Fourteen Ghanaians are to participate in strategic communication for development and advocacy training at the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI), Arusha, Tanzania from the November 25 to December 7, 2012.
The training being sponsored by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the DANIDA Fellowship programme will focus on how to plan, design and manage communication interventions and advocacy communication campaigns.
The participants were selected based on their working with information, communication and advocacy in public service, development programmes, and NGOs in Danida partner countries.
The Ghanaian participants are: Ms Ethel Doris Lawson and Mr Gideon Selorm Hosu-Parbley from STARGhana; Mr Francis Ameyibor of Ghana News Agency; Mr Mahamud Mohammed, IBIS Ghana; Mr Francis Xavier Andoh-Adjei, National Health Insurance Authority; and Ms Winnifred Nafisa Mohama, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.
Those from the Ghana Immigration Service are - Mr Francis Yaw Palmdeti, Ms Maud Anima Quainoo, Ms Emelia Afua Martey, and Mr Amoateng Ennin; and Mr Theophilius Teeteh Teinor of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice.
The rest are Mr Kofi Asare, Mr George Ferguson Laing and Mr Frank Agyei-Owusu, all from the Council for Technical and Vocational Education Training.
The participants will be equipped on how to use strategic communication as essential elements in all development interventions and change processes, building the learning community and unwrapping strategic communication.
Other topics are tools for analysis, planning and monitoring; development communication planning and design.
The module is crafted to strengthen the capacity of participants to plan, design, and manage effective development communication interventions and advocacy communication campaigns, set out and expound contemporary strategic communication concepts, and monitor and evaluate communication and advocacy communication activities.
The course will be run by a Danish consultancy, Danicom in cooperation with ESAMI.
The DANIDA Fellowship Programme seeks to support capacity development in developing countries, primarily, but not solely, in Danida’s priority countries.
"We organize and or implement capacity development support in terms of courses, studies, research, study tours, seminars, in Denmark as well as in developing countries both nationally and regionally," a DANIDA statement obtained by the Ghana News Agency indicates.
The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs defines the framework for the fellowship activities, while Danida Fellowship Centre (DFC) is in charge of all educational, administrative and practical issues.