Overview of the Quality of the Submissions

Now I'd like to say a little more about the quality of the work submitted -- by journalists from right across the Asia region -- and then I'd like to offer a few ideas as to how journalists might wish to shape their entries for future awards.

Two of the categories in which submissions impressed us most were those of " Inclusive Social Development" and "Pro-poor Sustainable Growth." Some of the entries in these groups brought home in a dramatic way the terrible problems of grinding poverty, disease, lack of even primitive sanitation, inadequate schooling facilities and other problems that confront poor people in many parts of developing Asia.

I think this competition has reminded us that good journalism can make people aware of the human dimensions of development in a way that official reports can never hope to do.

Development issues are often cloaked in official jargon, so that they become unrecognizable as issues involving people. But good journalism can restore the human dimension and make us see these problems not in terms of cold statistics but of people and their sufferings.

As my fellow judge Yoshio Murakami says " We were encouraged after reading at firsthand our fellow journalists' work. As long as such people -- the journalists -- are there,” he said, "the condition of Asian developing countries will surely continue to improve."

I want to mention a few examples of the excellent and quite literally "down to earth" reporting that many entries contained. Most of us -- certainly those of us living here in Tokyo -- take for granted good toilet facilities. It perhaps never occurs to us that there are places in Asia where poor people have to queue every day for long periods in order to use a solitary village toilet, or where women need to use the most primitive of outdoor toilet facilities before sunrise in the morning or after dark at night so that they can retain even a minimal degree of privacy.

We who are used to having modern and comfortable schoolrooms perhaps never realize that there are children in parts of rural China and perhaps elsewhere who receive their lessons whilst standing all day on their feet in drafty and primitive schoolrooms -- for want of desks and chairs or proper premises.

The problem of HIV-AIDS is by no means unique to the developing world but the sufferings that victims of this disease endure where there is also poverty and deprivation are all the more terrible.

Discrimination against women, against ethnic groups and against social outcasts are again not confined to the developing world. But this kind of victimization is all the more hard to endure when it is combined with severe poverty.

Then there is the problem of environmental degradation in developing nations of Asia and elsewhere. As our entrants reminded us -- pollution and environmental degradation can destroy people's health and also their livelihoods. The poor have little recourse to the legal and other safeguards that exist in advanced nations.

The pillaging of forests, the destruction of water resources and other kinds of environmental vandalism are so much harder to check where the wealthy are powerful and where government is weak or corrupt, or both.

So much for the problems that our journalists brought to our attention. But what of the more positive side of development.

Here too, many of the articles submitted provided very good reading. There were inspiring accounts of people -- ordinary, and often poor, people -- fighting courageously against the problems of poverty and deprivation.

There was, for example, the case of a woman in China who began, single-handed, a scheme to collect small sums of money regularly from other village people, in order to provide seed capital for starting simple enterprise. This has helped to lift them out of their situation of absolute poverty and hopelessness.

There were people who fought to build roads virtually with their bare hands so they could transport their produce to market, people who strove to convert their slum dwellings into something that allowed them to attain at least a minimum degree of comfort and self-respect. And there were people who were brave enough to stand up to corrupt officials, and those who sought to destroy their environment in pursuit of financial gain.

Many of the journalists were brave too. They risked the wrath of politicians, officials and wealthy power barons in seeking to "tell it like it is." I want to congratulate them and I also want to congratulate the ADBI -- Peter McCawley in particular -- for having the imagination and also the courage to promote an awards scheme of this kind.

This initiative reminds Asian journalists that they are not alone in their struggle, and it offers them recognition and prestige in front of their peers while giving them a strong incentive to continue their investigative mission.

Having said all this, I would now like to quote again from comments offered to me by my fellow judge, Murakami -san. “Digging out the real story is essential,” he said, “but good investigative journalism demands that journalists should always try to get both sides of the story. This is essential for balance and it also helps to ensure that those who would like to stifle the press cannot claim that reporting is biased or 'one-sided'."

Many entrants for the awards scheme did try to achieve this kind of fair and balanced reporting but we judges would like to see a little more effort made in this direction in future competitions.

Now I would like to add a few concluding observations.