The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and Code for Africa are partnering with the World Bank’s Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) to present monthly online webinars for those interested in applying to our impactAFRICA challenge.
What is the connection between clean water and good health? How do governments provide clean water in sprawling and overcrowded cities? Water and sanitation is a complex and under-reported subject that intersects areas of governance, health, environment, well-being and human rights. During this webinar, journalists will learn from World Bank experts how to better understand and report on access to and demand for clean water and improved sanitation. World Bank experts will explain different approaches to framing and explaining these issues and how to best use data to simplify and localise them.
By 2050, at least one in four people will live in a country facing chronic or recurring shortages of fresh water, according to the United Nations. Improving people’s access to and demand for clean water and improved sanitation (toilets) hasn’t proven easy and journalists have the opportunity to shed light on this global challenge. Journalists can help keep citizens better informed by understanding the complexities of water and sanitation and by shedding light on the problems, as well as solutions.
During this webinar, World Bank experts will discuss both sides of the water supply and sanitation equation - supply and demand - and the long-lasting health and social benefits. They’ll also discuss how simple hygiene practices, such as handwashing, can change lives for the better. Journalists will learn more about the importance of clean water and sanitation for human development, and the challenges of collecting and interpreting the data to prove success. Journalists will also have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss with World Bank experts how they can best report on these issues in their community.
When: Thursday, April 28 at 4pm SAST (link = https://zoom.us/j/406391840)
Experts: Emily Christensen Rand, a World Bank Water Supply and Sanitation Specialist, and Christian Borja-Vega, a World Bank Economist with the Water Global Practices
Moderator: Christopher Conte, Former ICFJ Knight Fellow
• Join this webinar on Thursday, April 28 at 4pm SAST with this link.
• Subscribe to get email alerts about this and future impactAFRICA webinars here.
Earlier this year, Code for Africa and ICFJ launched the first round of impactAFRICA, a $500,000 story contest to support data-driven investigative reporting that sheds light on neglected or under-reported development topics in Africa. The project will initially target six key countries: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
This series of webinars will inform journalists about key development issues, provide reporting resources, and give participants the opportunity to ask questions. The webinars will feature global development experts from the World Bank. The webinars will also give viewers the opportunity to ask questions about their own story ideas.
The Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) is a World Bank partnership programme that promotes evidence-based policy making. The fund focuses on four areas critical to healthy human development: basic education; health systems and service delivery; early childhood development and nutrition; and water and sanitation. SIEF works around the world, primarily in low-income countries, bringing impact evaluation expertise and evidence to a range of programs and policymaking teams.
International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) is at the forefront of the news revolution. Its programmes empower journalists and engage citizens with new technologies and best practices. ICFJ’s networks of reporters and media entrepreneurs are transforming the field. ICFJ believes that better journalism leads to better lives. Over the past 30 years, ICFJ has worked with more than 92,000 professional and citizen journalists and media managers from 180 countries. ICFJ work through strong local partners, such as Code for Africa, and a network of dedicated alumni. For more information, go to www.icfj.org.
Code for Africa (CfAfrica) is the custodian of impactAFRICA and is the continent’s largest independent open data and civic technology initiative. It operates as a federation of autonomous country-based digital innovation organisations that support ‘citizen labs’ in five countries and major projects in a further 15 countries. CfAfrica runs Africa’s OpenGov Fellowships and also embeds innovation fellows into newsrooms and social justice organisations to help liberate data of public interest, or to build tools that help empower citizens. In addition to fellowships and CitizenLabs, CfAfrica runs the $1 million per year innovateAFRICA fund and the $500,000 per year impactAFRICA fund, which both award seed grants to civic pioneers for experiments with everything from camera drones and environmental sensors, to encryption for whistleblowers and data-driven semantic analysis tools for investigative watchdogs. CfAfrica also curates continental resources such as the africanSPENDING portal of budget transparency resources, the openAFRICA data portal, the sourceAFRICA document repository and the connectedAFRICA transparency toolkit for tracking the often hidden social networks and economic interests in politics. CfAfrica is an initiative of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).