WSD19 post-campaign report: Overview and key results
A big thank you to all World Soil Day participants and event organizers! Your invaluable help was unique to promote worldwide awareness and action for healthy soils contributing to the #StopSoilErosion goal for a food secure future.
Since its official inception in 2013, the WSD communication campaign has quickly attracted attention. It has mobilised masses over the years, enlarging from a little-known occurrence with few events/countries celebrating it (8 countries – 8 events), to becoming a global network of more than 700 event organisers – from colleges and universities to activists, museums, entertainment industry and NGOs (100 countries – 553 events).
World Soil Day (WSD) 2019 ‘Stop soil erosion, Save our future’ celebrated in 100 countries consisting over 560 events across the world. To commemorate this day official ceremonies were held in Rome, New York, Tunis, Uppsala, Lisbon, Dhaka, Bangkok, and Sochi. Furthermore, thirty FAO regional, sub-regional and country offices actively supported the campaign and organised celebrations (look at the WSD interactive map).
Media coverage was strong - reaching 653 million users - roughly 1 in 10 persons worldwide. Over 300 online articles covered the campaign on 5 December with most coverage coming from China, the United States, Italy, and Thailand. Broadcasters such as BBC, NDTV.com and Al Jazeera extensively covered WSD 2019’s yearly theme.
Major outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Huff Post, CNN World, Times of India, Sidney Morning Herald, the Telegraph, da Spiegel, le Monde Diplomatique, Corriere della Sera gave prominence to soil on and beyond 5 December (see more here).
The campaign material, translated in 15 languages, was widely disseminated, used and shared, as confirmed by the ever-increasing popularity of the query ‘World Soil Day’ on Google Trends. The World Soil Day logo is now available for download in 91 languages.
The web story on soil erosion, published on the FAO homepage received 11 500 views on WSD while the dedicated website doubled its views compared to 2018 with over 150 000 sessions on 5 December. Since the campaign launch in September 2019, FAO soil-related websites totalized around 1.5 million views.
Related links: