The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is calling for entries for the 8th edition of the West Africa Media Excellence Conference and Awards (WAMECA).
WAMECA 2025 will be held from October 9 – 11 in Accra, Ghana, and will focus on the theme: Journalism and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in Africa.
The first two days of the event will be dedicated to discussing various topics under the theme, while the last day will be for the awards, which honours excellent and impactful works of journalism in West Africa.
Participants at this year’s event will deliberate on strategies for empowering African media to become robust advocates and watchdogs of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) initiatives, ensuring that such initiatives are inclusive and human-rights centred.
The Awards are open to journalists from print, electronic, and online media in Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone countries in West Africa. An applicant must be West African, working with and for a media organisation(s) based in the sub-region.
An entry for the Awards must have been published or broadcast between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024.
WAMECA 2025 will honour outstanding works of journalism in West Africa in the following categories:
- DPI/DPGs Reporting
- Human Rights Reporting
- Investigative Reporting
- Anti-Corruption Reporting
- Environmental Reporting
- Telecoms and ICTs Reporting
- Reporting on Illicit Financial Flows
- Extractive Sector Reporting
- Women Empowerment Reporting
The deadline for submitting entries is May 14, 2025, at 17:00 GMT. Finalists for the WAMECA 2025 Awards will be announced in the first week of September 2025.
Interested applicants should UPLOAD published works via the entry form on the WAMECA website: https://wameca.mfwa.org/call-for-entries/. The entry should be an original work published through a media outlet in West Africa and must show the date of publication/broadcast and the medium in which the work was published. Applicants may submit entries to a maximum of two categories. For each category, a maximum of two entries is permitted.
Winners of the categories will be announced at the West Africa Media Excellence Awards on October 11 in Accra, where the awards ceremony will be held.
Below are the important dates to note:
Opening of Entries – April 14, 2025
Deadline for submission of entries: May 14, 2025
Assessment of entries and selection of finalists: May 15- July 15, 2025
Announcement of finalists: First week of September 2025
Conference: October 09 -10, 2025
Awards Night: October 11, 2025
Make your submission here.
For more information, email us at wameca[@]mfwa.org or call the MFWA on +233 302 555327.
WAMECA is an initiative of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) to promote media excellence in the sub-region.