UNDP Guinea-Bissau Office and the Media Consortium in Guinea- Bissau (CMICS-GB) organised an investigative journalism contest that supported 3 groups of journalists to carry out investigations on public reforms and sustaining peace in the country.

The three groups of journalists were provided grants to develop their work for television, press and radio, and had on-going technical support from the UNDP Office and CMICS in their investigations.

Djibril Mandjam, Director of the Kassumane radio in São Domingos, and Darcício Barbosa, intern at TV Quelelé, won the scholarship for television and chose “Human Rights and Justice in Djobel” as their theme.

“I was interested in Human Rights from an early age, said Djibril. "I suffered from human rights violations related to access to education, which motivated me to report human rights violations in more remote areas of our country”, he added.

“We applied for this scholarship because we are aware of the difficult situation faced by the people of Djobel, a small town of around 700 habitants, the majority of whom are women and children, and who live in traditional huts and are at risk of losing their homes because of global warming and the rising of the sea level. People are being forced to leave the village and to find a place to live – and this has sparked many conflicts in the area,” he concluded.

“We decided to apply for this investigative journalism scholarship because we think it is very important for Guinea-Bissau and for the

population, to promote freedom and to achieve justice”, said. Darcício. “There is no investigative journalism in Guinea-Bissau, only small news production. Investigative journalism is a more effective way of changing things.”

Aua Baldé, Mamudo Dansó and Admir Correia were the chosen team to produce a radio piece. The team decided that they wanted to investigate sexual harassment in the security sector.

“We chose the theme, “Women and sexual harassment at work in the security sector” because in 2020 many people anonymously reported this practice and it made us think a lot about it”, says Aua. “With this grant, we will be able to do something to raise awareness. Guineans don’t know what harassment is and people need to be informed. We, as journalists, have this key role of informing and investigating. This scholarship is a great opportunity because in Guinea-Bissau journalists don't go looking for information, they wait for it to come to them - and that's not journalism. This grant made me go beyond what the radios can offer me.”

For Mamudo Dansó, editor in-chief at Voz de Quelelé radio, “a journalist is an essential element in building a democracy. That's why we applied for this scholarship - to bring up a topic considered to be taboo."

For the press, the grant was given to the team of Samba Baldé, journalist at Donos da Bola newspaper, and Laurena Hamelberg, who chose to cover the topic “Ghost employees in the Public Administration sector”.

“Our role as journalists is to report so that those who have the power to change things can intervene”, states Samba. “We have to persist to make a difference.”

The 3 groups conducted their investigations throughout the country for 4 months, always counting on the technical support of UNDP and CMICS. The journalistic pieces were then shared on several media, in different parts of the country, also with the support of CMICS. Find below the winning entries.

• TV category – Human Rights and Justice in Djobel
• Radio category – Sexual harassment in the security forces
• Press category – Ghost employees in Public Administration

An initiative of CMICS, with the technical support of UNDP, conducted in the framework of the project "Political Stabilization and Reform through Confidence Building and Inclusive Dialogue" funded by the UN Peacebuilding Fund.