Development policy for journalists — application round open for Development Academy of autumn 2020

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs will organise an induction course into development policy and development cooperation for journalists (Development Academy) in autumn 2020. The Development Academy 2020, which is to be held in September-November, will focus on topical multilateral cooperation. Applications will be accepted from 29 May to 18 June 2020.

The Development Academy, which is now organised for the 11th time, is a course that familiarises journalists to development policy and development cooperation. The objective is to deepen the participants' knowledge of global development issues and to inform them of Finland's development policy and development cooperation as a whole.

This time, special emphasis will be placed on multilateral cooperation and the international community's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The course will consist of three short seminar days in Helsinki and a 4–5-day field trip to Geneva, where the participants will learn about such UN agencies as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The International Red Cross Movement and several agencies specialising in trade and development have their headquarters in Geneva, too.

The seminar days will be held in September–October, and the visit to Geneva will take place at the end of October or at the beginning of November. The visit to Geneva will be made if the coronavirus situation allows travel abroad; the timetable and programme will be finalised in August.

The Ministry will select 10–12 journalists from different media to participate in the course. The selection will be made by the Department for Communications of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and applicants will be informed of the decision by early August.

Those selected to the course must be able to attend the whole programme. The working languages will be Finnish and English.

If you are interested in the course, please fill in the application form (Link to another website.) (Opens New Window)and send it online by Thursday 18 June 2020. You can answer the questions in Finnish, Swedish or English, but the course will be mainly in Finnish. However, the programme during the possible visit to Geneva requires a good command of English.

Application instructions for the Development Academy (pdf)

Inquiries: Ruut Tolonen, Communications Officer, tel. +358 295 351 5404, firstname.lastname@formin.fi