Regional News of Thursday, 5 July 2012

Source: GNA

UNFPA educates journalists on implementation of 6th Ghana Country programme

United Nations Population Fund has organised a day’s media workshop to sensitise journalists on the implementation of the 6th Ghana Country Programme (CP6) which will run for five years.

The workshop helped the media to understand the CP6 and upgraded their knowledge on UNFPA strategic plan for enhanced reportage of UNFPA mandate issues.

The journalists were also taken through the selection criteria for the regions and districts for the programme implementation.

It would be implemented in five regions, including Upper West, Upper East, Northern, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti as well as 25 districts.

The CP6 has been designed to focus activities on areas such as Sexual Reproductive Health, Population and Development and Gender Equity and Women Empowerment and Reproductive Health with HIV and AIDS as the crosscutting issue.

The programme is aimed to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health, promote reproductive rights, reduce maternal mortality and accelerate progress on International Conference on Population Development Agenda and Millennium Development Goal 5 (A and B).

The overall goal is to contribute to improved quality of life of women and young people in Ghana by supporting the population, reproductive health and gender policies and programmes.

Mr. Bernard Coquelin, UNFPA Country Representative in Ghana, said it was important to involve the media in the implementation of CP6 for the ordinary citizens to understand and appreciate the work of UNFPA.

“The media plays a vital role to help achieve good results for the implementation of CP6”, he said.

He tasked the journalists to give credible information on CP6 to the public for national development.**