Deadline: May 20, 2021
Applications are open for the CiFAR Investigative Journalism Program 2021. The program aims to support journalists from West Africa and Europe in developing stories that are more in-depth and more cross-regional than ever before. You’ll spend five days in a comprehensive online training, learning and improving your skills in investigative journalism with a focus on financial crime by public officials.
Following that, you’ll benefit from individual sessions to explore further some of the workshop topics and, depending on the situation, they will convene investigative journalism camps to jointly develop stories. Teams will be able to pitch for funding to develop their stories and attend further networking and training events. Along with senior regional and international journalists, they’ll also support you to develop your stories through a mentor and pitch those stories for publication.
Program Details
- Five days of intensive online training program with expert trainers throughout summer 2021 covering:
- Financial crime and cross-border corruption
- Anti-corruption and asset recovery legal and policy frameworks
- Reading financial documents
- Asset recovery
- Investigative journalism 101
- Specificities of investigating financial crime by public figures
- Story-telling techniques
- Online databases and digital tools
- Safety and security in investigations
- Further short Individual training sessions on related topics
- Participation in a three-day investigative journalism camp in West Africa in Fall 2021 (pending developments of the Coronavirus pandemic)
- Remote Mentoring by CiFAR, CENOZO and international and local senior journalists to develop your story with your peers
- Limited grants to conduct and publish your cross-border story with peer trainees and mentors
- Support to conduct further investigations in the future and to attend international investigative journalism events relevant to your career development.
Cost
Accepted participants will have their costs covered for the entire program. These include:
- All training costs
- Participation in regional workshops in West Africa: return flight, visa fees, accommodation costs, local travel and meal allowance and COVID-19-related costs (pending confirmation of events due to ongoing Coronavirus pandemic)
- Limited grants for team story development
- Limited grants to attend relevant investigative journalism events
Eligibility
- Applicant should be an early to mid-career journalist (3-10 years experience);
- Excited to move into or expand your experience in financial investigative work;
- National or resident of Ghana, Liberia, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger; EU, the UK or Switzerland;
- Committed to work on exposing grand corruption and illicit financial flows from your country, flows of corrupt wealth into your country and on the processes for recovering stolen wealth;
- Interested in working as part of a cross-border team with others like you;
- Able to commit to a 5 days online workshop, individual online sessions throughout the following months, as well as a 3 days work camp in West Africa in Fall 2021;
- Commitment to dedicate time and energy on a story with your peers after the training phase and to bring a joint story to publication by February 2022;
- You speak and understand English and/or French to a working level.
Application
Please note that the information you provide in the form will be treated in respect of the relevant data protection and confidentiality regulations, including the German DSVGO and GDPR. They will delete the data you provided after completion of the selection process.
For more information, visit CiFAR.
