Award for Journalism on Urban Policies, Sustainable Development & Climate Change (Latin America)

The award is dedicated to the memory of Tim Lopes, a Brazilian journalist murdered while doing research for a report on the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

Themes

• Journalistic reports should address topics such as:
  • Climate resilient communities and regions with low CO2 emissions
    • Notes on how to prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change through land use policies, urban planning, projects, strategies, and concrete help for communities and their residents to adapt to the inevitable impacts of environmental transformations.
    • Also about the care and use of water policies that can shape the built and natural environments to reduce the extent of climate change and help communities and natural systems to resist the impacts of a warmer climate.
  • Efficient and equitable tax systems
    • Reports that show how efficient and equitable tax systems work: they increase revenue while minimizing unintended consequences, and they impose obligations on taxpayers according to their means.
    • Articles on initiatives that use the land and property value tax systems to finance investments and vital public services to promote and improve civic wellbeing, social equity and the balance of urban growth committed to the environment.
  • Less poverty and spatial inequality
    • Newspaper articles published on initiatives that promote access to the resources and opportunities that communities and people need to prosper, especially those to which they have historically been left behind.
    • Social and tax policies that seek to be tools to fight against class oppression, segregation and unequal access to resources and opportunities.
  • Fiscally healthy regions and communities
    • Articles that show the relationship between access to basic public services clean water, sanitation, parks, schools, transportation and housing and well-functioning local governments with sufficient resources.
    • Notes illustrating how land policies contribute to municipal fiscal health in two important ways: through sustainable land-based revenues and equitable and productive land use decisions.
  • Sustainably managed soil and water resources
    • Published journalistic texts that show innovative initiatives and projects to promote soil and water conservation practices and policies, and research for the integrated administration of soil and water, natural resources that are the basis of civilization.
  • Functional land markets and reduction of informality
    • Articles on initiatives and projects that promote land markets that achieve an efficient and fair distribution of society’s scarce and limited land resources.
    • Notes on the use, regulation, development, valuation and taxation of land. Also articles on the effects of land use regulations, their good practices and mechanisms for returning territorial value to increase the supply of urbanized land and reduce informality.

Prize Information

• A first prize will be awarded in a single general category for any type of journalistic platform, such as a printed note, web note, podcast, audiovisual and the like.
• The first prize winner will receive three thousand US dollars.
• A second and third prize may be awarded, the winners of which will receive two thousand and one thousand US dollars, respectively.

Criteria

• Journalists can apply in their personal capacity, or as a research team (indicating a group coordinator), with one or more works originally published in the media, between January 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023, in any medium (print, digital, or audiovisual).
• Reports will be accepted as unique pieces, or as part of an informative series, within the indicated period.
• The notes must have been published in the media.
• Original books, academic articles or technical reports will not be accepted, nor will unpublished journalistic pieces be accepted.
• Contest participants will accept that their names and works may be published by the Lincoln Institute on its social networks and website with copyright accreditation if necessary.

For more information, visit Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.