The 2023 edition of the West Africa Media Excellence and Conference Awards (WAMECA) has been rescheduled from the earlier communicated date, October 19 – 20 to November 9 – 11.
However, it is to be noted that all activities in the original programme outline remain unchanged.
Consequently, WAMECA 2023 will be held in Accra, Ghana, and will focus on the theme: Media and Democracy in Africa.
The first two days of the event will be dedicated to discussing various topics under the theme while the last day will be for the annual awards, which honours excellent and impactful works of journalism in West Africa.
Participants in this year’s event will deliberate on the current democratic recession in Africa and come out with actionable recommendations to mobilize a continent-wide response to the rollback.
The awards are opened to journalists from print, electronic and online media in Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone countries in West Africa. An applicant must be a media practitioner working with and for a media organisation(s) based in the sub-region.
As of the close of the call for entries In July 2023, a total of 825 submissions had been received from journalists across West Africa, hoping to compete in the 2023 edition of the West Africa Media Excellence Awards.
The stories were submitted by entrants from some 402 media houses across 15 countries of the subregion, comprising Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone states.
The entries received, are for a total of ten categories, comprising Human Rights Reporting, Investigative Reporting, Anti-Corruption Reporting, Environmental Reporting and Health Reporting.
The rest are the Telecoms and ICTs Reporting, Business and SMEs Reporting, Migration Reporting, Women Empowerment Reporting and Oil and Gas Reporting categories.
“We have received some very great and impactful stories this year from the journalists in the region. What’s even more exciting is that we are seeing more entries from journalists in countries that previously filled little or no applications at all. We are looking forward to yet another celebration of journalism excellence in West Africa,” Kwaku Krobea Asante, Programme Officer of the MFWA, said.
WAMECA 2023 is the seventh edition of the annual event which commenced in 2017. Every year, the MFWA uses the WAMECA to put into focus issues of concern within the West African media and governance space.