The Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance is accepting entries for the African Climate Change and Environment Reporting (ACCER) Awards 2020.
The ACCER Awards is a biennial initiative that recognises excellence in climate change and environmental journalism in Africa.
The ACCER Awards 2020 is the fifth in a series, and comes at a time uncertainty abounds regarding climate action in the context of Covid-19 crisis. Journalists and media networks remain important actors in unpacking and building the synergy for the two crises, making a compelling case for them to be tackled simultaneously. A 2018 Research Programme on Climate Change, Food and Security, dubbed “Linking knowledge with action: The role of media in climate change adaptation and mitigation” highlights the need for journalists to understand the climate crisis, and highlights how they can help link knowledge to action.
Objectives
- To ensure Africa’s climate story is told as it is, highlighting the areas unseen by the rest of the world, and which determines how intervention is reached
- To motivate journalists and media houses in Africa to effectively cover and report on Climate Change and Environment
- To illuminate innovative best-practice approaches in Policy and Practice towards response strategies and programmes
- To enhance proactive media participation in African Climate Change discourses with a view of perspectives and narratives
- To sustain and boost coverage of Climate Change issues by journalists in the mainstream media and media networks
- To promote and create awareness about opportunities existing in green investment both in public and private realm.
Thematic Areas
Entries must cover climate change or environment issues related to the following sector:
- CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTUULTURE AND AGROFORESTRY AWARD: This award will recognise a journalist whose in-depth reporting demonstrates how rural communities or individuals in part of Africa are using smart agriculture techniques or agroforestry to mitigate and/or adapt to climate change, while at the same time improving their food sufficiency and livelihoods.
- CLIMATE POLICY, GOVEOVERNANCE & TRANSPARENCY AWARD: This category will recognize journalistic work that brings out the aspect of climate governance, policy development and implementation, or one that exposes corruption deals and curtails related to climate change.
- INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT: Entries in this category should be articles demonstrating how innovative solutions are being used to overcome environmental challenges. Innovative solutions can be in all sectors related to the environment such as agriculture, forestry, waste management, renewable energy, water management, climate change, transport, green job…etc.
- CLIMATE FINANCE AWARD: This award rewards excellence in journalism that reflects on finances channeled by national, regional and international entities for climate change mitigation and adaptation projects and programs. The story may demonstrate how communities/companies/NGO are accessing and/or using these finances, what the impact is in terms of climate adaptation and mitigation, and how this is impacting on livelihoods.
- ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND CONSERVATION AWARD: This award specifically recognizes the work of a journalist who reports on environment protection and conservation, not limited to protection and conservation of forests, water and biodiversity.
Eligibility Criteria
- Unpublished work will not be accepted for the ACCER Awards
- Writers can share work that appeared on their media house’s digital platform, or send recordings or images of the work published in other platforms by attaching in the online form, or email at the address given on the website
- Fictional work will not be accepted, even if already published
- An author can submit more than one story.
- Submissions should specify which African country the author comes from.
- If the work is published online, please share the link in the space provided in the form or email at the address given on the website.
For more information, visit Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance.