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Top Prize for Reporters from Viet Nam in ADBI's Developing Asia Journalism Awards

HANOI, VIET NAM (8 April 2004) - A Vietnamese journalist took one of the three top honors last night in the first Developing Asia Journalism Awards in Tokyo organized by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI).

Tran Le Thuy, a reporter with Saigon Economic Times, was named Young Development Journalist of the Year in a ceremony held at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. She also took first place in the awards category: Regional cooperation and integration for development.

Another award winner from Viet Nam was Hoang Tu Giang, from Vietnam Investment Review, who took second runners-up spot in the competition category: Role of the private sector in development.

The three overall winners were awarded $2,000 each, while category winners and runners-up received $1,500, $1,000, and $500, respectively. Nineteen of 20 finalists in the competition, from 11 developing countries, attended the ceremony in Tokyo and took part in a two-day program that included visits to media organizations based in the city, NHK, Reuters and the Mainichi Shimbun.

Thuy, 28, who submitted an article headlined "Making aid more effective," worked through the ranks from intern to key reporter on the Saigon Economic Times. Her editor, Chu Van Lam, says she is a "tenacious and concerned reporter" who has a rare blend of top writing and interpersonal skills.

Giang's article "The nation's corporate spirit" was printed in Viet Nam Investment Review on the eve of the National Conference on 4 years' Implementation of the Enterprise Law, 4-5 November 2003. Hoang Tu Giang also won one of the second prizes (no first prize) in a national media contest on Millennium Development Goals, jointly organized last year by UNDP and the Party Central Committee for Ideology and Culture.

More than 250 stories were submitted for the awards by 89 entrants from across ADB's developing member countries. From these, 20 finalists, who were invited to the ceremony in Tokyo, and the eventual winners were selected by a jury of three that included presiding judge Anthony Rowley, Tokyo Correspondent of the Business Times of Singapore and Field Editor for Oxford Analytica; Yoshio Murakami, Adviser on International Affairs to the Asahi Shimbun; and Suvendrini Kakuchi, a Sri Lankan journalist reporting for Inter Press Service.

"We were each very impressed by the overall high standard of entries for this, the first of the ADBI Developing Asia Journalism Awards," said Mr. Rowley, at the ceremony, held at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

"The awards were organized to publicly recognize the efforts made by Asian and Pacific print journalists from developing countries who provide high-quality coverage of issues affecting growth and development," said Peter McCawley, Dean of ADBI.

The awards are, "we hope, a modest step in the direction of strengthening the voice of the Asia-Pacific region on the international stage," he added.

He said that journalism contributes to good governance by playing a watchdog role on political and official leaders and by "encouraging informed debate about national policies and helping create constituencies for reform."

"I think this competition has reminded us that good journalism can make people aware of the human dimensions of development in a way that official reports can never hope to do," Mr. Rowley said.

"Development issues are often cloaked in official jargon, so that they become unrecognizable as issues involving people. But good journalism can restore the human dimension and make us see these problems not in terms of cold statistics but of people and their sufferings."

ADB is dedicated to reducing poverty in the Asia and Pacific region through pro-poor sustainable economic growth, social development, and good governance. Established in 1966, it is owned by 63 members - 45 from the region. In 2003, it approved loans and technical assistance worth US$6.1 billion and US$177 million, respectively. In 2003, it approved loans and technical assistance worth US$6.1 billion and US$177 million, respectively, of which $179 million in loans and $8.6 million in technical assistance were for Viet Nam.

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