Patrick Mayoyo is a Kenyan investigative reporter and environmental enthusiast. His submission consists of important and complex environmental stories: how Kenyan villagers are using carbon credits and indigenous knowledge to fight the effects of climate change; and the environmental impact of the shift in Tectonic plates linked to rising water levels in the Rift Valley lakes region of Africa. His stories highlight deforestation and the destruction of the Mau Forest ecosystem as a major contributor to massive flooding. Mayoyo’s work is characterized by a combination of vivid on-the-ground reporting, supplemented by relevant scientific analysis and UN reports.

Stephanie Fillion, a Canadian journalist specializing in international affairs and based at the UN. Her reporting dealt with ways in which the Security Council addressed the issue of climate change. One of the articles consisted of an astute analysis of the political factors impacting the Security Council agenda regarding climate change. The other considered the critical need of the Security Council to prepare to address “climate-induced wars-conflicts” caused by the impact of climate change.

Stephanie Maupas, a freelance journalist working for the French Daily Le Monde and other media, reports on international justice issues and has published around 1000 articles on the work of UN tribunals since 1997. In her winning 2021 UNCA Awards entry, Stephanie followed the work of a little-known UN operation in Baghdad, where a high-tech UN specialized team uses all available tools to expose and document the evidence of Jihadist mass crimes committed in Iraq between 2014 and 2017, when the so-called Islamic State was trying to exist as a real state.

James Bays covers global diplomacy, defense, and development issues and is based in New York. In his 2021 winning entry, James described how he traveled with a UN convoy through Afghanistan and especially the Bamiyan region after the Taliban takeover. He met Afghans fleeing their homes and villages in search of survival, food and security. James witnessed thousands of internally displaced Afghans arriving in Bamiyan following intense fighting in surrounding provinces in July 2021. More than 300,000 Afghans were displaced by fighting across Afghanistan.

Uzmi Athar, a senior reporter at India’s main news agency, provides in-depth coverage of the pandemic’s impacts on diverse layers of society in a huge country caught unprepared by the fast-spreading virus. She interviewed Indian government officials, as well as international organizations involved in the struggle to contain the pandemic. The advice given by these officials helped local authorities to improve mid-day meals for school children, understand the links between malnutrition and diseases, and train local health workers to deliver life-saving vaccines to children in remote areas.