Mr Charles Mawusi, a Communication Consultant, has advised journalists to shift from promotional-based stories and focus more on impact-based stories on development interventions.

He said most of the stories filed by many journalists sought to promote the organisations and institutions providing the intervention rather than communicating the impact of the intervention on the lives of beneficiaries and society.

Mr Mawusi gave the advice in Wa during the Voice for Change Partnership Programme (V4C) training workshop for journalists and media practitioners from the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.

The workshop is to expose the media to the activities of the CSOs and provide platforms for them to interact with each other.

Mr Mawusi said such impact-based stories did not only interest Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) but were also the kind of stories that won journalism awards.

The Communication Consultant hinted that CSOs were not very much enthused with most of the media in Ghana because they thought the media focused too much on political issues than developmental issues.

Mr Mawusi refuted the perception that development stories do not sell, saying development stories written from the angle of the impact on the lives of beneficiaries was as good as the political story in the market.

Mr Eric Banye, the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) Country Programme Co-ordinator, explained that the V4C Partnership Programme was an evidence based advocacy programme being implemented by SNV in partnership with the International Food and Policy Research Institute and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He said the Ministry was funding the programme from 2016-2020 as part of its worldwide efforts to reinforce space for CSOs.

Mr Banye said the programme was focused on three main themes: Food and Nutrition Security, Renewable Energy and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).

The V4C Partnership Programme is being implemented across six countries; Ghana, BurKina Faso, Kenya, Rwanda, Indonesia and Honduras.

It aims at strengthening CSOs as advocates for an enabling environment in which government and businesses provide ultimately good and affordable services for low income segments of society.

GNA