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Monrovia – The Australian High Commissioner for Ghana, Mr. Andrew Barnes and a delegation Thursday paid a courtesy visit to FrontPage Africa, where they had a meeting on latest developments in the country. Report by Lennart Dodoo - ldodoo@frontpageafricaonAustralian High Commissioner and Delegation Visit FPA
Monrovia – The Australian High Commissioner for Ghana, Mr. Andrew Barnes and a delegation Thursday paid a courtesy visit to FrontPage Africa, where they had a meeting on latest developments in the country. Report by Lennart Dodoo - ldodoo@frontpageafricaonline.com High Commissioner Andrew Barnes and his team comprising the Special Envoy for Human Rights Philip Ruddock, and Second Secretary Iona Roy, were received by FrontPage Africa’s Managing Editor Rodney D. Sieh, along with reporters Mae Azango and Lennart Dodoo and James Harding Giahyue, all of whom are also New Narratives fellows. The Australian government has been supportive of New Narratives, a Non-Governmental media development organization partnering with FrontPageAfrica and other Liberian media institutions in training and supporting local reporters to investigative and report on specialized areas including oil and gas, forestry and mining sectors. High Commissioner Barnes recently took up the post of Australian representative in the West African region. This was his first visit to Liberia. It was also the first visit for Human Rights envoy Philip Ruddock who was previously a cabinet member is the Australian government. On Twitter Commissioner Barnes said it had been “inspiring to meet” some of Liberia’s independent journalists and called their work “courageous and important work to promote accountability.” Welcoming the delegation to FrontPage Africa, Mr. Sieh briefed the team on how he first met New Narratives Chief Executive Prue Clarke, an Australian by birth and a long-time international reporter, and how Mr. Sieh and Ms. Clarke conceived of New Narratives as a way to bring resources and expertise to support the work of FrontPageAfrica and other independent media houses in Liberia. “Prue has been instrumental in capacity building of our reporters here. For our reporters, it is very important for the likes of Prue and other experienced journalists to train and mentor them. The thing about New Narratives [which now works in Liberia in partnership with the Thomson Reuters Foundation] is that it is not just the training. Prue and her team work with journalists directly on all their stories over years so they are very professional in their reportage,” Mr. Sieh said. He also spoke of how the capacity building received from the New Narratives project has helped local reporters like Azango to do several undercover reports in various sectors including human rights and in the oil and gas sector. “When I came back from the States, I wanted to do something different from the ordinary." "I focused most of my reports on corruption – exposing corruption in government. We later started focusing on other areas that needed exposure. I have been to jail twice for writing on corruption,” Sieh said. He also briefed the team on the important role FrontPage Africa played during the Ebola epidemic, daring to report from affected areas." "This, he said, gave the paper a lot of international attention. Mr. Sieh commended the Australian government for supporting the New Narratives/Thomson Reuters Foundation Project, noting that a lot of governments are donating monies to the Liberian government but not many monitor how these monies are used. “I often tell people, we don’t need the money, we need smart capacity building in the media. It is the media that keep track of what donors’ money are being used for and how it is used,” he added. New Narratives Fellow, Mae Azango, shared her experience on some of her investigative discoveries and reports and the impact it had in effecting some changes. She made specific references to a New Narratives-sponsored investigation on scholarships offered by Liberia’s National Oil Company (NOCAL) in Lofa County and how NOCAL eventually began dropping some of their beneficiaries off the scholarship, especially during Ebola period, claiming that the students did not meet the required grade points to remain on the scholarship at the Lofa County Community College. According to Azango, from her reports, the Ministry of Defense offered a full scholarship and potential employment to a female student studying engineering (the only female at the college) who was dropped from the scholarship because her grade point dropped from 3.0 to 2.80. Azango also spoke of housing units that were constructed in Lofa, Nimba and Grand Gedeh counties by NOCAL for civil servants but said structures could not be taken by the ordinary civil servants who earn US$150.00 or less due to the high price tags NOCAL put on the units. James Harding Giahyue, another New Narratives fellow, shared his experience investigating and reporting oil and gas, forestry and mining sectors. Giahyue said he was proud to be a fellow of New Narratives, shedding light on misgivings in the extractive industry. “The New Narratives program is a very practical program, I have learnt a lot in the last two years,” he said. “It’s also important that with the support from our donors—including the Australian Aid—we are able to go into remote villages and towns that are often not covered because media houses don’t have the money to send us. We as reporters are benefiting along with the people in rural communities that we are covering. “We try to paint the actual picture of how issues across the extractive sector, including forestry, are impacting the lives of people rather than just quoting government figures.” For his part, Dodoo, also News Desk Chief of FrontPageAfrica, expressed appreciation to the Australians for supporting to the program. According to Dodoo, fellows of the New Narratives are able to investigate and report on specialized sectors on which they report only because of the capacity support they receive from the project. He noted that media institutions in Liberia could not afford to sponsor investigations outside the capital or conduct specialized reporting due to either lack of finance or technical knowledge on the subject. Read more
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