To lead equality fight: Statistics institute trains media partners on use of gender, climate change data.

It is organised with technical and financial support from global statistics body, Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century, known simply as Paris21. 

The opening ceremony of the seminar, which has drawn together some 25 media and communication professionals, was chaired by the Director General of the NIS, Joseph Tedou. 

Speaking in an opening address, Joseph Tedou told participants that gender disparity is one of government’s biggest concerns. 

He said the structure organised the workshop in a bid to contribute in addressing the issues although through a show of particular interest on climate change which is quickly gaining grounds and becoming one of the key sources of worry. 

The Director General said NIS is hopeful that the workshop will equip the media professionals with the tools needed in raising awareness on the gender inequalities linked to climate change and lead the professionals into efficiently using their works in challenging the gender stereotypes that are contributing in worsening women’s vulnerabilities to climate change. 

Tedou insisted that the efforts from the media professionals which could among others, strongly contribute in bringing together experts, policymakers, representatives of civil societies and other members of the public, will play a crucial role in attaining the inclusive and sustainable development envisaged by the state.  

“We are working especially in a context of inclusive and sustainable development. Inclusive by uniting the different genders and making it possible for each of the genders to carry on with their activities,” the Director General stated.

“We also chose climate change because women are also very active in that domain and have genuine solutions that can help in giving way for sustainable development,” he added.

Building trusted media ambassadors 

The Director General also insisted that NIS is hoping to use to the workshop to properly equipe media professionals that can serve as its proud ambassadors. 

The prestigious ambassadorship status, he sounded upbeat, will be glaring through the factual, contextualised and balanced pieces that will be put together by the media representatives as a result of the rich knowledge acquired in the course of the three-day gathering.

He said the level of professionalism will be developed by the professionals through the spirit of curiosity that the participating media representatives will acquire as a result of their presence in the three-day gathering. 

“We are hopeful that the skills acquired in the course of the next three days will make it possible for the media partners to not only fully make good use of the data that are made available to them but go further to as more questions so as to have a more critical analysis of the data,” Tedou noted.

Intensive training 

The media professionals are expected to, in the course of the next three days, go through intensive training on the concept of statistics, its treatment and development-oriented usage mainly in the domain of climate change and gender-related issues.

The professionals are expected to discuss on their experiences in researching and using gender statistics and knowledge, improving overall data literacy, intersectionality and usage.

The works are also expected to focus on advanced statistical concepts, exploring offline data sources, local components like working with local data and enriching already published articles with new gender-related angles. 

Participants at the workshop including The Guardian Post, officials of the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and the Family, the UN Women and officials of the National Institute of Statistics. 

Paris21, which provides technical and financial supports in the workshop, is an international structure focused on improving the production, quality, availability and use of statistics for informed decision-making for sustainable development. 

The Director General of NIS also hailed the existing collaboration between the structure and the international body, stating that the partnership between the two bodies has opened doors for the Cameroonian body. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3232 of Tuesday September 17, 2024