Zimbabwe Scoops the 1st ever CCARDESA Climate Smart Agriculture Media Engagement Award
Mr Gabriel Masvora from Zimbabwe has scooped the 1st ever CCARDESA Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) media award. This was announced during the CCARDESA’s 10th-anniversary commemoration webinar held on 29th October 2020. The guest of honour, The Honourable Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security in Botswana, Mr Karabo Gare announced Mr Masvora as the winner of the first prize, followed by Zambia’s Ms Gloria Siwisha who got the 2nd prize and Botswana‘s Mr Dickson Mmaba got the third prize. Mr Masvora walked away with US$800; Miss Siwisha got US$500 and Mmaba got US$300.
The honourable Minister congratulated the winners on behalf of CCARDESA and thanked them for participating in the first CCARDESA media award. The Minister also thanked the German Federal Ministry for International Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for the support and applauded the partnership that CCARDESA has forged with the media and hope that it will help to disseminate vital information and knowledge to communities in the different countries including on CSA and CCARDESA programmes.
The prizes were won based on articles written by journalists on CSA and other associated CCARDESA initiatives because brokerage of agricultural information is an integral part of CCARDESA’s mandate of coordinating agricultural research and development in the SADC Region. Climate change has been identified as a major threat that is affecting the SADC region including the agricultural sector which relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture. To empower our stakeholders with knowledge and information to tackle climate change, CCARDESA is promoting the adoption of CSA by disseminating information through various media channels including the website, social media, a Mobile App and the popular press.
CCARDESA came up with an initiative to engage media practitioners to facilitate reporting and sharing of information on CSA. This initiative was supported through a German-funded programme on “Adaptation to climate change in the Rural Areas in Southern Africa (ACCRA) which CCARDESA is jointly implementing with the German Corporation for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)) across the SADC region. The media were engaged to voluntarily write articles on CSA, and CCARDESA as well as contribute quiz questions to be added to the CCARDESA Mobile App. The articles which were published on the CCARDESA website, the local media outlets, newspapers and radio stations in the respective countries were evaluated by a CCARDESA-convened independent panel looking at the informativeness and mastery of the subject matter of the submitted articles. The objectives of the media award were to build the capacity of the media fraternity on the CSA practices, initiatives, and programmes in the region; enhance the dissemination of the CSA practices and initiatives in the member states to increase awareness on CSA innovations; set the media as a link between the knowledge products on the CCARDESA website and the farmers in the member states and to award the media personnel who have implemented their newly acquired knowledge.
A total of 13 media practitioners (8 from Malawi, 2 from Botswana, 2 from Zambia and 1 from Zimbabwe) submitted their articles and quiz questions before the set deadline. Out of the 13 people who participated, the panellists selected the top 3 finalists.
The CCARDESA ICKM Officer, the initiator and mind behind the CCARDESA media award spoke with Mr Gabriel Masvora to get a feel of his reaction about winning the ward. “After the announcement of the results obviously I felt good that I won the 1st prize and to discover that my efforts were recognized at a regional level was so exciting” beamed Mr Masvora.
Gloria Siwisha the 2nd awardee said, “’ I had confidence in my credentials but, I must hasten to say that the competition was tight; there are some good writers out there. I am therefore proud to have made it this far”. Ms Siwisha also urged other journalists to seize such opportunities when they come because it is through such engagements that experiences of what ‘works and doesn’t work’ are shared.
The 3rd awardee, Mr Dickson Mmaba urged CCARDESA to continue with such initiatives are means through which the media can communicate agricultural information effectively.
Mr Gabriel Masvora works as a News Editor at the Sunday News in Zimbabwe. Gloria Siwisha is a Journalist working for the National Agricultural Information Services (NAIS) in Eastern Province in Zambia. Whereas Dickson Mmaba is an Agricultural Information & Public relations officer in the Ministry of Agriculture in Botswana. The other 10 participants all walked away with US$100 participation fee.
CCARDESA will continue working with the media to ensure that agricultural information on topical issues is disseminated within SADC member states to enable them to make sound decisions that support sustainable and resilience production systems necessary to attain a food and nutritional secure region.
