..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 16 March 2007
Press Release No: N/12/2007

Asia-Pacific MDG Awards Opened for Web-based Material

Bangkok (United Nations Information Services) -- The regulations for the Asia-Pacific Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Media Awards have been expanded to include internet based materials. Responding to requests from media networks, the organizers have decided to include internet based materials in the 1st MDG Media Awards, which honour outstanding reporting/writing on the MDGs in print, radio and TV.

The Awards are made possible through a tripartite initiative of the Bangkok-based UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the UN Development Programme (UNDP, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB); the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development acts as the Secretariat for the Awards.
The MDG Media Awards encourage journalists to put a human face to the MDGs in the region, demonstrating how stories about extreme poverty link to the MDGs. The Awards carry a prize of US$7,000 for first prize winners in each category, and a US$2,000 prize for runners up. Entries close 15 April 2007.

The competition is open to all print, radio and TV producers/journalists from public service broadcasting organizations, private networks and free-lance producers, and web-based news services covering the Asia and the Pacific.

Articles published on a web site fall within the print category. Videos published on a web site fall under the TV category. In both cases, web-based materials must be publicly available on the internet throughout the competition period (1 January 2006 to 30 June 2007). Any entrant can submit a maximum of two web-based articles and up to two web-based videos. Entries can be in English or the local language, with an accompanying English translation.

Web-based works are judged as-in, meaning as they appear on the web site. We will not accept DVDs or CD-ROMs with an off-line replication of a web site. Web-based works have to be live and on-line.

The MDG Media Awards assumes that any entered web-based work is authentic in all its parts: text, pictures, audio, video and other multimedia elements. Entries must be secured with signed authorization from the creator(s) (i.e. author and/or producer) as well as from the current owner of the intellectually property rights on the work (i.e. the employer).

Entries don’t have to cover all eight MDGs, but could focus on one. The range of content for the media awards is enormous. Suggested ideas include

• A person or family’s struggle to ease hunger and fight disease (MDG Goal 1)
• Success story of an AIDS victim and the role government, civil society and other institutions play into that family’s ordeal. (MDG Goal 6)
• Young peoples concerns with climate change and air quality (MDG Goal 7)
• A ‘day in the life’ of a rural child trying to obtain an education (MDG Goal 2)

Reference to the MDGs (whether one or all MDG Goals) in your content is mandatory.

We accept entries for broadcast in various formats, such as documentaries, special and feature reports, current affairs programme, dramas, or a series of ten-minute feature reports, etc. They should be at least 15 minutes long to give substance to the presentation of the topic. For print, formats can be a special report, feature and investigative piece.

Entry forms and contest rules are available on the following websites:
http://www.aibd.org.my/homepage/article.cgi/208.html
and www.mdgasiapacific.org

For more information about the MDGs in Asia-Pacific, please visit: www.mdgasiapacific.org

For more information on the Awards, please contact:
Mr. Jose Ma. G. Carlos, AIBD Programme Manager
Tel: (+60) 3 22822761 / 22823719
E-mail: joecarlos@aibd.org.my

For further queries regarding the UNESCAP/UNDP/ADB MDG Project, please contact:
Mr. Ravi Ratnayake, Director
Poverty and Development Division, UNESCAP
Tel: (+66) 2288 1902
E-mail: ratnayaker@un.org