Legal Tools for Citizen Empowerment: Land and Investment Media Training
On 25th March 2013, TNRF in collaboration with TMF conducted training to journalists with an aim of educating on the status of land, investment laws and policies in Tanzania so that they are conversant and can cover issues with authority. The training also covered on the component of investigative journalism.
It is hoped that the training will facilitate knowledge on the role of natural resources ability to generate income to the national economy through investments, mining and tourism but at the same time explore opportunities and challenges that land, investment laws and unclear and cumbersome natural resources laws, policies and investment laws pose to safeguard the environment, community livelihoods, investor interests and government interests. The participants shared some of their expectations from the training as shown below;
- To get trained on how to better report on Land issues in Tanzania
- To learn more on the land issues in Tanzania
- To get expertise on how to write good cover stories on land issues
- To learn more on land grabbing in Tanzania
Some examples on the issues discussed today at the training were; ongoing issues on land and investments, modality on investigative journalism on land based investments, sources of information and how get the correct and precise information to be shared with the general public.
The participants agreed that it is imperative that the media to be aware on land based investment and to understand how to get the knowledge which will help them document the facts on the ground.