He said the democratic development of every country rested on the protection of the fundamental human rights of its citizens, stressing: “This requirement can be fulfilled if the media and other key stakeholders step up education and monitor the government.”

Mr Owusu further underscored the need for other stakeholders such as the clergy to support CSOs and the media to advocate for critical human rights issues to be prioritised by the government.

He was speaking at a day’s stakeholders’ workshop organised by the POS Foundation in Accra last Wednesday. The workshop was held in partnership with Universal Periodic Reviews (UPR), Info Africa-Kenya and KASA Initiative, a member of the Ghana Human Rights Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) Forum and the United Nations (UN) Office in Ghana.

It was on the theme: “The role of the media and CSOs as watchdogs in promoting human rights.” The workshop was funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA).

Objective

Mr Owusu explained that the workshop was meant to provide an opportunity for member states to be trained on the human rights treaty bodies and the UPR processes.

The workshop was also to prepare CSOs to participate in the upcoming UPR meeting in Geneva this November.

“The in-country session is also to facilitate the sharing of good practices on lobbying and advocacy with the UPR and how best to utilise the process to facilitate the finalisation of advocacy tools,” he added.

He said Ghana was due for its third UPR in November. The review is done by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) every five years to assess the country’s human rights situation.

Mr Owusu, therefore, urged the media to educate the public on the upcoming review.

Role of the media

On the role of the media in ensuring the protection of citizens’ rights, Mr Owusu said since the media served as the voice of the people, it needed to do due diligence by conducting research on social issues that affected lives and also ensure that the right issues were brought up.