Participants at a training platform have today shared experiences and deliberated on the relationship between the media and civil society organizations with the aim of identifying areas of mutual cooperation in the two sectors for better results and fulfillment of joint responsibilities. Public relations and Communication professionals in CSOs and media persons from various media houses exchanged views on what should be done to bridge the perception gap between the two sectors.
The participants who shared their experiences in the training forum stated that the media and civil society can complement each other in that they both have common missions that align.
The participants at today's underscored the importance of setting the momentum of collaboration between the two sectors by ensuring the provision of clear, accurate, and timely information from the CSO to the media. Today's session was organized by the Ethiopian Civil Society Organizations Council through the support of the Civil Society Support Program 2 (CSSP-2).
Heads of media organizations, editors, and journalists from Addis Ababa and various regions across the country participated in the two-day-long training. Papers on the new civil society organization law, how the media and the civil society sector should develop their relationship, and human rights issues coverage were presented and discussed at the training.
Among the topics of discussion raised by the media is that both sectors need to strengthen and cooperate on common areas through training and capacity building. The participants at the training also made recommendations on how the two sectors can work together in a strengthened manner. In the future, they agreed to work intensively through the CSO-Media Forum established through the initiative of the Ethiopian Civil Society Organizations Council. The two-day training is mainly aimed at supporting efforts to bridge the information gap between the civil society sector and the media.
