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“Latin
America and the Millennium
Development Goals” Journalism Award |
 |
Cultural Personalities to Give
Awards for Reporting on the Millennium Development Goals
in Latin America
Prominent personalities from the region's cultural
and communications fields will be part of the jury for
the 2007 "Latin America and the Millennium Development
Goals" journalism award convened by United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) and the Inter Press Service
(IPS) news agency.
Serving on the jury will be Mexican writer Carlos Monsiváis,
Cuban author Leonardo Padura, president of the Colombian
Foundation for Freedom of the Press María Teresa
Ronderos, IPS director-general Mario Lubetkin, and Rebeca
Grynspan, regional director of UNDP for Latin America
and the Caribbean.
"This is neither demagoguery nor alarmism. Circumstances
in the world and in each country require urgent decisions,
and one of them is the defense of free expression and
rigorous criticism," said noted Mexican writer
Carlos Monsiváis upon agreeing to serve as a
member of the jury.
"To promote analytical journalism is to defend
the process of civilization," declared Monsiváis,
author of "Días de Guardar" and "Aires
de Familia", among some 30 other prize-winning
works, noting that the announcement of the award's jury
members coincided with World Freedom of the Press Day,
May 3.
The award seeks to encourage greater awareness by regional
communications media of the significant challenges associated
with the Millennium Development Goals and how they can
be resolved: poverty and hunger, universal primary education,
maternal mortality, gender inequality, the fight against
HIV/AIDS, environmental degradation and others.
The eight goals were adopted in 2000 during the United
Nations Millennium Summit by the heads of government
of 189 countries, for the purpose of eradicating poverty
from the planet. This year is the midway point in the
timeline set for meeting the MDG targets by 2015.
Achieving the goals requires that media reporting "provide
more transparency and better information so that the
public can demand that their governments keep the commitments
they have made," said UNDP regional director Rebeca
Grynspan.
The competition will award prizes for Latin American
and Caribbean journalism in Spanish, English, French
and Portuguese and published in the printed media between
October 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007.
The three top-rated articles will receive prizes of
US$5,000, $2,500 and $1,000 respectively. The five best
will be included in a book to be published after the
jury has made its decision, which will be announced
before October 1, 2007 at a time and place to be determined
by the jurors.
"The competition is intended to be an invitation,
a provocation for journalists throughout the region,
a motivation to investigate, understand and write about
issues related to the MDGs, and to place them on the
agenda of the communications professionals and of the
media," said IPS director-general Mario Lubetkin.
"More than stories with bureaucratic data or percentages
of improvement in one Goal or another, we are thinking
about good reporting and articles that help the public
to understand the gravity of the problems we have before
us," he added.
"We, as journalists and representatives of the
communications media, can provide a great service by
not just disseminating the goals but by also assessing
compliance with them in our countries. This is a way
to promote societal control of public resources so that
they can be concentrated on improving the living conditions
of the poorest," stated María Teresa Ronderos,
renowned Colombian journalist and former editor of the
magazine "Semana" in her country.
Cuban author Leonardo Padura, winner of the 1998 Hammett
Prize for literary crime novels, pointed out that "the
MDGs represent the most involved commitment that has
ever come before the human race in its entire history
upon the face of this planet that we inhabit and, regrettably,
degrade."
"If as an individual I can do something to promote
the idea that in fighting for these goals we are fighting
for ourselves and for those who come after us, I believe
that I should do it, and I hope that every inhabitant
on Earth will do so, too," said Padura, author
of the successful series of novels, "Las Cuatro
Estaciones".
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"More
than stories with bureaucratic data or percentages
of improvement in one Goal or another, we are
thinking about good reporting and articles that
help the public to understand the gravity of the
problems we have before us"
"This
is neither demagoguery nor alarmism. Circumstances
in the world and in each country require urgent
decisions, and one of them is the defense of free
expression and rigorous criticism" 
“provide
more transparency and better information so that
the public can demand that their governments keep
the commitments they have made" 
"If
as an individual I can do something to promote
the idea that in fighting for these goals we are
fighting for ourselves and for those who come
after us, I believe that I should do it, and I
hope that every inhabitant on Earth will do so,
too" 
