March 2026: TGNP convened a series of intensive media trainings in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands under the Her Resilience, Our Planet (HROP) initiative—marking a significant step toward transforming how climate change stories are told in Tanzania. Between March 20 and 25, 2026, the TGNP trained 51 journalists (22F, 29M) from community radio, national newspapers, blogs, and online TV across Iringa, Njombe, and Mbeya, equipping them with practical skills to produce gender-responsive reporting that amplifies the often-overlooked impacts of climate change on women and youth, particularly in agriculture.
Impact by the Numbers: A Shift in Competency
The training yielded immediate and transformative results, effectively bridging critical knowledge gaps in gender-responsive climate journalism. Following the intensive training sessions, there was a 60 per cent increase in technical competency regarding the intersection of gender and climate change. Furthermore, participants’ understanding of how local customs and traditions influence climate reporting rose from 30 per cent to 90 per cent, demonstrating a newfound ability to recognise and report on the localised social drivers of environmental impact.
Beyond theoretical knowledge, the training achieved a remarkable boost in professional self-efficacy and commitment to action. Before the sessions, only 60 per cent of the journalists felt confident reporting on these complex issues; however, post-evaluation results showed that ALL participants possessed a high level of confidence in their reporting abilities. Despite only 30 per cent having previous experience in climate-gender writing, the session concluded with 100 per cent of participants committing to concrete action plans.
This shift from baseline uncertainty to a unified commitment to gender-sensitive reporting, including providing “free media spaces”, ensures that the journalists in these regions are able to amplify the voices of women & youth within the agricultural and food systems.
Njombe in 23 March 2026.
Voices from the Field
“I have learned how to effectively utilise media platforms to champion ecological agriculture, ensuring sustainable farming practices are prioritised in our reporting.” —Godi Mlwilo, ICE FM Njombe
“I am now committed to ensuring gender balance in my work. I have learned the importance of diversifying my sources so both men and women are heard in every story.” —Tukuswiga, Makutano TV Iringa
“This training has been eye-opening; I now fully recognise the transformative power of the media in dismantling deep-seated misconceptions and shifting public perception toward gender equality and climate resilience.” — Happy Yohana, Hammah Radio, in Mbarari Mbeya
Key Lessons & Innovations
The HROP media training sessions provided invaluable insights into how gender-responsive climate journalism can be successfully nurtured at the grassroots level.
1. The Power of Localised Content: The development of a Swahili Media Training Guideline was a cornerstone of the project’s success. By translating complex climate jargon into Swahili, TGNP removed significant language barriers, making the intersection of gender and environmental change accessible and practical for community journalists to relay to their audiences.
2. Field-Centered Training for Maximum Inclusion By moving the training directly to Iringa, Njombe, and Mbeya—rather than hosting a centralised event in a major city—TGNP achieved significantly higher participation rates. This “mobile” approach ensured that journalists from small, community-based outlets, who often lack travel budgets, could attend and benefit.
3. Peer-to-Peer Learning as a Catalyst Interactive methodologies proved far more effective than traditional lectures. Through group presentations and the sharing of personal reporting stories, journalists felt a deeper sense of ownership. This peer-driven interaction directly motivated participants to commit to their individual action plans.
4. Safety as a Core Pillar of Climate Journalism A critical revelation during the sessions was that reporting on climate change is often inextricably linked to sensitive issues like land rights and resource scarcity. Future initiatives must treat journalist safety and digital security as core curriculum components rather than secondary topics.
5. Strategic Mapping for Targeted Impact The preliminary mapping of media houses ensured that the “right” practitioners were in the room. By identifying outlets with verified reach in specific project sites, TGNP ensured that the training’s impact would translate directly into better information access for the project’s primary beneficiaries.
6. Digital Platforms for Long-Term Sustainability While community radio remains the dominant information source in rural Tanzania, the growing influence of Online TV and Blogs is undeniable. Integrating digital media practitioners into the training expanded the HROP project’s reach to a younger, more tech-savvy demographic, ensuring the message resonates across generations.
