The Media Basis for West Africa (MFWA), Dubawa, FactSpace West Africa and different civil society organisations engaged on data hygiene, integrity and resilience in Ghana have fashioned the Ghana Truth-Checking Coalition.
The Coalition has been convened forward of Ghana’s 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary elections to mount a joint, collaborative and coordinated effort to mitigate the menacing risk misinformation and disinformation pose to the nation’s peace, stability and democratic consolidation.
The 2024 World Threat Report recognized misinformation and disinformation as the important thing essential dangers anticipated to unfold in quite a few nations internationally over the following two years. The report emphasised that the unfold of misinformation and disinformation, particularly throughout elections, might considerably disrupt the real and perceived legitimacy of newly elected governments, doubtlessly resulting in political turmoil, violence, terrorism, and a gradual deterioration of democratic procedures in the long term.
Actions and processes across the 2024 normal elections in Ghana have up to now generated monumental false and polarising narratives that may affect the peaceable outcomes of the polls.
The Coalition is, due to this fact, harnessing the capacities, energy and sources of the members whereas leveraging their credibility to supply well timed, related and well-researched fact-check reviews in the course of the intervals of the 2024 elections.
The Ghana Truth-Checking Coalition primarily contains Ghana’s three foremost fact-checking organisations which are signatories with the Worldwide Truth-checking Community: Fact-Check Ghana (Media Basis for West Africa), Dubawa Ghana (Centre for Journalism, Innovation and Growth) and Ghana Fact (FactSpace West Africa).
The Coalition can be working with many distinguished civil society organisations together with Africa Test, Ghana Centre for Democratic Growth (CDD-Ghana), Penplusbyte, West Africa Community for Peacebuilding (WANEP) and Digital Africa Analysis Lab.
From December 4-11, 2024, the Ghana Truth-checking Coalition will run Media State of affairs Rooms in Accra and Tamale devoted to recognizing and debunking misinformation disinformation and different dangerous narratives associated to the elections that will emerge on each on-line and offline platforms throughout the nation.
The Coalition can be working with about 50 journalists and over 100 media homes throughout the nation who broadcast or publish in about 45 Ghanaian languages. These journalists and media homes will function companions who will republish reviews produced by the Media State of affairs Room and as nicely confirm details about the election actions of their areas and communities.
“We’re excited to kick off this coalition after many months of discussions. That is the very best time for us to come back collectively and collaborate to push again in opposition to mis/disinformation and polarising narratives that portend hazard for Ghana’s democracy. We hope our collective work can contribute to a peaceable and credible election,” mentioned Kwaku Krobea Asante, Lead Truth-checker and Senior Programme Officer on the MFWA.
“Making a united entrance amongst fact-checkers, the media and civil society teams like this is among the finest methods to counter the threats from disinformation purveyors and folks with malign pursuits who wish to use data to disrupt the credibility of Ghana’s election and democracy. We’re completely happy this has come off,” mentioned Rabiu Alhassan, Director of FactSpace West Africa.
“Having participated and witnessed such coalitions throughout West Africa, we’re very delighted that we’ve got been capable of come collectively for this coalition. We’re trying ahead to creating a optimistic impression on the elections,” mentioned Roselena Ahiable, Programme Supervisor of Dubawa.
The Ghana Truth-Checking Coalition has been convened with funding help from the US Embassy in Ghana and Google Information Initiative. UK-based Full Truth has additionally offered entry to its Full Fact AI platform to help members of the Coalition to observe and counter disinformation.
