Ruona Meyer

Africa initiative manager Solutions Journalism Network

Ruona Meyer is a journalist, researcher and media trainer with over 19 years of experience across Africa, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. She specialises in solutions journalism training and DEI consultancy for Africa-focused grants and donor organizations. Ruona currently manages the Africa Initiative at the Solutions Journalism Network, coordinating multilingual training, reporting and advocacy of the solutions approach across 40 newsrooms in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. The programme has reached over 940 journalists, student journalists and lecturers in newsrooms and universities across the target countries, as well as bespoke partnerships with media nonprofits across the continent that have delivered solutions journalism training curriculum for climate reporting, marginalized populations, environmental reporting, peace and security reporting, and gender-based violence.

In 2013, Ruona was awarded Investigative Journalist of the Year by the Wole Soyinka Center for investigative Journalism. In 2018, she was commissioned by the BBC to work on investigations into pharmaceutical drug cartels in Nigeria. Her television documentary Sweet Sweet Codeine was nominated for an Emmy in 2019. This was the first time a Nigerian film and the BBC World Service production was nominated for the United States' most prestigious television award. With bylines also in the Financial Times of London, and Deutsche Welle, Ruona has worked since 2020 as a freelance Editor for Netherlands-based ZAM magazine's Africa investigations desk, coordinating investigations in Liberia, Nigeria, Malawi, and Zimbabwe; she recently began reporting on sociopolitical issues for Germany-based RiffReporter.

Ruona is currently a PhD scholar at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. Her thesis explores the construct of power dynamics within transcontinental investigative journalism networks. She also serves as Visiting Senior Research Associate, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicines at King's College London, UK and as a Board Member, New Media Advocacy Programme, New York, USA.

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