West Africa Competitiveness Program-The Gambia (WACOMP-Gambia), in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), have awarded outstanding journalists who participated in the first phase of the UNIDO-WACOMP Reporting Grant program.
The event was held at a local hotel in Kololi, on Friday 10 January 2025, to honour and celebrate the outstanding journalists who participated in the program.
Saikou Suwareh Jabai, the Communication and Visibility Officer of WACOM-The Gambia, said the initiative was from the realization of the need to increase public awareness of horticulture and quality infrastructure, and
in a bid towards this realization, they rolled out a series of media engagements and capacity-building workshops for journalists reporting on quality infrastructure.
"When we rolled out the reporting grant, journalists who were part of the training had the opportunity to tap into the funds and report exclusively human interest stories on the intervention areas of the project, and on how impactful the project is especially in relation to its target beneficiaries," Jabai said.
Ebrima Darboe, coordinator of the production of the reporting grant, expressed delight in reading stories not only about the activities of UNIDO but also about how UNIDO interventions are impacting the lives of targeted beneficiaries.
Yahya Baldeh, a member of the jury and media consultant, said the assignment though incredibly rewarding, was not a small task.
"The responsibility of reviewing and judging these entries came with high expectations requiring a meticulous, fair, and exhaustive approach. To ensure an unbiased process and uphold the integrity of this exercise, a clear and vigorous assessment framework was established to guide the selection process," Mr. Baldeh said.
He said ten shortlisted stories represent the very essence of quality journalism that positioned the purpose of the media award initiative. The entries he added, personify a high standard of project reporting, demonstration of relevance, creativity, and dedication to impactful storytelling. He said the criteria used to assess the entries, were journalistic integrity, originality, writing quality, presentation and impact.
"Each entry was meticulously reviewed against these criteria to ensure an impartial and just evaluation process. The stories reflect an exceptional level of journalistic excellence, making the task of selecting the most outstanding entry both challenging and inspiring," he said.
Sheriff Saidykhan, Vice President of The Gambia Press Union (GPU), described the WACOMP-Gambia reporting grant as a significant milestone and the first of its kind and said the laudable initiative will further encourage and serve as a motivation to many journalists to run stories on agriculture, to further amplify the voices of the agrarian communities. He said the GPU has over the past decades been active in promoting and ensuring journalistic excellence in the country.
"The Gambia Press Union will collaborate with WACOMP-Gambia to further strengthen the capacities of agriculture journalists in the country," he said.
Mr. Malamin Drammeh, a National Horticulture Expert, expressed appreciation to the journalists for the effective execution of the task leveled against them for the past couple of months and said WACOMP which is implemented by two partners namely United Purpose and UNIDO, is proud of the stories which were written by these journalists and broadcasters in community radios, and on private and national TV stations. These, he said, have exposed their activities far beyond the Gambia, and have given them the visibility they were yearning for the project.
"I can assure you that we have achieved this. They are very good stories, because reports on horticulture in the media, were minimal," he said; adding that throughout their assessment, they realized that they needed to increase visibility on the onion value chain, and have engaged journalists in a series of training to be able to achieve this.
The following were the winners of the awards:
Kebba AF Touray, Foroyaa Newspaper was the winner of the Most Outstanding Story in the Quality Infrastructure Category; Modou Touray of Block TV was the winner of the Most Outstanding Story in the Horticulture Category; and KatibiYaffa was the winner of the Second Most Outstanding Story in the Horticulture Category.