Guide for submitting a news story to GEF IW:LEARN
In order to streamline the process and save time, watch this video explaining the details of writing an article for submission to GEF IW:LEARN.
Key guidelines for the article submissions:
- Make sure there’s a reason why we need to tell this story. Tell the story in a conversational way.
- Avoid ‘lists’ of programmatic accomplishments.
- Write in the active voice ("The ocean provides us livelihoods" instead of "Livelihoods are provided by the ocean") and avoid unnecessary acronyms and development jargon.
- Include links to support facts and figures and prioritize links that are to the GEF IW:LEARN website, GEF IW website, project reports and sources, your lead executing and/or executing agencies, and UN wide reports and sources.
- Maximum 800 words for full feature stories and blogs, and maximum 600 for short articles.
- Include some high-resolution photos with captions and credits.
Please note the photos cannot be a part of the text document, and will have to be sent as separate files (.png or .jpeg). - Include one high-resolution photo in landscape format that can be used as a header, including captions and credits (see previous stories for examples of this).
- A video from YouTube or Vimeo can be added to the story if desired (with link, caption and credits).
- If you have any website sources, include links as these will be hyperlinked.
- Keep the title short (maximum 7 words), concise and informative, as much as possible with no acronyms.
Download the GEF IW Project Story template.
If you need any help or guidance on your story’s structure, GEF IW:LEARN Communications Specialist (Khristine Custodio Gudczinski khristine@iwlearn.org) and Project Manager (Claudette Spiteri claudette@iwlearn.org) are available to advise.