The Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Jeroen Verheul, has urged stakeholders in the media industry to strive to improve further on the country’s recent ranking on the World Press Freedom Index.
Ghana ranked 39th out of 180 countries and 4th in the region on the 2026 World Press Freedom Index.
The Ambassador made the call at the commemoration of 2026 World Press Freedom Day in Accra on May 6.
The event, which was attended by key stakeholders in the media in Ghana, was held by the British High Commission in collaboration with the Embassy of the Netherlands in Ghana.
According to him, Ghana needs to ensure that the safety of journalists is improved.
“So, for Ghana specifically, I think that the safety of journalists, especially safety of investigative journalists, is an issue, and that accountability for that is still missing,” he noted.
Citing the murder of Ahmed Hussein Suale, and investigative journalist, which is still not resolved, Ambassador Verheul said, “… if you can murder a journalist without being held accountable for it, that threatens the investigative journalists that want to do similar stories. So, there are a lot of things that need to be done, and what we within the Media Freedom Coalition try to do is support those forces for strengthening press freedom.”
He stressed that the stakeholders must work on safety of journalists because of “importance of press freedom for democratic development and for shaping a future of peace.”
Mr Verheul said a strive for improvement in the press freedom ranking is key because the Netherlands, which ranks second is pushing to be to be number one.
“So, looking at improvement for the Netherlands, we have faced some challenges with regard to press freedom, especially in terms of the crime reporting, where crime reporters were under threat in the Netherlands by organized crime to prevent them from reporting on the dangers of organized crime for society,” he stated.
Ambassador Verheul recalled that, “one of those crime reporters was in fact killed by one of the organized crime cartels, and that shows the extent of the reach of organized crime in democratic societies at the moment. And I think that this is a threat that we really need to take very seriously, not only in Europe, but also in Ghana and in the wider West African region. Because, it’s not only state actors that are threatening press freedom, but also private actors,” he said.
