AWiM/UNEP Africa Environmental Journalism Fellows Shine at ECCMA awards

AWiM UNEP/Africa Environment Journalism Fellows scooped awards from The Government of the Republic of Zambia on Friday.

The Environmental and Climate Change Media Awards (ECCMA) are held annually to award outstanding and consistent journalists that produce high-quality and accurate stories that give prominence to environment and climate change and encourage the coverage of environmental and climate change challenges. This is premised on the fact that the public will likely make informed decisions to support policies and laws on environmental protection based on available information.

The Government of the Republic of Zambia, through various policies and laws, key among them; the Environmental Management Act No. 12 of 2011 and the National Policy on Climate Change of 2016 recognises the importance of providing information to facilitate information decision-making on environmental management and climate change. In doing so, the government acknowledges the role played by media in disseminating information on environment and climate change interventions hence the awards.

This year´s awards which were held on 14th July in Lusaka had a total of 99 entries competing for 12 categories. There was a tie in the Best Online Blog- Climate Change category among two nominees, Annie Zulu and Cynthia Nkhata both freelance journalists, hence the secretariat ended up awarding the two nominees making it the only category with two winners. The award-winning stories by the two winners were published by AWiM News under the 2022 African Women in Media (AWiM)/ United Nations  (UNEP)/ Africa Environmental Journalism Programme.

The stories have received a total of three awards each from the time they were published in June 2022.

Zambia: The gender gap in land rights derails climate justice

Zambian women cashing in on briquettes while tackling climate change

 Annie Zulu

• 2023 Best Online Blog-Climate Change Reporting Award- Environmental and Climate Change Media Awards (ECCMA)
• 2022 Best Online Media Reporting Climate Change Policy Award- Policy Monitoring and Research Centre (PMRC) Media Awards.
• 2022 Best Energy Reporting Second Prize Award- Energy Regulation Board (ERB) Media Awards.

 Cynthia Nkhata

• 2023 Best Online Blog-Climate Change Reporting Award- Environmental and Climate Change Media Awards (ECCMA)
• 2023 Best Online Agroecology Reporting Award- Agroecology, Social Accountability and Climate Change (ASACCA) Media Awards.
• Best Online Reporting on National Resources and Land Management- Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zambia Chapter.