Liberia: Training for Election Debate Moderators Kicks Off in Nimba

With less than a week until the official start of campaign activities ahead of the October 10 presidential and legislative elections, Internews and its local partner, the Association of Liberian Community Radio (ALICOR), have commenced training of community radio moderators to help conduct debates across the country.

The organizers, who said that they want to ensure that journalists who are selected become proficient in election debate moderating, disclosed that about 60 community radio moderators are expected to benefit from the training across Liberia.

Some topics covered during the training include Understanding Liberia's Current Electoral Context, Characteristics of an Effective Debate Moderator, Familiarization with Election Debate Forums, Research and Debate Preparation, Crafting Thoughtful Questions for an election debate and Establishing Ground Rules and controlling the debate.

Other topics include, Ensuring gender sensitivity in an election debate, media and security SOP during elections, and others.

The reporters were trained to select a suitable place for the debate in connection with the participants and ensure the audience was at least 150.

The issue of neutrality was highly discussed, and the debate moderators were told to show neutrality and avoid conflicts of interest.

The moderators were given promises tracking forms to track all election promises that will be made by the politicians during debate, and, after the first agriculture break following the election, a follow up will be for those who will win so as to hold them accountable for promises made during the election period.

“After the election, the winning candidates will be invited to a community forum during the first legislative break to account for the promises made during the election debate,” one of the trainers told the reporters.

At the close of the training, each of the reporters or participants was made to sign a conflict of interest form, distancing themselves from any political activities or providing any financial support or aid to any political party.

However, the participants have appreciated Internews for the training, promising to put the skills acquired to good use for the betterment of the country.

Janet Wonder, a moderator of Smile FM (Zwedru), on behalf of her colleagues, lauded the organizers for the new skill sets acquired, and promised that they would be put to good use.

“We want the message from the debate to resonate so as to strengthen our democracy,” said Jefferson Massah, Senior Media Adviser, Internews/USAID.

The training in Nimba was a continuation of the one that was conducted early last month in the southeast. That batch of training, held from July 7 through August 1, 2023, brought together 18 reporters, representing five counties — Sinoe, Maryland, River Gee, Grand Gedeh and Grand Kru counties.