Surge Africa x One World Media Climate Reporting Gap Fellowship (Up to £5k)

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About Surge Africa x One World Media Climate Reporting Gap Fellowship

Surge Africa and One World Media have partnered to run a new Fellowship focused on climate and energy transition stories in Nigeria.

Are you a Nigerian journalist passionate about making complex climate issues accessible and relevant to your community? One World Media, in partnership with Surge Africa, is thrilled to launch a new opportunity as part of The Climate Reporting Gap Initiative.

Across Nigeria, the impacts of climate change are increasingly visible — from rising heat and water scarcity to the complexities of the energy transition. Yet, local stories that connect these challenges to people’s daily lives often remain underreported. That’s where the Climate Reporting Gap Fellowship comes in.

This new initiative will support six Nigerian journalists to report original stories on climate finance and energy transition through inclusive, data-driven and community-centred reporting. Whether you’re drawn to print, audio, video, or multimedia reporting, this Fellowship is designed to enable you to produce compelling, solutions-focused journalism that resonates at the local and regional level.

The Fellowship will offer in-depth training and support, to help guide the projects editorially and practically.

What kind of stories?

They're looking for stories on climate change and energy transition in Nigeria, and in the region.

This includes stories on transition minerals, mining of these minerals, energy access and diplomacy, covered with a sense of accountability, credibility, and urgency.

Stories can examine the economic landscape from the lens of phasing out of fossil fuels, governance of transition minerals, decentralizing energy systems, eradicating energy poverty, and building structures to enable transition to take root.

Proposals should align with following goals:

• Reality On Ground: For oil producing nations like Nigeria, the majority of the population cannot fathom a thriving economy without oil; we seek to change this perception. In an effort to create constructive awareness about the climate crisis, projects should amplify grassroots voices, uncovering the real cost of the transition and how it relates to social and economic dynamics.
• Data Driven Reporting: We’re looking for reporting that uses data as evidence to build arguments, and utilises climate science and case-studies, including real life experiences across Nigeria and beyond.
• Coverage on Challenges and Solutions: We want to see journalism that center local struggles at the heart of climate news and media. This provides opportunities for local solutions to emerge, and for the people to see their demands and calls to action take center stage.
• Political Accountability: We want to see real actions being taken by the government at all levels, to ensure that policy documents translate into meaningful actions. Through unpacking the diplomacy of climate finance and uncovering the politics of energy transition, such reporting will also create an urgency and highlight the need for transparency.

How does the Fellowship work?

The Fellowship will offer in-depth training and mentoring, to help guide the projects editorially and practically. Fellows will take part in an in-person training in Nigeria, and online workshops through the programme, as well as a trip to Colombia for a curated training on participatory reporting by our partner organisation, Mutante. 

All projects will have an assigned mentor, and Fellows will be asked to join regular check-ins, as they work towards delivery milestones.

Projects grants will vary between £3-5k, and will be disbursed in instalments.

The final outputs for the Fellowship can be in any format, in text, video or audio, and we’re open to well-developed proposals with creative approaches in multimedia storytelling. We encourage data visualisation, illustration, animation, interactive and alternative formats.

Proposed articles must be up to 2000 words, audio pieces up to 30 minutes, and films up to 10 minutes.

All projects must be completed by June 2026.

• Sponsor Organisation: One World Media

Benefits of Surge Africa x One World Media Climate Reporting Gap Fellowship

• Up to £5k funding for their reporting
• One-to-one mentoring
• In-depth training, in person and online
• Industry workshops, including safety, impact, and pitching
• Training trip to Colombia, South America
• Global promotion of all media pieces by project partners
• Membership of the OWM global alumni network 

Surge Africa x One World Media Climate Reporting Gap Fellowship Requirements

• Journalists and filmmakers from Nigeria, and reporting in Nigeria.
• They're looking for mid-career and experienced applicants, with at least 3-5 years experience in their field.
• Applicants don’t need to have a background in climate finance, but an interest in telling stories about the climate crisis and energy transitions, and a strong background in journalism and/or their chosen medium.
• They're particularly keen to hear creative proposals that cover an underreported story, or hear from people who are often unheard and offer unexpected or rare access.

Application Date and Process

Apply Here

Application Deadline

20 August, 2025

Scholarship Application Portal

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