in the country in the last 28 years. Liberia and Sierra Leone on the other hand, have had peace and democratic governance restored since the early 2000s after long years of civil war. 

While all three countries continue to have relative peace and stability, the peace and stability can only be described as fragile. The combination of high levels of unemployment among a largely youthful population, high rate of public sector corruption with poor accountability mechanisms, and low levels of trust for public institutions, among other factors, continue to pose significant threats to the relative peace and stability in the three countries. 

In line with what appears to be a global trend, in all the three countries, spaces for civic engagements are shrinking with a backsliding of core democratic principles of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly among other fundamental rights. This also poses a threat to the sustainability of the young democracies in the three countries.       

Just as in nearly all countries, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating effects on economies, health systems and other social support schemes, has also resulted in additional challenges for lives and livelihoods in the three countries. 

 Recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, improving upon and consolidating pre-COVID-19 development gains, will require significant efforts. Such efforts will mainly include the strengthening of public institutions, enhancing public sector transparency and accountability, promoting and protecting the rights of all citizens (especially women and youth), to freely express themselves and to actively participate in governance processes. These are also among the essential actions needed to be undertaken for progress towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

One of the key governances and accountability institutions that needs to be strengthened to support the governance and development efforts in the three countries is the media. Free, independent, professional media (both traditional and digital) are required for holding duty-bearers to account, amplifying the voices of citizens in governance processes, defending the rights of all persons (especially women and the youth), countering mis/disinformation, and for improving citizens access information.  

In terms of the media environment, the three countries have a number of common conducive features. This is due to years of media sector interventions including recent activities implemented by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in the last two years with funding support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For example, each of the three countries has a pluralistic media environment made up of hundreds of radio stations of all types (state-owned, private commercial and community-owned); dozens of television stations, newspapers and online news websites. 

The three countries are also uniquely positioned as being among the only four countries in West Africa that have repealed their respective criminal libel laws. They are also among countries in the region that have passed Right to Information (RTI) laws meant to enable citizens have greater access to public information, especially on governance matters.
 
At different levels and pace, the three countries are also witnessing relative increased penetration and access to the internet and related digital platforms. Sierra Leone and Liberia for example have internet penetration of about 28 and 15 percent of their populations respectively. While these penetration rates remain relatively low, they represent a significant increase of over 100% over the last five years.  Ghana on the other hand, has a penetration of 50 percent of the country’s population. Social media usage is also growing rapidly in all the three countries. 

Giving the above context, the media in the three countries, should ordinarily be in position to play the critical watchdog role required of the media in a democratic society. For example, the media should be able to foster citizens’ access to greater and quality information; enhance citizens voices and concerns in governance, foster inclusive decision making, amplify the voices of marginalised groups (especially women, youth, and persons with disabilities), promote transparency and accountability in the use of public resources, and enhance public access to services. 

However, in all the three countries, a combination of factors continues to constrict the media’s capacity to effectively serve as enablers of democratic values and good governance practices. Some of these challenges, which have been exacerbated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, are external to the media while others are internal. 

Externally for example, despite the passage of progressive laws for media freedoms and open acknowledgement of the importance of the media by state authorities, there continue to be significant repression of media organisations and journalists by both state and non-state actors. Attacks, arbitrary arrests and detention of media workers, seizure and destruction of equipment, and other forms of harassment of journalists, especially female journalists, remains prevalent in all the three countries. 

Also, despite progress made in ensuring justice for victims of media rights violations, impunity for crimes against journalists remains a challenge in the three countries, just as in the case of other countries in the region. Quite often, more than 80 percent of violations are either not investigated at all or perpetrators are made to go unpunished after poorly conducted investigations.  

Challenges that may be considered internal to the media that fetter the ability of the media to effectively play their watchdog function include weak professional capacity of journalists; partisanship among media organisations and journalists; and weak financial sustainability prospects of media organisations that render them easily vulnerable to political and corporate capture. 

