The United Nations Correspondents Association is pleased to announce the winners of the 2017 UNCA Awards.
On Friday December 15, 2017 the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) will award the winners of the 22nd Annual UNCA Awards for the best print, broadcast and electronic media coverage of the United Nations, U.N. agencies and field operations. The Dinner and Awards this year will take place at Cipriani 55 Wall Street in New York. Guest of Honor, UN Secretary-General H.E. António Guterres will deliver prizes. UNHCR Special Envoy, Angelina Jolie will be awarded as recipient of the 2017 UNCA Global Citizen of the Year.
(Note: Biographies provided by the journalists themselves will be included in the next update.)
The Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize
for written media
sponsored by The Alexander Bodini Foundation
Elizabeth Neuffer, the Boston Globe bureau chief at the United Nations, died while on assignment in Baghdad in 2003. She was a model journalist who proved throughout her career that objectivity does not have to mean neutrality. She was passionate, courageous and compassionate, drawing attention to the forgotten places in the world and to the overlooked victims of war. She explored the forces that can ignite fratricidal and genocidal conflict and her work helped inspire the movement that led to the creation of the International Criminal Court. Personally, her colleagues in UNCA treasure her for her inveterate good humour, which counterbalanced her deadly serious explorations of the darker sides of modern history.
Gold Medal Winner
Arison Tamfu
Daily Reporter, Cameroon
Arison is a multi-award winning journalist based in Cameroon who currently works as an investigative reporter for Daily Reporter for Cameroon. The government in Cameroon has shut down the internet and sealed the country, where fighting inflicted civilian casualties that went mostly unreported. Investigative reporter Arison Tamfu vividly wrote about the daily plight of Cameroon’s people while journalists risked their lives covering the war.
Joint Silver Medal Winners
Jared Ferrie
IRIN
Jared oversees IRIN’s coverage of Asia and climate change. He has worked with Reuters in Myanmar and Bloomberg in South Sudan. He has a Masters of Journalism from the University of British Columbia. The outcry from the severe humanitarian crisis affecting Myanmar’s minority Rohingya has prompted rights groups to demand action from governments. Their calls became more urgent in late 2017 when Myanmar’s military launched counterinsurgency operations.
Gregory Scruggs
Citiscope/Thomson Reuters Foundation
Gregory writes about urban issues and has reported from 20+ countries. As UN correspondent for Citiscope, he covered the global debate leading to the Habitat III conference on cities in October 2016. Urbanization issues from New York City streets to the least developed countries are a priority for governments. Gregory Scruggs demonstrates that problems encountered by policymakers in the US can be the same in an African city and that solutions are found when people meet to adopt coherent urban strategies.
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Bronze Medal Winner
Michele Bertelli
Freelance, Italy
Michele Bertelli has written reports from Bolivia, Peru, Italy and the United Kingdom, focusing on development, human rights and migration. Since 2014 he has been focusing on multimedia formats. Michele describes the EU’s program to welcome Syrian refugees as they fled their war-ravaged country. The Italian government has made extra efforts to accommodate the most vulnerable families among the refugees that include newborn, sick children, disabled and elderly people.
The Ricardo Ortega Memorial Prize
for broadcast media
sponsored by H.E. Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser
Ricardo Ortega, formerly the New York correspondent for Antena 3 TV of Spain, was one of the leading Spanish journalists of his generation. His determination to bear witness first hand to what was happening around the world took him to dozens of countries. His war reporting from Afghani- stan, Chechnya, Yugoslavia and Georgia was especially notable and he had a reputation for honesty, independence, determination and courage shown, for example, by his skeptical coverage of the evidence for Iraqi WMD’s presented to UN. He was killed by gunfire while covering Haiti on March 2004.
Gold Medal Winner
Francois Rihouay
France 24
Francois has been covering security, peacekeeping and political instability issues in Mali and in the wider Sahel region since 2012, which led him to explore the traumatic consequences of war. The Canadian freelancer reports on the fight against ISIS and Al Quaida in Timbuktu, Mali, using various case studies to tell ordinary people’s stories, from a female human rights activist interacting with a victim of rape from UN peacekeepers, and a Muslin leader facing death threats.
Silver Medal Winner
Rosiland Jordan
Al Jazeera English
Rosiland Jordan is the UN Correspondent for Al Jazeera English. She previously covered the State Department and the Pentagon for AJE, as well as the White House for NBC News and Tribune. In Somalia’s Baidoa known as a city of death, Rosiland Jordan provides powerful reports on refugees and the population facing drought and famine, resulting in a humanitarian crisis that has affected a politically wrought country after decades of conflict.
