AIBD Director, Ms Philomena Gnanapragasam has called on African media practitioners to be more sensitive towards the wrong notions against migrants and refugees. On 26^th February 2021, she took part in JIFORM’s Africa Migrant Summit 2021 to talk on the impact of disinformation on societies and how mishandling of stories can lead to racial hatred towards vulnerable communities, especially migrants and refugees.

She mentioned that media should play its role as a catalyst to narrow down the social gaps by creating an environment for dialogue among all stakeholders of the society.

Speaking via zoom at African Migration Summit, 2021 in Accra, Ms Philomena highlighted the fact that media can help reduce the stigma regarding migrants and refugees by following rules of ethical migrant journalism, avoiding stereotypical and negative expressions and using the inclusive language in their content. She emphasised on the importance to adopt a balanced approach of facts and empathy while broadcasting such subject.

During her presentation she also mentioned the role of AIBD on advocacy of this issue, which comes under the umbrella of SDG-8 by organising various workshops and webinars for Asia-Pacific media practitioners. Since 2019, AIBD is intensively focused on capacity building workshops and advising regional media organisations to create effective tools to combat misinformation, which is a part of Angkor Initiative on combating disinformation. She mentioned that the institute will keep on serving its members and collaborating with key stakeholders to enhance the impact of its advocacy.

At the end she mentioned that AIBD has been focusing a lot on African broadcasters lately, and she wishes that more organisations should come forward to join hands to voice out their opinions on international canvas set by this international intergovernmental organisation, AIBD.

This presentation was part of 2-days JIFORM-NEKOTECH African migration summit held in Accra, Ghana, with various local and international speakers. The theme of this summit was Labour Migration: Shining the paradigm to Africa’s benefits. Apart from Director AIBD, 14 other globally renowned speakers delivered their presentations on different subjects.