Climate: 30 West African journalists trained in climate change reporting challenges and techniques
Increasing knowledge of climate issues for journalists
"The climate is everyone's business. Journalists are at the forefront of communicating on climate, relaying the progress made in the West African region and calling on our decision-makers to take more action," said Laure Kuhn Bruma, coordinator of the GCCA+ West Africa project. She also presented some of the activities of the GCCA+ West Africa project at the heart of the region's current climate events, including support for the development of the ECOWAS regional climate strategy, and support for international climate negotiations through the ECOWAS GRANIC at COP26, which should inspire journalists.
The training was facilitated by Vanessa Laubin, a climate expert at the GCCA+ West Africa project, and by Climate Tracker, an organisation specialising in climate journalism. The first part of the training allowed journalists to learn about the impacts of climate change and its major effects in West Africa. "The challenges for the West African region to maintain a warming trajectory limited to +2° are colossal. But solutions do exist and we must now multiply them, finance them, make them visible so they can inspire, and journalists have an essential role to play in this", stressed Vanessa Laubin.
In a second phase, the journalists were trained by Climate Tracker's experts on digital storytelling, communication to shape behaviour, interview methods, and tools for collecting and processing climate information.
"Interviews are a major part of your career. You have to be aware of how to conduct interviews, know what practices to use and what practices to avoid," explained Bahija Belmabrouk during her presentation on methods for interviewing climate technical experts.
Making climate change relevant and understandable to all
This second edition of the skills-building workshop targeted journalists so that they can acquire the techniques and methods of climate reporting. "The challenge of climate change storytelling is to link human stories with scientific data, to provide solutions through journalism. You have to start with things that people can relate to in everyday life so that you can appeal to them. This requires being in the field to tell stories and propose solutions. This way, people can identify with and take ownership of the climate messages," stressed Lina Yassin, trainer of the "communication to shape behaviour" module of the training.
"It is also important to stop stereotyping climate change and journalists have an important role to play in changing stereotypes and telling stories that are relevant and understandable to all," says Lina Yassin.
Fostering a pool of climate journalists in West Africa
"The training has allowed us to understand the art of storytelling and reporting with regards to climate. This is an opportunity to see how we can make climate topics more relevant and attractive to our readers. The concepts and tools given were applied during the Climate Chance Summit Africa 2021, which took place from 15 to 17 September 2021", explained Zubaida Mabuno Ismail, one of the trainees.
In addition, one of the aims of this training workshop is to create a group of regional journalists working on climate change issues in order to promote communication on climate action in West Africa. This is therefore a long-term process, which began with a first training workshop in October 2019 in Accra and continues here with the facilitation of the GCCA+ West Africa project. This pool of West African journalists will be fed regularly with regional climate news.
Would you like to join this pool of communicators? Contact: christel.kenou@expertisefrance.fr
Learn more about the GCCA+ West Africa project: The GCCA+ West Africa regional project funded by the European Union and implemented by Expertise France, under the political leadership of ECOWAS and in partnership with CILSS, aims to support West Africa in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and increase its resilience to climate change.