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The Network of Chadian Journalists on Migration

Primary GCM Objectives

GCM Guiding Principles*

*All practices are to uphold the ten guiding principles of the GCM. This practice particularly exemplifies these listed principles.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Dates

2019

Type of practice

Partnership/Multistakeholder initiative

Geographic scope

Country:

Chad

Regions:

Africa

Sub Regions:

Middle Africa

Summary

In Chad, a key origin, transit, and destination country for migrants in Central Africa and the Sahel, the media plays an important role in raising awareness for safe migration and changing narratives around migration. Since 2019, IOM has been strengthening its engagement with journalists and media partners to improve migration media coverage. In 2021, IOM Chad organized a 5-days media training bootcamp for 15 Chadian journalists to strengthen their capacity in journalism and migration coverage. The training was conducted in partnership with IOM’s GMDAC, as well as Africa Check and the Global Investigative Journalism Network, two leading media houses in Africa. Following the training, the journalists proposed to establish a network of journalists on migration as a learning space. Currently, 15 journalists from over a dozen of public and private media organs are part of the Network and regularly exchange on training opportunities as well as potential migration topics to cover. The Network benefits from technical and advisory support from IOM as well as the Union of Chadian Journalists and is currently working on developing a code of conduct for covering migration in Chad.

Organizations

Main Implementing Organization(s)

International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Partner/Donor Organizations

Union of Chadian Journalists / Various Chadian media organs

Benefit and Impact

The establishment of the Network and regular information exchanges has had a significant impact in the quantity and quality of migration coverage in Chad. Particularly, there has been more spontaneous coverage of migration and IOM activities in the country, as well as the use of IOM data for articles compared to the years before. IOM has also noticed an increase in media requests from members and non-members of the Network, hinting at a spillover effect of the Network. The Network members have also expressed interest in further media training support from IOM as well as from other UN partners.

Key Lessons

One of the challenges the Network faces concerns the organization of activities to remain active. To address this, IOM Chad has integrated support for the Network in its yearly activities to ensure that capacity-building initiatives can be organized at least once per year. Among those activities are the organization of media training workshops, migration coverage competitions, etc. IOM is also planning to strengthen its partnership with the Union of Chadian Journalists to ensure that the Network benefits from its institutional support regardless of IOM presence, thus ensure that the Network remains active.

Recommendations(if the practice is to be replicated)

One of the factors that made this initiative succeed was that it started with a capacity-building exercise answering a genuine need of the participants (to strengthen their journalism and migration coverage skills). The idea to set-up the Network was birthed from the training and was thus organic and came from the journalists themselves. Another required factor for the success of this initiative is to ensure to have national institutional partners. In our case, we included the Union of Chadian Journalists in the training and in the process to ensure that the Network has its “coverage”. One other thing to consider is that such Networks do not necessarily need to involve exchange of money. In our case, the Network is a space for learning and exchange. This was clarified with the journalists who have adhered to the idea. Such a format is also ideal in cases where IOM or other partners do not readily have funds available to dedicate to the functioning of the Network.

Innovation

Besides the fact that this Network is the first of its kind in Chad, some of its innovative aspects include its format and the partnerships secured for its sustainability. In terms of format, the Network is a learning space which provides journalists an opportunity to access capacity-building initiatives from IOM or other actors. The Network operates a WhatsApp group which is a smooth platform for information sharing and learning. Furthermore, the Network capitalizes on its members’ own strengths to ensure that it remains active. It thus helps strengthen relations between media practitioners in Chad and thus contributes to improving general media capacity at national level in the long term. Although it is a national Network, it has the potential to be replicated in other countries and scaled at regional level.

Date submitted:

26 January 2022

Disclaimer: The content of this practice reflects the views of the implementers and does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations, the United Nations Network on Migration, and its members.

 

 

*References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).