EU Delegation to Ghana
International Development
Event Management | Communication
Women Speak Conference
The Women Speak conference was the EU Delegation’s contribution to the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence. Its objectives were specific: amplify the voices of Ghanaian women advocating for gender equality, engage young people as future leaders in gender advocacy, foster partnerships for GBV prevention, and demonstrate the EU’s commitment to grassroots gender advocacy in Ghana.
Meeting those objectives required two things in parallel. First, a carefully designed in-person conference at a credible venue that brings together students, civil society, policymakers, and the media. Second, a hybrid broadcast strategy that would carry the conference’s reach well beyond the room through live streaming and radio.
The timing was difficult. The event landed during Ghana’s general election period, when media attention was almost entirely focused on political coverage. Multiple organisations scheduled events on the same day to mark 16 Days of Activism, competing for the same journalists and airtime. The task was to ensure full KPI delivery in a media environment that was actively working against it.
What We Did
Mech Consult co-organised the conference end-to-end alongside Ecorys, managing venue, logistics, branding, and communications as a single integrated workstream.
We began with a venue recce and booked the Adesa Hall at Labadi Beach Hotel. We developed the event concept note, coordinated the participation of students from Zenith and Accra Technical Universities, and designed all promotional and branding materials — including social media flyers, a photo backdrop, a stage backdrop, speaker and panel flyers for the LED screen, roll-up banners, and 165 printed programme outlines. All suppliers — lighting, sound, DJ, LED screen, and live streaming team — were identified, engaged, and managed by Mech Consult.
On communications, we circulated press releases, managed media accreditation and on-the-day coverage, and set up dual live streams on the EU Delegation’s and Citi FM’s Facebook pages, alongside a live radio broadcast on Citi FM. Post-event, we conducted media monitoring and story clipping across all outlets.
The Outcome
Every KPI was met or exceeded despite the competitive media environment created by the election period and the coinciding 16 Days of Activism events. This outcome was not incidental; it was the direct result of relationship-driven media management and early press circulation that secured coverage commitments before election-cycle competition intensified.
15 stories and articles were published and broadcast across tier-one outlets, exactly meeting the target. 3 television spots and 2 radio spots aired as planned. Media reach reached 6.08 million, exceeding the 5 million target.
The hybrid broadcast strategy outperformed significantly. 562 people watched the live stream on the EU Delegation’s Facebook page, nearly three times the target of 200. On the Citi FM Facebook page, 2,100 people tuned in live, exceeding the target of 500 by more than fourfold. 299 photographs were delivered, exceeding the target of 200.
The panel brought together the country director of Amnesty International Ghana, a governance expert, a mental health advocate, a musician and gender activist, and a representative of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations, a panel composition that reflected the conference’s intent to connect gender advocacy to a broad coalition of civil society voices.