Bronze Medal Winner
Paul Shalala
ZNBC, Zambia
Paul is a journalist with 9 years experience in print, television and online media. He is a TV reporter at Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation and reports on politics, governance and developmental issues. Paul Shalala brings out the rarely told story of three mining towns in Zambia severely affected by pollution. It’s a stark visual depiction of affected communities in their own voices, supported by positive efforts to address the environment and economic activities.
The Prince Albert II of Monaco and UNCA Global Prize
for coverage of Climate Change
The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation strives to act as an accelerator of projects and solutions for the environment. It promotes sustainable and equitable management of natural resources and places the individual at the center of its projects. It encourages the implementation of innovative and ethical solutions in three main areas: climate change, biodiversity and water.
Gold Medal Winner
Somini Sengupta
The New York Times
Somini has reported from some two dozen countries, written a book about India and now writes about the United Nations and the global issues it addresses: war, peace, gender equality, migration etc. Rich and powerful-on-the ground reporting on the relatively neglected topic of the impact of climate change on migration, as opposed to the better understood political factors driving migration. The article is part of an 8-part New York Times series on “Carbon’s Casualties.”
Joint Silver Medal Winners
Kait Bolongaro
The Guardian
Kait is a freelance reporter whose work has been published by Al-Jazeera English, BBC, The Guardian, Politico Europe. With her co-author Hangwei Li, she reported on polluted rivers in Asia and the effects of climate change on the environment and focused on international tourism in China.
Hangwei Li
co-author, The Guardian
Hangwei Li is a Chinese journalist and researcher. Her work has been published in International media, including the Guardian and the Financial Times. She is the founder of Sino-Africa Watch, a media platform and think tank on China-Africa issues. With her co-author Kait Bolongaro, she reported on polluted rivers in Asia and the effects of climate change on the environment and focused on international tourism in China.
Joint Bronze Medal Winners
Lucydalia Baca Castellón
Diario La Prensa, Nicaragua
For eleven years Lucydalia has been covering political and economic issues. In the last five, agricultural sector, climate change and its effects on the production of food and the future of crops, has been her focus. The reports go beyond the usual alarms about climate change to indicate that specific, concrete steps can and will be taken to mitigate the challenges to agriculture caused by climate change.
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Lyndal Rowlands
Freelance
Lyndal is a freelance journalist and UN correspondent from Australia. She has written for Al Jazeera, Discovery Education, IPS and the Saturday Paper and conducted research for the ABC (Australia). Lyndal’s report focuses on the UN Oceans Conference and focuses on small-island states that play an important but often overlooked role as the “guardians of the oceans.” Her work demonstrates the important contributions a freelance reporter can make by focusing on the UN and climate change.
The UNCA International Prize
for print and broadcast media for coverage of humanitarian and development activities of the United Nations
Joint Gold Medal Winners
Marc Ellison
Huffington Post
marc Ellison is an award-winning freelance video and photojournalist currently based in Scotland. He has produced work from across Africa for outlets such as 60 Minutes, Al Jazeera and Huff Post. With his co-author Didier Kassai, he spent time with kids affected by poverty and war, but their presentation was unorthodox and innovative, bringing home to new audiences what life is like for those growing up in conflict zones.
Didier Kassai
co-author, Huffington Post
Didier Kassai is a self-taught illustrator, who first started to draw with charcoal on the walls and floors of his family home in Sibut. Didier has also produced work for Arte TV (France). He was named a “Knight of Arts and Letters” by France in 2016. With his co-author Marc Ellison, he spent time with kids affected by poverty and war, but their presentation was unorthodox and innovative, bringing home to new audiences what life is like for those growing up in conflict zones.
Silver Medal Winner
Azad Essa
Al Jazeera English
Azad Essa is a journalist at Al Jazeera, covering politics, development and consequences of conflict in Africa. He is the author of “The Moslems are Coming” (Harper Collins India, 2013). The article written by Azad gives an in-depth, well-rounded analysis of peacekeeping activities and the traumatic effects on the victims the peacekeepers are there to assist. The article was published in August 2017, and backed by such media revelations, the UN Secretary General has been able to take additional measures to reform peacekeeping and address sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), such as USG Jane Holl Lutte’s reforms on SEA implemented throughout 2017.
Bronze Medal Winner
Laura Angela Bagnetto
Radio France Internationale (RFI)
Laura has worked as a radio/web reporter for Radio France Internationale since 2008. She covers African politics & development; stories as varied as elections, refugees, to drought coverage in Somaliland & Niger. Her radio and written dispatches from the ground in Chad, which brought together the human element with the political, depicted the harsh reality of daily survival for thousands of Nigerians and other refugees who escaped Islamist militant violence.
