“Latin America and the Millennium Development Goals” Journalism Award Second Edition

461 entries from Latin American and Caribbean journalists
compete for the Millennium Goals Prize

A total of 461 news stories have been submitted by journalists from the region to compete in the Second Edition of the “Latin America and the Millennium Development Goals” Journalism Award, organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the international news agency Inter Press Service (IPS). The deadline for submissions was July 15.

Candidates represent 15 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, including: Argentina (73), Bolivia (4), Brazil (112), Colombia (62), Costa Rica (15), Cuba (16), Chile (5), Ecuador (14), El Salvador (4), Mexico (57), Nicaragua (3), Panama (22), Peru (31), Uruguay (6), and Venezuela (37).

The entries were originally published in Spanish and Portuguese in different media of the region between October 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009. The three best news stories, reports, interviews or features will receive prizes of US$5,000, US$2,500 and US$1,000, respectively, and the top five will be featured in a book to be published following the announcement of the winners.

The jury is composed of Rebeca Grynspan, UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Brazilian economist and university professor Luis Gonzaga de Mello Belluzzo, Mexican journalist Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, Uruguayan writer Mario Delgado Aparaín, and IPS General Director Mario Lubetkin.

The winning entries will be announced before October 1, 2009.

The aim of the prize is to promote greater awareness among the region’s communicators and media regarding major problems related with the Millennium Development Goals and ways of solving them.

Participants were asked to submit pieces dealing with the main issues addressed by the MDGs - poverty and hunger, primary education, gender inequality and equal participation by women, maternal health and child mortality, combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, environmental sustainability -, their causes and ways of overcoming them, in addition to the promotion of a global partnership for development. For this second edition, the organisers announced that special consideration would be given to stories and analyses dealing with the impact of the current economic crisis on the global efforts to meet the MDGs.

The eight Millennium Development Goals were adopted by 189 heads of state at the United Nations’ Development Summit in the year 2000, with the aim of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger in the world. The target date that was set then for achieving these goals was 2015.