RiffReporter illustrates how innovative tech solutions from Africa can help achieve the SDGs

Their project “Lessons from Africa” aimed to create a balance in the media's coverage of Africa in Germany, which mainly prioritises negative stories, by showcasing technical solutions from African entrepreneurs that help solve problems related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With an international community set up specifically for this project, they also discussed the question of what Germany can learn from the solutions presented. They published a total of 12  articles in German and translated these into English and French.

About the news outlet:

• Founded in 2017, RiffReporter is based in Bremen, Germany. It is a cooperative with a reach of 230.000 monthly visitors on their webpage (according to 2023 data).
• RiffReporter aims to support freelance journalists by publishing their articles on topics that are neglected by other media. That is why they operate as a cooperative, embodying the ethos reflected in the name "Reef Reporters”: because reefs are exciting ecosystems, diverse, lively, colourful and cooperative. Similarly, RiffReporter defines its work as profound, qualified and diverse. All members of the cooperative are professional freelance journalists who work not only in Germany but worldwide.
• RiffReporter employs 8 staff members and unites over 100 freelance journalists in their cooperative.

About the project:

Why did you decide to embark on this solutions journalism journey? i.e., why did you apply for the grant and what were your original expectations?

We did it for several reasons. 

First of all, it was a great opportunity to try out how Solutions Journalism works for us: Would our readers like these types of stories? How would the articles perform on our webpage? Would we be able to sell these stories to other media outlets? Since we published a series of 12 articles thanks to the grant, we were able to measure the impact in terms of reach, revenue and syndication content (and it turned out to be successful!)

Secondly, we really appreciated the mentorship programme that comes with the grant. Our journalists are freelancers who usually work on their own. But the exchange, learning from and with others and further training possibilities in general, are so important to ensure quality as well as motivation – and that is what we really want to offer our members of the cooperative.

Last but not least, the grant gave our journalists the opportunity to follow and investigate stories in Africa. Journalistic travel was a rarity, especially after the pandemic, so being able to investigate on-site was something we were looking for, too.

Which under-reported subjects and which different angles of already-reported concepts did you aim for in your projects? Have you succeeded in doing so?

Two things were important to us in the project. On the one hand, we wanted to positively expand the German view of African countries by showing creative and innovative tech entrepreneurs. However, we didn't just “show” the solutions, we discussed them in a German-African community to strengthen and improve mutual understanding. On the other hand, we always ask: What can we in Germany learn from these solutions? Regarding digitalisation, Germany is lagging far behind internationally. That's why we wanted to present digital solutions in the project that could be of interest to Germany. In this way, we wanted the German audience to understand how much we still have to work on solutions regarding the SGDs here.

In what ways has the grant impacted your reporting and contributed to amplifying voices and solutions from the Global South?

Our network includes several journalists who are committed to reporting from the Global South, and the grant allowed us to support the work of these colleagues.

Thanks to the grant, we were also able to build an international community: we brought entrepreneurs from Africa in contact with various people from Germany and discussed issues from our texts with them. This exchange both helped our journalists with their research in Africa and enriched our community members with a change of perspective.

How did applying solutions journalism affect your newsroom and team? 

Since we took part in the Solutions Journalism Accelerator programme, we have been working continuously on various projects  in which we publish more solutions-oriented stories. Directly after the grant, we pursued solutions in the field of climate change and biodiversity with our project "Countdown Earth".

So, we can say that the change of perspective has done us good throughout the team. However, honestly, it wasn't always easy to get all colleagues on board with the method as not everyone was open to the idea right from the start. it wasn't always easy to get all colleagues on board with the method as not everyone was open to the idea right from the start. I think it helped that we also integrated a mentoring programme into our follow-up project “Countdown Earth” in order to train more colleagues. So that's also something we have learned from the Accelerator programme and have continued to implement.

Did solutions journalism change engagement with your audience in any way? How were the solutions journalism stories perceived by your audience?

The biggest change is that we and our journalists are asking our audience much more about what interests them and what we should research now. As a result, there is more exchange.

Besides, we did get some really nice feedback from our readers about the SoJo stories. What we heard a lot was: “thanks for the change in perspective”. Looking at things and ideas that have a positive impact is something that people need to endure all the negative news of the day. Because solutions stories can give hope and hope is urgently needed, especially in times of crisis. So that is also one of the reasons why we are continuing with it.

What challenges did you encounter and how did you address them?

We faced a number of different challenges, with two standing out:

• We knew from the beginning that it would be challenging to manage an international community like the one we did with the project. As three languages were spoken in this community (EN, DE, FR), there was a lot of coordination and translation work involved which meant that managing such a community was a lot of work! Doing justice to all the people from different cultures and, at the same time helping the journalists with their research was a lot. It was also very informative, but we would do a lot of things differently next time. For example, we would hire a community manager who would be solely responsible for support and for communicating information between the community and the journalists. Next time, we would only set up a monolingual community (multilingualism is simply more of a challenge). And it is also helpful to work with local communities: this strengthens commitment and engagement. 
• Another challenge was finding the right solutions for our stories. Some entrepreneurs were unwilling to talk to the media for various reasons that were not always communicated to us. For example, some companies were worried about being scrutinised too much - would critical questions arise? Others were in a sensitive phase of their start-up and were therefore unsure whether the reporting was good for them.Overcoming these concerns required a lot of time, commitment, trust and perseverance.

What insights or lessons did you gain from this project? 

Thanks to the project, we have learned a lot about solutions journalism, what our journalists think about it, and how our readers appreciate this method. We have learned that it can help to support underestimated topics and that it also helps us to find new interesting stories that can motivate us and our readers.

To what extent do you plan to continue or expand your solutions journalism reporting practices beyond the grant period?

We have already continued with our solutions journalism practice right away with another project on biodiversity and climate change. In our opinion, it is necessary to show solutions in these big crises when we really want to change something. For this work and effort, we are now nominated for the Neumarkter Lammsbräu Award for Sustainability and one of our solutions stories of this second project received the Constructive World Award 2024. We think this proves the necessity for solutions reporting in this area and it also shows the positive impact solutions journalism can have in a media outlet.

 What advice would you give to other journalists or organisations interested in pursuing solutions journalism reporting on issues related to the Global South?

Take your time to find the right stories! Although we had planned everything down to the smallest detail at the beginning of the project, we had to adjust our plans several times and find a plan B - C - D - etc.

We thought that our entrepreneurs would be happy if they got the chance to participate in the project but there were various reasons why some of them distrusted the journalistic coverage and withdrew their cooperation during the course of the project. As trust is a big issue, we recommend working with local journalists. It really helps to get the necessary insights for the stories.

Anything else you would like to mention? 

What we also really appreciated about the programme were the bootcamps organised by the EJC. They were really helpful in understanding solutions journalism, so we learned a lot. It was also inspiring to get to know the other projects and colleagues. Network meetings like this can be really empowering. Even if it sometimes seems difficult to free up time for such appointments, we can advise everyone: take the chance, it's worth it!

About the programme:

The Solutions Journalism Accelerator is a programme by the European Journalism Centre (EJC) in partnership with the Solutions Journalism Network delivering grant funding to support solutions-focused development journalism in European news organisations. The programme is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

For the purpose of this programme, we define solutions journalism as a practice that investigates and explains, in a critical and clear-eyed way, how people try to solve widely shared problems.

While journalists usually define news as ‘what’s gone wrong’, solutions journalism tries to expand this notion by emphasising that ‘what works’ is also newsworthy. By adding rigorous, evidence-based coverage of solutions, journalists can tell the whole story.

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