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.
According to the United Nations, maternal mortality has fallen by 45 percent since 1990. Globally, preventable child deaths have decreased by over 50 percent. What makes a health program successful? What policies are helping improve healthcare? During this webinar, journalists will hear from World Bank experts on what makes a successful health program. Tune in to learn more about the importance of data-driven analysis to understand successful approaches to healthcare.
This webinar is designed to encourage journalists to look beyond the numbers and explore healthcare in their local context. During the webinar, examples of government approaches to healthcare will be reviewed, focusing on the impact evaluation evidence. This, in turn, can provide journalists with the information needed to begin creating stories that strengthen, question or highlight the success of local health programs.
World Bank experts will challenge journalists to think differently about what makes a health program succeed or fail. Framed as a “how-to” webinar, World Bank experts will discuss best ways to cover health programs and issues. Journalists will learn about the dangers of drawing inferences from one-off cases to avoid making inaccurate conclusions on a program’s failure or success. World Bank experts will also discuss how useful policies such as subsidies and incentives are for reducing the death rate among pregnant women and young children. During the webinar, journalists will also have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss with World Bank experts how they can best report on healthcare issues in their community.
When: Wednesday, June 15 at 10 am EST
Experts: Arndt Reichert, an economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank and Marcus Holmlund, an economist with Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) in the World Bank’s Research Group
Moderator: Christopher Conte, Former ICFJ Knight International Journalism Fellow
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).