OneWorld Features - Sweden

Journalists questioning a Senegalese government official in Dakar.

Image by OneWorld

The need

Swedish citizens rely primarily on national and regional media to learn about developing countries. Their assessment of what issues are globally important is determined by what the media covers and their attitudes are shaped by how the media presents those issues.

But the global financial crisis has led to reductions in the number of overseas correspondents, limiting the range of views and voices from developing countries in Swedish media. These limitations reduce Swedish citizens’ understanding about the real impact of development and their ability to take informed decisions about how best to support Swedish development aid and policies.

What is OneWorld Features?

OneWorld has therefore launched its ‘OneWorld Features’ service in Sweden. This unique newswire supports the Swedish media’s coverage of international development topics. We facilitate the creation and publication of high-quality development-focused stories in mainstream media outlets in Sweden, produced by developing-country journalists.

These stories highlight the perspectives of under-reported poor and marginalised people, in particular girls and women, who are often the most excluded in society and invisible in the media. OneWorld is also working with media outlets to explore effective methods of linking stories to national debates on development, using innovative online platforms.

OneWorld provides mentoring for these journalists so they can produce high-quality articles, photography and footage to fit the standards of Swedish media. The local journalists write the stories, take the pictures, and shoot the videos – OneWorld translates and contextualises for a Swedish audience.

By 2016, OneWorld seeks to have created a sustainable relationship between local journalists and photographers in developing countries and Swedish media houses to ensure their perspectives and voices continue to reach the Swedish public.

Supported by:

Funding for the project has been provided by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida.

More info:

The latest articles published and some of our top journalists are listed on the OneWorld Features project website.

Click here to download the project brief.

Contact: jeffrey.allen@oneworld.org