Promoting Freedom of Expression in Central Asia

• Eligibility Criteria:
  – DRL welcomes applications from U.S.-based and foreign-based non-profit organisations/non-governmental organisations (NGO) and public international organisations; private, public, or state institutions of higher education; and for-profit organisations or businesses.
• Type of funding: Programmatic
• Target countries: Central Asia
• Application language: English

The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) announces an open competition for organizations interested in submitting applications for projects that support Freedom of Expression in Central Asia.

DRL seeks programs that would work with a cadre of journalists and media professionals from across Central Asia to increase media coverage of regional water issues from a balanced, investigative, science-based perspective of the mutual necessity for the proper management of water, a shrinking and shared resource.

Successful applicants will provide journalists and media professionals with the tools to report stories that outline each Central Asian country’s individual water resource requirements and perspectives, while at the same time, report on how each countries’ role in managing water impacts the other and the region as a whole.

DRL’s goal is to increase the amount of relevant, balanced, and reliable information available to citizens’, advocacy groups, and policymakers’ so they can strengthen regional cooperation, and contribute to the development of a shared vision among stakeholders on sustainable water management and environmental protection.

Program outcomes could include:

• Journalists are better equipped to use scientific reports and data in their environmental reporting in a way that is understandable to their audiences;
• Journalists and editorial staff are better able to understand and represent in their domestic reporting on environmental and political complexities regarding water issues and their impact on their country and their Central Asian neighbors;
• A regional network of journalists that are better equipped cover this important regional issue;
• Local media independently produce quality and diversified journalism for different new media platforms and audiences of different generations; and offer more qualified coverage and reporting on environmental topics of importance to the local population.

Proposals should have elements of conflict-sensitive reporting, so as not to further inflame tensions over shared resources, but by reporting from a position of mutual understanding and how this issue is one that impacts the region as a whole.

All programs should aim to have impact that leads to reforms and have the potential for sustainability beyond DRL resources.

See here to learn more and apply.

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