Action for Transparency (A4T) Project grant winners

The data and investigative journalism training held by Transparency International, Code for Africa and USIU, has borne fruit.

10 Kenyan journalists have been awarded grants to work on investigative pieces by Transparency International Kenya.

Code for Africa partnered with Transparency International Kenya
(TI-Kenya) through the Action for Transparency(A4T) Project and with
United States International University (USIU)-Africa to conduct training for journalists in Nairobi from 29th November to 1st December 2017.

Participants during the training//Photo Credits: Antonio Longangi

The project sought to conduct a training of 45 mainstream, citizen, and freelance journalists, journalism students and bloggers in investigative and data Journalism. This training aimed at widening the participants’ skills and knowledge in understanding Kenyan budgetary processes (Health and Education) and to train them on how to access, assess and communicate information about government budgets and spending, and suspected mismanagement and corruption and on citizens’ rights to education and health care.

Participants were facilitated by a world-class panel of trainers including — Catherine Gicheru; Code for Kenya Lead, Dr. Wandia M. Njoya; Pan-African writer and lecturer at Daystar University, John-Allan Namu; Investigative journalist with Africa Uncensored, Lilian Nduati; Knowledge and Engagement Lead Code for Africa, Chris Orwa; Head of Data Science, Brave Venture Labs, Tricia Govindasamy; StoryLab Academy Trainer at Code for Africa, Henry Omusundi Maina; Director, ARTICLE 19 East & Horn of Africa, Kirsten Milhahn; documentary journalist and foreign correspondent, Pamela Sittoni; Managing Editor at The East African, Isaiah K. Cherutich; lecturer at USUI-Africa, Maria Arnal Canudo; Digital communication expert, Barbara Among; Journalist at Daily Monitor and Nation Media Group.

“This project entails empowering journalists, to track suspected corruption through a combination of ICT-tools and community engagement strategies as a new way of holding government accountable.” said Sheila Masinde, TI-Kenya’s Programmes Manager.

The grant-winners and the projects they are working on are:

• Iqra Salah, Freelance Journalist — Investigating MDR-TB around Eastleigh area
• Julius Otieno, Journalist at The Star Kenya— Investigating corruption at a public hospital
• Osman Mohamed, Freelance Journalist — Investigating cases of misdiagnosis in hospitals
• Joe Kobuthi, Freelance Journalist — Investigating how water cartels and/or broken-down infrastructure has brought about cholera outbreaks
• Diana Kendi, Freelance Journalist— Investigating whether maternity care is free in hospitals and the arising caveat that all those wishing to access free maternity care must be registered with NHIF
• Daniel Muteti, Journalist — Investigating corruption in use of CDF funds
• Stellar Murumba, Project Manager at Code for Kenya and formerly of the Business Daily— Investigating contamination in water used in schools, health centres and public
• Sarah Nanjala , Journalist at Hope FM— Investigating state of sanitation in public primary schools
• Amina Mbuthia, — Investigating corruption in disbursement of funds to schools
• Brian Obuya, KTN reporter — Investigating corruption in NHIF payments.

THE PARTNERS

Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest federation of data journalism and civic technology laboratories, with labs in four countries and affiliates in a further six countries. CfA manages the $1m/year innovateAFRICA.fund and $500,000/year impactAFRICA.fund, as well as key digital democracy resources such as the openAFRICA.net data portal and the GotToVote.cc election toolkit. CfA’s labs also incubate a series of trendsetting initiatives, including the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in East Africa, the continental africanDRONEnetwork, and the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR) that spearheaded Panama Papers probes across the continent.CfA is an initiative of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).

Google News Lab empowers the creation of media that improves people’s lives. It’s mission is to collaborate with journalists and entrepreneurs everywhere to build the future of media with Google. It does this through product partnerships, media trainings, and programs that foster the development of the news industry as a whole. Google began its support for digital and data journalism in Africa in 2010 through intensive workshops and continues to offer newsroom-targeted trainings. It also supported innovateAFRICA’s predecessor, the African News Innovation Challenge, in 2012.

The World Bank Global Media Development Programme helps the media leverage digital technologies to strengthen its role as a driver of good governance. In Africa, this has included support for data-driven journalism training starting in 2011, as part of efforts to improve the media’s analytical capacity. The World Bank also works with African governments to help make data for decisionmaking on development and economic issues more easily available to citizens and the media. The World Bank’s support has included co-funding for the SudanData.orgto build statistical capacity and data literacy amongst journalists, as well as support for the HURUmap initiative to make census and demographic data more easily available to African newsrooms.