A two-day online training course to support capacity-building of government institutions to engage with the public and media during health emergencies, organized by the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, started on 7 September 2021.
Representatives from the Ministry of Health and the Medical Industry, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Parliament (Mejlis), the Ministry of Defense, the State Customs Service and other key government agencies and national and private media participated in the training course.
International experts from Israel and Kyrgyzstan shared examples from their respective countries to discuss the benefits of developing a single channel of dissemination to promote health related information and avoid disinformation. Other subjects covered include, effective channels for dissemination of information, principles of relations between organizations and mass media, forms of teamwork for interaction between organizations and public through media.
“Following the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, government institutions faced new challenges in addressing complex issues related to the health and well-being of their citizens,” said William Leaf, Officer-in-Charge of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat. “This is why it is crucial for the public to feel engaged with the government, and a connecting link between the government and the public is mass media”.
“Today’s event marks an important milestone in our successful co-operation with the host Government, as part of which the Centre has been organizing regular training events for Turkmenistan’s journalists and communication specialists of state institutions to develop skills they need to work and communicate with the public in a modern media environment,” Leaf added.
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Source: OSCE Center in Ashgabat
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