Penplusbytes announces new training programme 'Drilling Down Oil and Gas'

Penplusbytes
a leader in enhancing the capacity of journalists in various thematic areas has
announced a new cross-country training project - “Drilling Down Oil and Gas in
West Africa.”
This
is a new 2-year project with support from the Open Society Initiative for West
Africa (OSIWA), aimed at building the capacity of journalists in the West
African sub-region to effectively monitor, and bring to the fore key issues
about legal regimes for revenue utilisation, local content, resource governance,
inter-countries disputes confronting the sub-region oil and the impact of the
sector on the lives of citizens in the Sub-Region.
The
project will kick off with the first of batch journalist in Cote D’Ivoire from
November 26 to 29, 2019.
Ghana’s
training is expected to be held from December 3rd to 6th, 2019.
The
project is situated within the framework of enabling better economic governance
as a whole and natural resources management while promoting independent
journalism in West Africa.
A
statement issued by Pensplusbytes said part of the project intervention is to
contribute to efforts by the media and civil society actors to ensure that
ordinary citizens benefit from oil and gas revenues in the sub-region.
It
said the Drilling Down Oil and Gas in West Africa is a build-up of many years
of undertaking multi-country training by Penplusbytes and will further deepen
the organisations work in the extractive sector in undertaking evidence-based
research to improve resource governance, build the capacity of journalists to
play an effective oversight role over the extractive sector, and generating
policy briefs to influence governments and statements and alerts that inform
the media citizens and civil society and moving them to action.
Commenting
on the importance of the project, the Executive Director of Penplusbytes Ms
Juliet Amoah, said: “The oil and gas sector has been the backbone of many
economies of the world. In West Africa, it could become more of a backbone if
managed well and if it is managed transparently. It is therefore imperative to
constantly sharpen and sustain the interests of the media, who are the fourth
realm of the estate, to exercise their oversight role so as to ensure
accountability in the sector.”
Ms
Amoah added she is delighted that after Penplusbytes’ oil and gas project in
Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Liberia, we are able to add Cote D’Ivoire to our
oil and gas programming area.
Under
the project, Penplusbytes will work with the media to ensure that citizen
voices are strongly represented and impact the way that the sector is governed
across the sub-region using Ghana and Ivory Coast as Case studies.
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