Africa-Press – Lesotho. In an effort to scale up climate change reporting, the World Food Programme (WFP) together with the Lesotho Meteorological Services (LMS) and the Ministry of Forestry, Range and Soil Conservation facilitated a workshop for
News Editors starting from Monday to Wednesday this week. The workshop is part of WFP-supported project dubbed ‘Improving Adaptive Capacity of Vulnerable
and Food Insecure Population in Lesotho (IACOV). ’ LMS, acting Director, Mokoena France disclosed that the workshop is aimed to inspire editors to prioritise the subject of climate change in their
daily news agenda and to gather their views and opinions as main gatekeepers in news production on how best the media sector should be reformed to be a
reliable source of climate change and an icon for social change. France said the IACOV is intended to address the barriers of climate change adaptation by strengthening capacity of the Government of Lesotho on
early warning while ensuring optimal knowledge and utilization of climate information tailored for community needs. Addressing the participants, WFP Country Director Aurore Rusiga revealed
that research has shown that a quarter of Basotho is affected by climate change annually. She further pleaded with the news editors to be ambassadors of
climate change and to provide platforms for climate change dialogues in their respective media houses. The Minister of Energy and Meteorology, Hon. Mohapi Mohapinyane said Lesotho
is not immune to the negative effects of climate change as evidence shows that in recent years, the country has been experiencing an increasing frequency of
natural disasters resulting from erratic weather conditions such as drought, snowfall, hailstorms, strong winds, localised floods and early frost. The
government therefore, is fully aware of the important role of the media in promoting climate change adaptation as people need good information to make
effective decisions and most people get that information from the media. Mohapinyane concluded by revealing that amongst other issues, this news editors’ training will be addressing a topic on ‘why the media matters in a warming world: a guide to policy makers.
’ Present at the event were: Mohale’s Hoek District Administrator Bahlakoana Tšolo and WFP Project Manager Nkopo Matsepe.
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