2017 UNCA Awards Winners

UNCA Members UN Missions Join UNCA UNCA AWARDS Call For Submissions

Follow On:

CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE

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 print (including online media) coverage of the United Nations, UN agencies and field operations
sponsored by The Alexander Bodini Foundation

This prize is named in honor of 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 humor, which counterbalanced her deadly serious explorations of the darker sides of modern history.

Neuffer Gold Medal Recipient

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.

READ REPORT

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.

READ REPORT

Joint Silver Medal Winners

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.

READ REPORT 1
READ REPORT 2
READ REPORT 3

Neuffer Bronze Medal Recipient

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.

READ REPORT 1
READ REPORT 2

The Prince Albert II of Monaco & UNCA Global Prize

For print (including online media) and broadcast media (TV & Radio) coverage of Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Water

Since His accession to the Throne in 2005, Prince Albert II of Monaco has made sustainable development His priority. Through His personal leadership, he has committed to promote the well-being of vulnerable communities and the sustainable and equitable management of natural resources.

Prince Albert Gold Medal Recipient

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.

READ REPORT 1
READ REPORT 2

Prince Albert Silver Medal Recipient

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.

WATCH REPORT

Neuffer Bronze Medal Recipient

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.

WATCH REPORT

The Ricardo Ortega Memorial Prize

For broadcast media (TV & Radio) coverage of the United Nations, UN agencies and field operations

Sponsored by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC)

This prize is Named in honor of 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 Afghanistan, 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. Ricardo Ortega was killed by gunfire while covering Haiti on March 2004.

Ortega Gold Medal Recipient

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.”

READ REPORT

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.

READ REPORT

Joint Silver Medal Winners

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.

READ REPORT

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.

READ REPORT 1
READ REPORT 2
READ REPORT 3

Joint Bronze Medal Winners

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.

READ REPORT 1
READ REPORT 2
READ REPORT 3

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.

READ REPORT

Joint Gold Medal Winners

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.

READ REPORT

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.

READ REPORT

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.

READ REPORT 1
READ REPORT 2
READ REPORT 3

UNCA Awards Judges:

Antonio Carlucci (L’Espresso) Dr. Ralph Engelman (Professor of Journalism, Long Island University) Georges Leclere (LGMA) Ian Williams (Tribune London) Vanashree Govender (Media & Communications Professional South Africa).

Join Us

As the voice of the international press corps at the United Nations, UNCA continues to be a cornerstone of the global media landscape. Our members play a vital role in shaping the world’s understanding of key UN activities and global issues. Join us in promoting freedom of the press, access to information, and fair journalism worldwide.