WAMECA 2023: Call for entries

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is calling for entries for the 7th edition of the West Africa Media Excellence Conference and Awards (WAMECA).

WAMECA 2023 will be held from October 19 – 21 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 honor 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 West African, working with and for a media organization (s) based in the sub-region.

An entry for the Awards must have been published or broadcast between the period January 1 to December 31, 2022.

WAMECA 2023 will honor outstanding works of journalism in West Africa in the following categories:

• Human Rights Reporting
• Investigative Reporting
• Anti-Corruption Reporting
• Environmental Reporting
• Health Reporting
• Telecoms and ICTs Reporting
• Business and SMEs Reporting
• Migration Reporting
• Women Empowerment Reporting
• Oil and Gas Reporting

The deadline for the submission of the entries is on June 30, 2023, at 17.00 GMT. Finalists for WAMECA 2023 Awards will be announced on October 3, 2023.

Interested applicants should upload published works via the entry form on the website: www.mfwa.org/wameca. The entry should be an original work published through a media outlet in West Africa and must show the date of publication/broadcast and the medium in which the work was published. Applicants may submit entries to a maximum of two categories. For each category, a maximum of two entries is permitted.

Winners of the various categories will be announced at the West Africa Media Excellence Awards on October 21 in Accra where the awards ceremony will be held.

Below are the important dates:

• Opening of Entries – May 3, 2023
• Deadline for submission of entries: June 30, 2023
• Assessment of entries and selection of finalists:  August 1-September 30, 2023
• Announcement of finalists: October 3, 2023
• Conference: October 19 -20, 2023
• Awards Night: October 21, 2023

Make your submission here.

For more information, visit www.mfwa.org/wameca or email us at wameca[@]mfwa.org or call the MFWA on +233 302 -555327