Introduction

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Let me say right at the outset that we three judges -- Suvendrini Kakuchi, Yoshio Murakami and myself -- were each very impressed by the overall high standard of entries for this, the first of the ADBI "Developing Asia Journalism Awards." There were more than 250 individual stories submitted by a total of 89 entrants from most of the ADB member countries. More than a half of these were women and the average age of the entrants was between 30 and 35 years. That in itself was impressive.

We were all the more impressed, I think, because the competition was launched at relatively short notice and, quite honestly, we were not sure how many entries we could expect -- or what the standard of those entries would be would be.

Nor did we know how well the journalists’ submissions would fit into the categories set for the awards on this occasion.

So, we kept an open mind and looked for examples of good investigate reporting and analysis that would cast new light on aspects of economic and social development. We looked for what I would call "substance" rather than polished writing -- although much of the writing was in fact of high quality -- and, of course, we did not penalize anyone whose English came out less than perfect in translation.

There was a strong degree of consensus among the judges when it came to the final choice of award winners and we decided in several cases to make what we called "honorable mentions" of certain entrants’ work, where the standard of entries was very close.

Our only regret is that journalists from the Pacific Islands were under-represented -- and so there is no award in that category this year.