The Forum for ideas held on 15^th November, 2024 at the Hotel Royal in Galkayo.  Seven members   looked at the status of Mudug regional Media institutional representatives, youth’s participation in peace building and reconciliation process Mudug were the guest speakers. The aim was to provide avenue for the role of media in peace building and reconciliations in Somalia .and make important personal, governmental, communal and personal statements, and commitments, that authoritatively delineates the contribution of Social media in peace building. The aim of the media experts was to explicitly state the state-level, national/federal-level and international-level legal positions on the three issues, the local administrative representative was to give policy position, non-state actors to give a brief field-level statistical status of media in Somalia, religious leaders to give religious perspective, elders to give cultural perspectives and youths to provide own perspective on these media issues. The objective was to find harmony among different respected community stakeholders of the importance and role of social media in peace building and reconciliation.

On the other hand, 250 participants from the different community stake holders Galmudug and Puntland administration were present in the Talk show , and the media outlets provided interactive engagements between the participants and the public. The panel discussions were also carried live in the aforementioned media outlets

In the talk show, it was deeply discussed the important role to be played by the media, which can promote the participation and inclusion of different people and communities, and thus contribute to changing the narrative around the country’s state-building processes. Yet, very little efforts have so far been made to focus on the specific role and capacities of Somali media. And because of this, very little is still known about the media sector.

Somalia’s media landscape is undergoing epochal changes and today the country can boast a vibrant, even if fragmented, media culture. This said the sector’s development remains affected by insecurity and heavily influenced by the unstable political environment and the complex history of the country

Key points drawn from the discussions include;

1. More data is necessary. Support to media development needs to be guided by reliable information. For this reason, there should be more efforts to gather such data and to the extent possible these efforts should be driven by Somali actors.
2.  Invest in capacity-building of journalists and media sector professionals. Efforts should be made to strengthen the capacities of journalists and media sector professionals to report transparently and in a balanced matter on topics related to the political transition, peace and security.
3. Support mentorship and exchange programmes for journalists. Capacity-building efforts should also support networking across locations and media types.
4. Foster connections between media, civil society and elders. The legitimacy of, and trust in, journalists can be increased by fostering connections between journalists and civil society representatives and between journalists and elders.
5. Create incentives for media to focus on peace building stories. Lastly, coverage of peace building stories could be greatly increased, with huge impact on the narrative of the country’s transition, and relatively low costs