The prevailing deficiencies and vulnerabilities have also resulted in a dearth of independent, fact-based, critical investigative journalism that help to counter mis/disinformation and expose corruption and other forms of wrongdoing that hamper good governance and development. This, undoubtedly, has contributed to reducing public trust and confidence in the media as reflected in the recent Afro Barometer Reports.

All these challenges have been aggravated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.  While pre-pandemic challenges already needed redress, the economic impacts from the pandemic have resulted in the collapse of media organisations, job losses to journalists and media workers, among many other challenges in the media sector. 

In addition, the outbreak of COVID-19 and the resultant public scramble for information has worsened the pre-pandemic global challenge of mis/disinformation. The problem of mis/disinformation remains a major challenge to the critical need of public access to credible, fact-based information that enable members of the public to make informed decisions and choices in all spheres of life.     

Online Right and the Gender Digital Gap:
As the online ecosystem in the three countries continues to expand, it offers great opportunities for inclusive, participatory governance, and empowerment of marginalised people to have their voices heard in public debates. There is, however, a wide gender gap in the access and utilisation of digital platforms in target countries. 

Many studies, including a 2020 report on women’s rights online, re-echo the fact that gains that have been made in reducing gender inequality in Africa, have mainly been in the realm of non-digital, offline practices and barriers against women. On the digital/online front, not much has been achieved in reducing gender inequality.

Even where there appears to be  a glimmer of hope as indicated in a 2019 Mobile Gender Gap report by GSMA, which highlights an increasing trend in mobile phone ownership and mobile internet usage among women, there remain a persistent gender gap. The gender inequality within the digital realm, as explained by the GSMA report, does not only mirror existing offline gender inequities, but also has the potential to compound existing offline gender disparities.

As revealed in a Mobile Gender Gap report by GSMA, for example, while affordability of handsets is the top barrier to mobile ownership among women; literacy and digital skills are the main factors limiting mobile internet use among women. “A lack of digital skills presents a significant barrier to online participation. More than four out of ten (43%) of women living in urban areas who are not online, said they do not use the internet because they do not know how, compared with just 27% of men in urban areas,” says a 2020 report on women’s digital rights in Ghana.

Project Description
The project is a four-year intervention, aimed at contributing to address the needs and challenges of the prevailing context of media freedoms and responding to existing and emerging challenges posed by the impact of COVID-19 and other factors. The project will build on gains made in improving press freedom and freedom of expression (offline and online) in the target countries. A component of the project will focus on continuing with past and ongoing efforts to improve women’s right online, reduce the digital gender gap; and promoting fact-based, independent investigative journalism that stimulates transparency and accountability in governance in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Specifically, the proposed project will be implemented under the following four components:

a)	Improving press freedom, safety of journalists and countering impunity for crimes against journalists in target countries;

b)	Promoting transparency and accountability in governance through independent investigative journalism and enhanced citizens’ access to governance information through the application of RTI laws;

c)	Countering mis/disinformation through fact-checking; and

d)	Promoting the online/digital rights of women to reduce digital gender gap and to promote online freedom of expression rights of all in line with the principles and joint statements of the Freedom Online Coalition (FOC) to contribute to global norms on internet rights 


Activities to be implemented:

In pursuit of the above objectives and outcomes, the following activities will be implemented under the four components of the project:

Component 1:	Improving press freedom, safety of journalists and countering impunity for crimes against journalists in target countries:

1) Develop a national comprehensive framework on safety of journalists for Liberia and Sierra Leone using Ghana’s and UNESCO’s model as a guide. Through a joint process involving media actors and state actors a national comprehensive framework spelling out the roles and responsibilities of all actors will be produced.

