By Makutu Manneh
With The Gambia’s presidential election set for December 5, ActionAid International The Gambia held a three-day training this week for more than 50 journalists, bloggers, and social media influencers, aiming to promote nonpartisan civic education and ethical election reporting.
The training was organized under the organization’s Youth Promotion Initiative, a project funded by the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund and carried out by ActionAid International The Gambia in partnership with other organizations. It was designed to sharpen participants’ skills in election coverage, civic education, and peacebuilding, and to encourage accurate, impartial reporting as the country heads toward the 2026 vote.
Bridget Tabou Correa, the project’s manager, said the initiative was intended to empower young people to take a meaningful role in civic life while helping ensure the election unfolds peacefully.
“We want journalists to report what they see and not be partisan,” she said. “The Gambia we want is a peaceful Gambia with less hate speech.”
Ms. Correa said the broader project had already trained young Gambians in the human rights-based approach to development, as well as in conflict resolution and mediation, with the goal of strengthening their role in promoting peace and democratic participation. Journalists, bloggers, and influencers were brought into the program, she said, because of the outsized influence they hold over public opinion during elections.
“In the Gambia, we have a lot of negative sentiments going around. Hate speech is all over the place,” she said. “We want to train you to be our mouthpiece so that where we cannot reach, you can.”
The project had originally been scheduled to conclude in July, Ms. Correa said, but received a four-month, no-cost extension from the UN Peacebuilding Fund to allow activities to continue through the election period. She urged participants to make use of television, radio, TikTok, YouTube, and blogs to spread messages encouraging peaceful participation in the electoral process.
Landing Ceesay, a journalist with The Point newspaper who attended the training, said it reinforced principles already central to his profession.
“Our code of conduct says we should be nonpartisan, and this training refreshed that in my mind,” he said.
Mr. Ceesay added that the civic education components of the training had deepened his understanding of journalists’ rights and responsibilities during an election.
Alimatou S. Bajinka, a participant from the Gambia Journal, said the training had sharpened her grasp of election reporting, particularly the importance of precise language when covering electoral processes and allegations of irregularities.
Organizers said they hoped participants would carry the training’s lessons back to their newsrooms and platforms, using them to promote factual reporting, civic awareness, and a peaceful vote across the country.
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