The “Last-Mile” Challenge: A major hurdle identified was the lack of field-reporting budgets, which often keeps journalists confined to urban centers and leaves rural climate impacts under-reported.
Strategic Recommendations and Way Forward
To ensure the sustained impact of the HROP initiative and strengthen gender-responsive climate reporting across the target regions, the following actions are recommended:
- Institutionalise Continuous Capacity Strengthening: TGNP should transition from isolated workshops to a structured, periodic training program (e.g., quarterly or biannual). This curriculum should incorporate advanced modules, peer-to-peer learning, and experience-sharing forums to reinforce technical skills and track professional growth across radio, TV, print, and digital platforms.
- Establish a Media Production and Field Support Fund: To bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and published content, a dedicated facilitation fund is required. This fund should provide small grants to support journalists in:
- Producing in-depth, investigative gender and climate features.
- Offsetting field reporting costs in remote, rural communities.
- Facilitating the airing or publishing of high-impact content in underserved areas.
- Producing and broadcasting series of radio programs on gender and climate issues.
- Strengthen Safety and Ethical Reporting Protocols: Given the sensitivity of issues such as land rights and water scarcity, TGNP should develop and disseminate practical safety guidelines. These must include risk assessment tools, safe storytelling techniques to protect vulnerable sources, and established institutional support mechanisms for journalists who may face threats.
- Implement Result Based Engagement and Monitoring: Future training opportunities should prioritise journalists who demonstrate active implementation of previous action plans. By introducing a light monitoring system to track story production and community impact, TGNP can ensure that capacity-building investments yield tangible media outputs.
- Expand Multi-Platform and Community Centered Engagement: Journalists should be empowered to utilise a strategic mix of traditional and digital media—including podcasts, WhatsApp, and blogs—to amplify the voices of women and youth. Special emphasis should be placed on interactive, grassroots formats such as radio call-ins and community storytelling to foster direct dialogue and feedback.
- Build a Regional Network of Practices: A formal media network should be established across Iringa, Njombe, and Mbeya. This community of practice will enable journalists to share story leads, collaborate on cross-regional climate reporting, and maintain professional momentum beyond the immediate project cycle.
- Link Media Outputs to Policy Advocacy: To ensure reporting contributes to structural change, media content must be integrated into broader advocacy efforts. This involves strategically sharing impactful stories with local decision-makers and utilising media outputs as evidence-based tools during community forums and policy dialogues.
Her Resilience, Our Planet (HROP)
HROP is the six-year initiative (September 23, 2024 to March 31, 2030), funded by Global Affairs Canada and implemented by CARE International (Tanzania and Canada) in partnership with Worldwide Fund (WWF) for Nature Tanzania and four local partners including SAGCOT Centre Ltd (SCL), Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP), Shahidi Wa Maji (SwM), and Conservation Farming Unit Tanzania (CFU).
The project responds to the escalating impacts of climate change on food security, economic stability and gender inequality in the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). This integrated and holistic climate resilience initiative deploys proven gender-responsive and climate-smart agriculture, nature-positive climate change adaptation and inclusive economic empowerment strategies to enhance the climate resilience of the most vulnerable food-insecure communities, particularly women and youth.
The HROP project is implemented in 300 villages from five District Councils of Kilolo, Iringa, Mufindi, Wanging’ombe and Mbarali, in three regions of Iringa, Mbeya and Njombe. The project is expected to directly reach 175,282 beneficiaries, out of which 70 per cent will be women and 30 per cent will be youth aged between 20-35 years. Project beneficiaries include small-scale farmers, agripreneurs, pastoralists, nature-positive enterprises, fisherfolks, market gatekeepers, and duty-bearers within and around the Great Ruaha River wetlands, grasslands, and forest ecosystems.