2) National stakeholder forums to launch National Comprehensive Framework on Safety of Journalists in Liberia and Sierra Leone

3) Monitoring, documenting of press freedom violations and advocacy for redress of violations (all 3 countries)
 
4) Set up of network of lawyers for media defence (all 3 countries). This will bring together a team of human rights lawyers who will offer to defend or support journalists who become victims of violations 

5) Seeking justice (through legal support) for journalists who fall victim to violations (all three countries)  

6) Production of annual state of media freedom reports (all 3 countries)

7) Annual forum on safety of journalists with stakeholders (media associations/groups, judiciary, security agencies, political parties, among others) to launch and discuss state of the media reports and make recommendations for improvement (all 3 countries)

8) Anti-impunity campaigns to redress violations against journalists through country missions, statements and petitions (all 3 countries)  

Component 2: Promoting transparency and accountability in governance through independent investigative journalism and enhanced citizens’ access to governance information through the use of RTI laws

1) Training of 60 journalists (at least 30% female) in investigative and anti-corruption reporting (30 journalists in Ghana and 15 each in Liberia and Sierra Leone) through practical story development bootcamps. These will be practical hands-on training in investigative reporting focusing mainly on investigating and reporting on public sector corruption and inadequacies in public service delivery   
 
2) In-house Fellowship with The Fourth Estate for six upcoming investigative journalists from Liberia and Sierra Leone (three per country) to improve their investigative reporting capacity. Post-fellowship investigative stories by beneficiaries will be published by The Fourth Estate and their home-based media organisations.    

3) Production and publication of 23 in-depth investigative reports on corruption and critical issues on health and environment among trained journalists with coaching and mentorship by editorial team at The Fourth Estate  

4) Production of at least 100 fact-check reports through www.fact-checkghana.com and media partners to counter mis/disinformation in public discourse in Ghana

5) Annual forum on media and good governance bringing together journalists from the three countries for peer learning and exchange of ideas. 

Component 3: To increase public demand for transparency and accountability in governance and improved service delivery through increased (at least 200% from baseline) resort to RTI laws of the respective countries to seek information about public sector service delivery and expenditures. 

1) Production of simplified RTI Guidebook for journalists and members of the public in Liberia & sierra Leone

2) Training and partnership with selected local and community radio stations (Seven in Ghana and four each from Liberia and Sierra Leone) on using the RTI law to enhance public access to information on local governance and public expenditure issues.

3) Creation and training of Citizens for Accountability (C4A) groups (one group in each of the partner radio stations locations) to use RTI laws to demand information from public institutions on matters of interest especially those on utilisation of public resources and to use partner radio stations for accountability advocacy. 

Component 4: To reduce incidents of digital rights violations against women and improve women’s access to and use of digital tools and advocacy for adherence to global internet norms and standards especially standards promoted by the FOC

1) Digital literacy and skills training workshops for a total of 200 women in Ghana and 100 each in Liberia and Sierra Leone during the project period
   
2) Research and produce annual state of women’s rights online report in all three countries  

3) Produce half-yearly advocacy paper on women’s rights online in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone

4) Annual national stakeholder forum on women’s online/digital rights in the target countries 

5) Advocacy for the improvement in digital policies to advance women’s digital/online rights in the target countries

6) Advocacy for adherence to global internet rights norms and standards by target countries especially standards and principles espoused by the FOC, such as positions against network shutdowns and disruptions. 1) To reduce incidents of press freedom violations (murders, physical attacks, jailing, arbitrary arrests and detentions, closure of media houses, seizure and destruction of equipment, etc) by at least 40% from baseline and increase the responsiveness by authorities to address violations. 

2) To produce and publish at least 20 in-depth anti-corruption investigative reports that expose public sector corruption and resource abuse, and prompt actions and policy reforms by authorities to enhance transparency and accountability in governance

3) To increase public participation in governance and demand for transparency and accountability in public service delivery through increased (at least 200% from baseline) use of RTI laws to seek information about public sector service delivery and expenditures. 

4) To reduce incidents of digital rights violations against women and improve women’s access to and use of digital tools by empowering at least 400 women (female journalists, women’s rights activists, among others) with relevant digital literacy and skills; and to increase stakeholder engagements in the target countries on global internet norms and standards as espoused by the FOC The target groups of this project are journalists in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Governments and state officials will also be a target group under the project. The project is also intended to benefit women in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The project will also target the youth in these countries.