28 February 2019 | Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan – A one-day intensive training on raising awareness of national journalists covering food security and nutrition-related matters was held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The training program was initiated and developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in close cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Industry and Melioration of the Kyrgyz Republic, the “Roza Otunbayeva Initiative” International Public Foundation and the School of Data.

A total of 30 journalists from all over the country with expertise in agriculture, food security and nutrition who work for national and regional media outlets, including TV channels, radio stations and online and printed press, attended the training. The training covered a variety of themes, such as the use of food security and nutrition-related terminology and open-data sources, including FAOSTAT and FAO ESS database, interpreting respective data and presenting in a user-friendly and informative way. The training aimed at boosting journalists’ interest in reporting on food security and nutrition issues in the Kyrgyz Republic through their linkage with agriculture and food system. It also sought to build their capacities to look for and verify available information and data for fact-based reporting. A great deal of attention was paid to practical skills: working in groups as well as on their own, journalists were tasked to find specific food security and nutrition-related data in open source databases, interpret them and present the findings in a way suitable for the general audience’s understanding.

“Food security and nutrition are closely linked to health, agricultural production, poverty, climate change and other development issues, thus making it challenging to communicate food security and nutrition-related messages to the general audience in a simple way. It becomes especially complicated and to some extent sensitive when journalists write about hunger and undernourishment, stunting and obesity without referring to accurate terms and data,” - pointed the FAO Assistant Representative Dinara Rakhmanova. “In addition, another challenge to address while working with journalists is to ensure they understand that hunger and malnutrition are the effects of deep economic and social issues in a society and should be taken seriously as warning signs for structural transformations.”

The attending journalists expressed their interest in the area data-driven reporting on food security and nutrition-related matters and satisfaction with the selected training methods and the information provided. As the training unfolded, journalists’ growing interest could be observed with the increasing number of questions posed to experts and trainers from session to session. As a result of the training, a number of participants expressed their interest to produce data-based media materials on state of food security and nutrition in Kyrgyzstan.

This training is part of the awareness raising campaign in Kyrgyzstan under the FAO project “Developing Capacity for Strengthening Food Security and Nutrition in Selected Countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia”, funded by the Russian Federation. The project is to strategically mediate the challenges in the country and promote cross-sectoral collaboration by providing adequate capacity to effectively pursue and manage coherence between agriculture, nutrition, health, education and social protection sectors.