Lagos — Various experts and media practitioners are gathering together in Accra, Ghana, today, to fashion out ways in which the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can be quickly achieved in West Africa, before the global deadline date of 2015.

Awareness creation on the MDGs is key at the West Africa Media Workshop, which has a theme 'Enhancing the Role of Media in building a global movement for the accelerated achievement of Millennium Development Goals'.

The event is being organised by the UN Millennium Campaign, PANOS and its local partners, with the goal of raising public debate around issues related to the MDGs in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Nigeria is also not left out in the process.

The aims of the workshop, among others, is to build capacity of media practitioners in the MDG campaign as advocates and to support campaign activities in key priority countries; and raise awareness amongst media practitioners on the need for the accelerated achievement of MDGs.

There is also a dialogue with media practitioners on the global context and strategy for UNMC from 2010-2015, to share with media a data base of experts who are ready to offer viewpoints and constant analysis on MDGs in West Africa.

Among the expected outcomes are sharing of the campaign Toolkit for elections, training of a network of media practitioners in the use of campaign toolkit, generation of story ideas from media tour and workshop, and sharing of the 2010 campaign calendar.

Area of focus for the forum, which is scheduled to run from November 25 to 27, include social mobilisation with special reference to Stand Up and Take Action; making votes and voices count in elections; towards a people's budget; local monitoring; and building partnerships.

According to a concept note put together by UNMC, "Most African governments and key players in the field of development cooperation are now repeatedly arguing that Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be met by 2015;

"They cite lack of financial resources and hostile economic environments as the most visible hurdles. Many of them hardly address the lack of political will and misuse of existing resources as areas in need of urgent attention;

The note stated that empirical evidence available on performance indicators for MDGs shows that "it is too early for governments in developing countries to give up meeting targets as we have just gone past the midpoint".

Anti-poverty campaigners on the other hand have cited the increasing poverty and inequality as key issues needing urgent redress.

Most importantly, they have sought to celebrate good performance where it has been identified and have argued repeatedly that a lot of governments can achieve and even exceed existing MDGs related targets. And all of them affirm that citizen's efforts to hold their governments to account must be up-scaled.

"The media has been a critical player in projecting the above situations and will continue to be one of the major actors in key processes directed at building a global movement for the accelerated achievement of MDGs;

"The positive performance by some countries in areas like education, health and maternal health for example, underline the urgency for a collective need to explore alternative diverse and participatory economic systems that are adapted to local and national realities, while also prioritising and protecting equity, democracy and diversity, human rights, labour rights, ecology, food security and sustainable production and consumption" the UNMC noted.

According to the organisers, the role of media is critical in ensuring meaningful implementation of development programs that positively impact on the lives of all citizens especially the poor.

This will include efforts geared towards supporting the citizens to keep vigil against corruption in government; participate in processes guaranteeing progressive enforcement of the right to information and supporting freedom of expression including media freedom and freedom of association in an environment that will develop pro-active national anti-corruption strategies consistent with international conventions on anti-corruption.

The organisers also recognised the role of media as critical in ensuring meaningful implementation of development programmes that positively impact on the lives of all citizens especially the poor.

They also realised the importance of national elections as providing key opportunities where governments can be pressured to eradicate poverty, dramatically lessen inequality, and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.