By Enock Sithole
Non-governmental organisations (NGO) are increasingly stepping in to train journalists in climate change reporting across Africa, filling a gap left by universities and journalism schools that have yet to systematically incorporate the subject into their curricula.
In Mozambique, Mídia Lab’s senior media expert, Yuri Nota, says civil society organisations are playing a growing role in equipping reporters with the skills needed to cover one of the continent’s most pressing challenges.
Spearheaded by Mídia Lab, the pilot project will entail training and mentoring community radio journalists from 10 stations. They will attend seminars and workshops to learn about various aspects of climate change journalism and will be mentored to produce climate change stories in their stations for a period of 12 months.
A similar project was launched in South Africa, last month, where climate NGO Fossil Free South Africa began a “new mentorship-driven fellowship aimed at strengthening climate change reporting in South Africa has been launched by Fossil Free South Africa (FFSA), in response to what its founders describe as a ‘dire’ state of climate journalism in the country”.
Speaking in an interview with AJENda, Nota said the initiative reflects a broader recognition that climate change is affecting Mozambican communities but remains underreported in the country’s media. “Many journalists want to report on climate issues, but they often lack the training or confidence to do so,” he said. The training project is financed by the Embassy of Belgium in Mozambique.
In Mozambique, these initiatives have included workshops that bring together journalists to learn about environmental governance, natural resource management and investigative reporting techniques related to climate and environmental crimes as well as the energy transition.
Such efforts are particularly important in a country highly exposed to climate impacts. Mozambique has been repeatedly hit by devastating cyclones, floods and droughts in recent years, making climate change an increasingly urgent issue for the media to cover.
Mídia Lab’s fellowship in climate change journalism will emphasise practical reporting skills rather than purely scientific knowledge, said Nota. I will focus on helping journalists understand issues such as land use, extractive industries, deforestation and disaster resilience — topics that intersect with governance and social justice.
Yuri Nota, at work, putting climate change journalism fellows through their paces.
Mídia Lad recently hosted a conference to explore how investigative journalism can expose environmental crimes such as illegal mining, deforestation and pollution. These activities are designed to strengthen accountability and transparency around natural resource management.
Focus on inclusion
Nota indicated that “for us, climate reporting should not only be accurate, locally grounded and accessible, but also inclusive. This is important because climate-related challenges do not affect all people in the same way. Women, young people, persons with disabilities, rural communities and other groups that are often underrepresented in public discourse may experience these impacts differently, and their voices need to be meaningfully reflected in journalism”.
He added: “In our approach, inclusion is not treated as an optional addition, but as part of the quality and public value of climate journalism itself. We are trying to ensure this in practical ways through the strategies we are implementing. These include being intentional in the selection of participants for the training, so that different social groups are represented.”
The training also encourages journalists to diversify their sources beyond officials and experts, in order to include the lived experiences of affected communities, thus promoting the use of accessible language and, where possible, local languages so that climate issues can be better understood by wider audiences, he added.
Mídia Lab, said Yota, will produce six television episodes for it’s SAÚDE & VIDA VERDE, Portuguese for Heath & Green Life programme that will be produced by journalists with disabilities from TV Surdo. “This is one of the ways we are trying to ensure that inclusion is reflected not only in principle, but also in actual content production and representation,” said Nota.
“We are also encouraging a more community-centred reporting approach, so that climate stories are not framed only around policy or technical discussions, but also around everyday realities such as food security, water access, livelihoods, mobility, resilience and adaptation. In that sense, inclusion also means asking who is visible in the story, who is heard, who is left out, and whether the final reporting is genuinely useful to the communities most affected,” he added.
Given the fact that most climate change terms are often in western languages the challenge to translate them into local indigenous language so that climate stories can be understood by local communities. The fellowship in Mozambique deals with this challenge by approaching the issue as “not just a linguistic translation, but the conceptual translation to explain climate change in ways that make sense within local knowledge systems,” said Nota.
“We always make sure that they understand and they (the trainee journalists) can find the local words that can be understood by the community. This is the big it’s a challenge. But I think that this training shows us that we need to make some more effort in on this issue. I think the mentorship will reinforce that, and maybe we will also learn from the trainees because they have experience on the issue because they report on other issues (that are translated from western languages), he added.
A continental movement
Across Africa, the shortage of specialised climate journalism training is widely acknowledged. Surveys show that relatively few journalists receive dedicated training on climate reporting despite growing concern about the crisis.
In one global survey conducted by the International Federation of Journalists, less than 6% of journalists said they had access to specialised climate reporting training, even though more than 80% expressed concern about climate change.
This gap has led NGOs, foundations and civil society organisations to launch fellowships, workshops and training programmes aimed at strengthening environmental journalism.
The fellowship projects in Mozambique and South Africa reflect a wider trend across Africa, where civil society organisations are stepping in to build climate reporting capacity.
For example, workshops organised by media development groups and journalism organisations have trained African reporters in data journalism, climate science basics and storytelling techniques to improve coverage of climate change, said a report in Power Shift Africa.
Another initiative, a continent-wide climate reporting programme launched by media organisations and development partners, provides online courses, reporting grants and in-person training to journalists seeking to improve their understanding of climate issues.
Such programmes highlight the growing demand for climate journalism skills among African reporters.
As climate change intensifies across Africa, the demand for well-informed reporting is likely to grow. For journalists in Mozambique and beyond, the challenge will be turning that demand into sustained coverage that holds governments and industries accountable while telling the human stories behind the climate crisis.
Enock Sithole is a FFSA initiative mentor.