Sierra Leone: UN helping political parties become media-savvy

Representatives of registered political parties in Sierra Leone are honing their communications skills today at a media workshop organized by the United Nations in the capital city Freetown.

Members of eight parties will be helped “to effectively communicate their messages through the news media, and to encourage qualified political dialogue,” according to the UN Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL), which is organizing the event with the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

The workshop will be facilitated by Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, a Ghanaian journalist for the BBC World Service and a representative of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ).

Sierra Leone’s 10-year conflict began in 1991 and left thousands dead and many more mutilated.

UNIOSIL, the first integrated UN office established to support a peace-consolidation process, was established following the completion of peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone that ended on 31 December 2005.