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Background and Rationale

Media organizations play an important role in providing the public with accurate information that help improve their lives and keep them aware on community, country development and beyond, and in particular, in times of conflict and crisis. Part of this role is covering elections and providing voters with accurate information about the process of elections. Therefore, and in order to report elections in a professional manner, journalists need adequate training, support and practice so that voters can get reliable information. Training of journalists on coverage of elections provides them with access to resources and diversity as a learning experience to fully grasp a variety of tools and challenges unique to each electoral phase.

UNESCO and other international organization have been strengthening the capacities of media (state and independent media) at different level over the past years. In particular, 91Â鶹¹ú²ú¾«Æ·×ÔÅÄ just concluded a project on countering hate speech within the Syria media content.

Hence, this call for proposal comes as a natural step to build on previous actions, by UNESCO to further strengthen the Syrian media capacities and safety, to combat disinformation, counter hate speech, enforce fact checking and support media’s role in covering elections based on professional and international standards.

In this regard, UNESCO is launching this call for proposal for applicants to conduct an intense series of online trainings on the priorities mentioned above, followed by monitoring of media coverage of Syrian elections. The monitoring process will be an assessment tool to measure how the media used the new skills and resource to better cover the election process.

Objective

UNESCO Beirut Regional Office intends to contract a media training entity to:

1. Conduct a series of online trainings, in the form of webinars, to strengthen the capacities of Syrian journalists and media outlets on a number of topics including: countering disinformation, fact checking, countering hate speech, election coverage, and safety of journalists.
2. Monitor and evaluate media’s coverage of elections based on international indicators, standards and norms following the series of trainings.

Deliverables:

Part 1: A series of online trainings

The contracted entity will provide a series of online trainings (webinars) on the following topics:

• Election coverage
• Countering hate speech
• countering disinformation and fact checking
• Safety of journalists (including in times of elections)

Part 2: Monitoring of media coverage during elections

The aim of this media monitoring is to assess media’s coverage of the various phases of the election process and evaluate their compliance with international standards and local regulations on election coverage. It will also help evaluate whether the skills acquired within the training have been put into practice. The monitoring also aims to assess media’s role in educating voters on how to exercise their democratic rights; reporting on the development of the election process; providing a platform for the public to communicate their concerns, opinions, and needs; and providing information that, as far as possible, avoids inflammatory language, helping to prevent election-related violence.

Application:

Interested entities are required to provide:

1. One comprehensive proposal for the two parts (training and monitoring), including:

• A detailed methodology and approach for the training, specifying any subcomponents for each of the topics listed under Part 1 and the justification for this choice.
• Suggested list of trainers, speakers, and moderators, with a brief bio showing the relevance of their choice (taking into consideration that training should cover the Syrian media landscape with its different affiliations).
• A detailed methodology for the monitoring of media elections coverage including any specific components that will be monitored, frequency, logic, scope of monitoring, tools available for data collection and analysis, data interpretation method, etc.
• Timeline of all activities for both components (training and monitoring) between May and August 2021.

2. Financial offer

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All proposals should be submitted in English to: Beirut@unesco.org no later than COB 10 May, 2021.

Please quote this title for the email subject: Capacity building of Syrian media and monitoring of election coverage.