Journalists Enter Water Debate Via ADB Workshops
January 2006
When it comes to the topic of water in Asia, there's no shortage of story ideas for journalists — the December 2004 tsunami and its aftermath, chemical spills, water shortages and reforms.
To help improve coverage of the sector, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been hosting workshops for journalists on water issues. Since the first regional workshop in Phnom Penh in February 2003, more than 400 journalists have participated in 12 national workshops and one regional workshop in nine countries across Asia and the Pacific. A second regional workshop will open in February 5-7 in Bangkok, Thailand.
The goal of the workshops is clear — to increase journalists' understanding of and interest in water issues and to improve the quality of their reporting. Armed with knowledge, they can use their influential positions to educate audiences on the complexities of water and the importance of water sector reform.
"Influencing one Chinese journalist can lead to hundreds of thousands of readers having a better understanding of water," said Wang Yao, an editor of the Chinese newspaper Quingnian Cankao. He attended the Beijing workshop.
WORKSHOPS TEST POSITIVE FOR IMPACT
The workshops, typically three or four days long, provide a model for projects, organizations and sectors interested in advocacy work with the mass media.
A recent independent evaluation of the ADB journalism workshops found that more than 85 percent of the workshop attendees surveyed said that the workshop had improved their understanding of water issues. Of these, 67.5 percent said the workshops improved their ability to write about water issues by "a lot."
On the question of increased coverage, one-third said coverage had increased "a lot" at their media outlets and almost 57 percent said it improved "a little." The survey also found that 23 percent said they had written more than 10 articles since attending the workshops and 14% had written 6 to 10 articles.
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A MODEL FOR MEDIA-BASED ADVOCACY
Advocacy workshops are not a platform for individual organizations to publicize their activities and key messages. When misused in this way, the workshops are discredited as propaganda, which journalists have an understandable aversion to. Rather, media workshops should be a fora where all voices and opinions on water issues are aired. This is consistent with the professional duty of journalists to understand and report all sides of an issue.
After attending one of the workshops in Pakistan, a television journalists said, "From irrigation to urban water supply to large dams, ADB's workshop has helped to connect me with the country's leading water experts. I am planning to do a documentary on water issues in the near future, and the workshop ensured that I knew all the right people to talk to. It was a unique opportunity to hear both sides of the debate on water for a change."
In addition to doing that, though, they also must make sense of the issue for readers. For that, they need straight-forward information, which workshops can provide.
Water is a complex issue. It is nuanced by the varying needs and situations of urban and rural water supplies, sanitation, floods, dams, management principles, policy, etc. And because no country's water problems and solutions are the same, ADB journalism workshops have tailored the content, speakers and approach of the workshops for each country.
On attending a workshop in Central Asia, one senior magazine editor said it was "an excellent opportunity to more deeply understand water problems in the region and make a contribution to solving them."
To experience water issues at first hand, workshop journalists have taken a half-day field trip to such venues as the world famous Dujiangyan Irrigation Scheme in Sichuan province, PRC, Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan, Satrameel Watershed Management Project in Pakistan and the UNESCO Flood Mitigation Programme in East Jakarta.
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HEALTHY DEBATES
A variety of presenters have allowed dynamic discussions at the workshops. Journalists have heard from farmers, private and public sector managers and executives, academics, residents from urban slums, government officials and the NGOs.
At the first workshop in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in February 2003, journalists listened to representatives of the private and public sector discussed what they thought was the best way to provide water in Asia's cities. The speakers were Ek Sonn Chan, General Manager of the government-owned, Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority, one of the most successful water utilities in Asia, and Sherisa Nuesa, Chief Financial Officer of Manila Water Company, a private sector concessionaire and supplier of drinking water to 5.1 million residents in metro Manila.
The public versus private debate, however, rendered remarkably similar positions from the two sides, proving to journalists that the debate is not necessarily as polarized as what the public has been led to believe in the past.
At the Delhi workshop in February 2004, journalists listened to presentations and discussed large water infrastructure projects — a particularly contentious subject in India because of a controversial proposal to interlink India's major rivers, creating the largest man-made water network in the world. Again, the workshops presented views from both sides of the debate, with Former Secretary for Water Resources Dr. Ramaswamy P. Iyer providing the arguments against and M. Gopalakrishnan, Secretary General of International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage arguing in favour.
Other workshop speakers, which number 130 total, have included:
- Bernard Lafrogne, a senior executive of Pam Lyonnaise, argued for a more faire and equitable tariff structure in Jakarta;
- Bunker Roy, founder of the Barefoot College in Rajastan, delivered a stirring presentation on why Indian women be allowed to manage their water resources;
- And the vice minister for water resources in Viet Nam, who provided a passionate overview of the water challenges facing his country.
"I have been a journalist for 13 years but have rarely attended a workshop full of so much information and with so many diverse expert opinions," said a print journalist who attended the Pakistan workshop. "Water is a core political issue in Sindh, where I come from, and the workshop will certainly help me in writing on water in the future."
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ANOTHER REGIONAL WORKSHOP ROUND
A second regional workshop February 5-7 in Bangkok, Thailand, will gather past participants and showcase the work they have done since and provide them with best practices within water sectors in other countries.
The workshop is also a time for participants to network with journalists from other countries and learn how they can contribute article to the Asia Water Wire, an online news source about water. Asia Water Wire is funded partly by ADB and managed by Inter Press Service, an international news organization that reports issues about poverty and development.
Journalists at the Bangkok regional workshop will also be briefed on the 4th World Water Forum in March 2006 in Mexico City.
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