Stakeholders Acquire Communication Skills

Cameroon's Human Rights Commission organised a seminar over the weekend in Kribi.

Political parties in Cameroon are expected to henceforth better communicate and promote their activities and candidates. Journalists on their part, mainly members of the Network of Journalists "Friends of Human Rights" are also expected to better report on political party activities.

This is thanks to skills the journalists, political and female leaders and those of civil society organizations acquired on political communication and marketing during a two-day workshop in Kribi on July 27 and 28, 2012. The National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms, NCHRF, with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) organized the workshop at Hotel le Paradis in the seaside resort town in the South Region.

In all, 32 participants took part in the workshop with prominent political leaders being the Vice National President of the Cameroon Democratic Union (CDU), Ndeuhela Christophe and the Secretary General of the National Union for Democracy and Progress (NUDP), Ngayap Pierre Flambeau. The main trainer, Francis Elandi, Consultant in Industrial and Political Marketing and Associate Professor in the Yaounde Advanced School of Mass Communication (ASMAC), drilled the participants through interactive learning processes and debates.

Major themes treated were introduction to political communication and marketing: definition, analysis of audience and target group, theories for developing messages, planning a media campaign and political propaganda and persuasion. The participants also acquired knowledge on the role of civil society organizations, journalists and political party representatives in the electoral process, gender and political leadership and the role of the Human Rights Commission in elections.

The Focal Point in Gender in UNDP, Anne Colette Ndoadoumgue represented the structure, while Eva Etongue Mayer, Head of Protection and Promotion Division in NCHRF, spoke on behalf of its Chairman, Dr Divine Chemuta Banda. Far-reaching recommendations at the end of workshop stressed on the respect of the electoral code, improved collaboration between the press and political parties and the need for parties to use communication experts in promoting their activities and candidates.