Voicing the consequences of climate change

IMS works with media partners in countries grappling with environmental degradation and climate change-related increases in natural disasters and extreme weather, supporting their work to inform and amplify the voices of those most acutely affected.

IMS helps to reinforce media’s role in tackling the climate and environmental emergency by using a bottom-up approach that builds on the long-term efforts of our partners. Our public interest media partners are deeply connected to the societal contexts they navigate and the audiences they serve. We look to reinforce their efforts by supporting them in developing new content formats.

By bringing the expertise and experience of IMS partners engaged in accountability journalism in post-disaster contexts to public interest outlets that focus on climate accountability, we help strengthen our partners’ abilities to hold authorities and private entities accountable for environmental and climate wrongdoings. Meanwhile, reporting on the problems and consequences of the climate crisis can lead to climate fatigue and decreasing audiences. This makes it vital to support journalism that explores potential responses and solutions that can foster action and hope.

In recognition of this very real challenge, we work to support and upskill our partners in constructive journalism. Creating an enabling environment for climate journalism is as crucial as supporting our media partners in their content strategies, production and distribution. IMS pushes for decision makers and other key stakeholders to understand and recognise media’s pivotal role in covering the climate and environmental crisis and the directly-related importance of ensuring access to information.

Coalitions are central to creating a united front among democratic actors at both local and global levels as part of creating that enabling environment. We have expertise in facilitating collaborations between media and institutions such as universities, CSOs and thinktanks that lead to knowledge sharing, mitigating actions and communicating life-saving information on natural hazards, as well as exposing environmental crimes and malpractices.

Promoting collaboration between media partners on local, national and transnational levels is a means of managing the severe safety risks linked to reporting on climate and environmental issues, focusing on the safety and wellbeing of journalists and media workers, as well as the communities where the climate crisis is most keenly felt.

Philippine accountability network improves disaster emergency response

In December 2023, thousands were displaced following floods and landslides on Mindanao Island in the Philippines. During the extreme rainfall event, local journalists and women-led CSOs quickly shared time-sensitive information as part of the newly formed Caraga Accountability Network, which promotes transparency from local authorities during and after natural disasters. They were among the first to confirm data about the damage, the number of affected households and the urgent needs in Barangay Poblacion and Barangay Violanta of Loreto.

The accountability network was born out of the IMS supported post-disaster accountability journalism project with partner CSO Balay Mindanaw. On average, the Philippines experiences 20 typhoons a year, and climate change is exacerbating their intensity and resulting levels of destruction.

The network members relayed information to the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, which helped the local government design and implement an informed and context-sensitive emergency response. Following a request from the network about safe drinking water, Balay Mindanaw deployed a SkyHydrant water filtration unit to an area in need.

Radio Arta helps town during heatwave Somali radio improves food security

As temperatures soared to 40C, residents in the Kurdish town of Amuda in Syria’s northeast sweltered through a three-month summer electricity blackout. In 2023, Amuda faced a crippling electricity crisis due to factors like a broken generator, drought-induced low water levels impacting hydroelectricity production and devastating Turkish drone strikes targeting critical electricity infrastructure.

From April to July, residents endured extreme heat without fans or air conditioning and became increasingly frustrated with the local authorities’ inaction. IMS partner Radio Arta broadcast a story highlighting the dire effects: children suffered from dehydration and required hospital drips, while the blackouts jeopardised the health of elderly residents.

“All our food in the fridge has gone rotten. The other day I gave the meat to cats, and even the cats didn’t eat it,” one man told Radio Arta.

After the story was broadcast, electricity officials set up a temporary solution to bring in an alternative power supply for a few hours a day from elsewhere until a new generator could be sent to the affected neighbourhood.

“This neighbourhood has been without a generator for more than three months. The generators committee should be criticised for this. They did not coordinate with us. They should have informed the electricity centre, and we could have helped…The video report that you at Arta published a couple of days ago, I learned about the problem from that. I knew that the generator there was not working, but we didn’t know it’s been so long, three months,” an official said during an interview.

IMS has partnered with Radio Arta since 2012, providing financial support, editorial training and content monitoring services.

Somali radio improves food security

As severe drought conditions in Somalia caused vegetable prices to skyrocket, radio broadcasts on an innovative irrigation technique helped farmers overcome food shortages. Across its content-sharing network of 35 radio stations, IMS partner the Somali Media Association (SOMA) aired a radio programme on improving food security. The solutions-focused broadcast featured an irrigation expert discussing how digging wells in dry riverbeds can tap into groundwater resources that can be used for vegetable cultivation.

“I am a farmer, we depend on the river water, and when it dries up, our vegetable cultivation stops. It’s difficult because we depend on the harvest from our farms, sometimes we can’t get daily food,” Fadumo Hussein Yarow, a farmer from Afgoye town in Lower Shabelle region of Somalia told the Wadaag (“Sharing”) programme.

Parts of Somalia have long grappled with food insecurity, which conflict and climate change have exacerbated. Abdullahi Ali Jimale, a farmer from Basra village in Lower Shabelle, tried the well-digging method with other local farmers, which provided enough water to generate cash crop vegetables.

“We have no machines to dig the wells, we dug them with our hands, with handheld tools, that is why we needed 10 farmers to dig one place,” he said. “Our harvest now includes tomato, cucumber, onion, carrot, beetroot, chili and different kinds of beans.”

Radio to the rescue in cyclone-hit Yemen

Radio Seiyun broadcasters provided life-saving information to battered communities as Cyclone Tej bore down on Yemen in late October 2023. The station aired emergency hotline numbers and interviews with authorities urging people to stay home and avoid driving in flood waters because vehicles could be swept away. There were also warnings to fishers not to take out boats in the high winds. The coverage also publicised community responses and volunteer efforts to clean up storm damage.

“All this work and effort undoubtedly contributed to enhancing community caution and preparedness…reducing deaths,” Rashad Thabit from Radio Seiyun said.

Reporters in the field kept listeners updated on the situation in villages and highlighted shortages of supplies and safety issues. The broadcaster reported on aid convoys with food and supplies to the worst-hit areas.

“The radio acted as a watchdog over officials and as a guide and adviser to community members to avoid disaster risks,” Mohammed Bahamid from Radio Seiyun said.

There were at least six deaths and around 18,000 households affected, according to the UN. Cyclones in the Arabian Sea were previously infrequent, but according to NASA the shift could be caused by rising sea surface temperatures.

Radio Seiyun relaunched its website in 2023 to better target the needs of its audience, with guidance and financial support from IMS.

This article was originally published in the IMS Annual Report 2023.