15 journalists from five countries attended a two day workshop in Peru from regional and international experts (including James Painter and Gustavo Faleiros) on climate change science, international climate change negotiations, communications skills and political dialogue.

Current climate change reporting is of differing levels of quality and technical knowledge and coverage is low.  This project looked to include bring climate change and COP20 into the media agenda (in terms of increased reporting and better quality articles), allowing the wider public in each country to understand the relevance of climate negotiations and better understand the phenomenon of and risks and opportunities associated with climate change.  An informed public opinion with access to the bigger picture will percolate through to influencing decision makers.

This project is part of a larger initiative that has been carried out since 2013 by FFLA's partners SPDA, Instituto Prensa y Sociedad and CDKN with Latin America and Caribbean journalists in order to deepen their capacities and consolidate a regional network of journalists. This proposal and its outcomes and activities have been identified jointly with the journalists involved based on their needs and opportunities. It offers a regional training workshop to the journalists alongside other activities, including a regional webinar and a journalism fund to promote articles and/or investigation about climate change and development issues, linked to the importance of COP20.

The webinar and the journalistic fund were delivered by SPDA and financed by other sources.   The general objective of the project was to train journalists and in the long term contribute to a better quality of articles on climate change capable of generating opinion and consequently demanding the attention of decision makers.  

As part of the longer term goal, the project also asked journalists to send FFLA/SDPA copies of articles written after they received training, especially in the run-up to COP20. The focus of this phase of the project was to give journalists the tools and skills they need to create an impact in the long-term, including beyond COP20.

Suppliers: James Painter and Gustavo Faleiros

Partners: Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (FFLA) CDKN funding: £3,940.00