On September 20&21, 2021 the Higher Population Council (HPC), supported by UNFPA held a two-day training course for media persons on employing modern media methods and techniques in tackling population and development issues.

HPC’s Secretary General, UNFPA Head of Office, and Head of the Population Policy Department at the Arab League attended the course.  In addition to a number of distinguished journalists and media persons who report on population and development topics. The training aims to build the capacity of the attendees by employing modern media methods to promote population and development objectives and visions. More so, it strives to successfully deliver public awareness-raising messages with the intention of creating behavioral change on population and development issues.

During her welcoming remarks, Dr. Abla Amawi, the Secretary General of HPC, stressed the importance of media outlets in supporting population and demographic policies, mainstreaming gender, human rights and the demographic dimensions when setting out economic and social plans at both the national and international levels. To this end, policies should be sensitive to the demographic composition and its changes. Moreover, these policies must reflect various needs in relation to education, training, employment, health, distribution of resources and empowering women and youth alike.

Amawi emphasized the need for a specialized, reliable and credible media that discusses demographic issues. She also indicated that reporting on such issues remains below aspirations, according to the results of an analytical HPC study on population and development topics in various media forms, which was conducted in 2019.  The Secretary General stressed the need for media to shed more light on such topics to achieve the desired ultimate objectives of improving the wellbeing and the social and economic status of Jordanian citizens.

For her part, Ms. Enshrah Ahmed, Head of UNFPA-Jordan expressed that the agency regards media as a significant partner in informing the public on various population topics, such as raising the awareness on demographic policies, sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence and demographic dimensions. Additionally, when the media tackles a vital issue such as the demographic dividend-, which Jordan is heading towards in the near future- it paves the way to better utilize this opportunity by benefiting from other countries’ experiences that leveraged it and achieved higher economic growth rates, overall development and advancement.

The training covered various topics including preparing media reports for newspapers, radio and television, drafting news stories, success and human-interest stories, and the role of media in supporting population and development issues. Furthermore, the training highlighted the characteristics of media content, measuring impact and the principles of scientific-based research in relation to population and development reporting, as well as methods of adapting materials for publishing on various multimedia outlets/ social media platforms. Also, during the training session, a number of digital population and development multimedia materials prepared by HPC were presented and discussed.