Dhaka, 16 March 2022: Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) has organised a three-day long training workshop for journalists who work in reporting on climate change, disaster management, climate financing, and mitigation projects. The workshop, focusing on project monitoring and investigative journalism, was held at BCDM, Savar, from 13-15 March 2022 with 29 journalists from TV, newspapers, and online news portals.

On the first day of the workshop, Md. Mahfuzul Haque, TIB Programme Manager for Climate Finance Policy Integrity (CFPI), introduced the participants. In his session, he emphasised on the use of specialised language needed to report on the environment, climate change, climate financing, and disaster management. He also briefed journalists on TIB’s initiatives on establishing good governance in climate financing. In the second session, Deputy Managing Director of PKSF, Dr. Fazle Rabbi Sadeque Ahmed, explained adaptation, mitigation, and technology transfer on climate financing in international and local contexts. He also explained how climate projects are managed in Bangladesh and the challenges faced in project implementation, fund collection, and management.

On the following day, Professor Gowhar Naeem Wara, convener of the Disaster Forum,explained laws and policies related to climate change and financing while informing on climate projects related to floods, river erosion, cyclones, and disaster shelters, dam projects, forestation, agriculture and warning systems. In the second session of the day, the chief reporter of The Daily Star, Pinaki Roy, described how reports on the environment and climate financing could be prepared by collecting information from different sources.

The last day of the workshop focused on aspects and fields that have to be considered while preparing investigative reports on the environment and climate financing. The session conducted by Badruddoza Babu, head of the Investigative Journalism Help Desk, MRDI,focused on pragmatic reporting on climate financing and explained how information could be collected, organised and presented to the audience. In the group exercise, journalists were asked to plan what type of reports they wanted to prepare, following the guidelines given in the workshop for the following year.

The three-day workshop ended with TIB Executive Director Dr. Iftekharuzzaman awarding certificates to the participants. He said that journalists are vital members of the fight against corruption and expressed his gratitude for their hard work amidst all adversities.