Journalists hone skills in water reporting |11 July 2011

The June 26-29 training in Manzini, Swaziland also included a field trip to the Maguga Dam on the Komati River in Swaziland where they met with officials of the Komati Basin Water Authority (KOBWA) as well as residents who were displaced and affected by the construction of the dam.

KOBWA chief executive, Sipho Nkambule, outlined the legislative framework in which the river basin organisation was established and the work it did for the community during the building of the dam.

The reporters also covered the 5th SADC multi-stakeholder Water Dialogue which was held from June 28-29 at the Royal Swazi Hotel Convention Centre, also in Manzini.

The dialogue, which is an annual event, brought together over 200 key stakeholders to discuss critical water issues in the region such as management, planning and finance for projects.

SADC Water Division senior programme manager Phera Ramoeli said it was important to build the capacity of journalists to report on water issues ahead of the 17th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of the Parties (COP 17) which  will take place in the South African coastal city of Durban in December.

He said the SADC will highlight its various activities during the convention.

The training for reporters was conducted under the theme Reporting water while the theme for the stakeholders’ dialogue was Watering Development in SADC: Financing Water for Climate Resilience to Ensure Regional Security.

The training was led by the Inter Press Service (IPS) regional director for Africa, Paula Fray and multimedia expert and journalist Tinus de Jager.

IPS is a global news agency which has branches and offices over the world. In Africa it has its headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa with bureaus in Nairobi, Kenya and Cotonou, Benin. Its main focus is on producing independent news stories and analysis about events and processes which are affecting economic, social and political development of societies.

IPS Africa focuses on the continent’s untold stories and it strives to produce regular features focusing on development issues such as poverty, women’s empowerment, governance, access to water, research and trade. It has a pool of journalists from various countries who provide stories which are published through its website:  ips.org/Africa and its newsletter Terra Viva (Living Earth). IPS also hosts workshops to improve the knowledge of reporters and provide additional skills on how to cover various issues.

During the training the journalists learn how to identify various angles to write stories related to climate change and its impacts on food and water sources, communities, livestock and agriculture.

The journalists also learned that it is important to create awareness and inform the population in communities of the various adaptation measures being adopted by their governments to mitigate the effects and impacts of climate change.

It has been found that people in communities are more interested to know what they can do or what can be done for them to adapt to these climatic changes or to lessen its impact on the livelihood of their communities.

Some of the stories the journalists attending the training wrote were published both on the website and the newsletter.

The reporters attending the training were picked through their own contacts with IPS or through invitations sent to the various local chapters of the Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) of which they are members.

Seychelles was represented at the meeting by senior journalist Marie-Anne Lepathy, who is also one of the assistant directors at the newspaper.