The IDB announced today that applications are now being accepted for an online course for journalists in Latin America and the Caribbean aimed at helping them cover the issue of urban development in the region. The course, offered by the IDB along with the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) and administered and taught by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), will take place in October and November.

“Smart Cities: Covering Urban Development in Latin America and the Caribbean” will include a six-week online course in Spanish, Portuguese and English for up to 60 journalists about urban development in Latin America, followed by a five-day fellowship in Washington, D.C., for the program’s most outstanding participants. Journalists in Latin America and the Caribbean are welcome to apply.

Participants will learn how to cover issues that affect urban planning and development, such as transportation, natural disasters, citizen security and infrastructure. The online course will include guest speakers and instructive videos on the topic. The journalists’ work will emphasize story production. Under the terms of their participation, all selected journalists will produce and publish news reports, feature stories, videos, photos and multimedia.

Journalists who complete the course and publish stories on the subject will receive a certificate of course completion.

A committee chaired by the ICFJ will select a small number of participants who produced the best stories to travel to Washington, D.C. in early 2014 for the IDB-IAPA fellowship. During this five-day fellowship, ICFJ will work with the IDB-IAPA fellows to develop further multimedia-rich reports and expand their knowledge on the program’s selected topic through meetings with experts from a variety of organizations, including the IDB. The fellowship also will provide an introduction to data journalism to cover development issues.

Latin America and the Caribbean is the world’s second-most urbanized region, with 82 percent of its citizens living in cities. Over the past 30 years, millions of people migrated to the region’s biggest urban centers because that is where the most jobs were. But in many cases, their great numbers overwhelmed the transportation, housing and public safety infrastructure. Today, it is medium-size cities that are growing fast – in some cases, two to three times as fast as the region’s megacities.

The course is aimed at helping journalists answer the question: What can be done to make sure that all of Latin America’s cities, big and small, develop in an orderly fashion, providing adequate services to citizens?

Deadline to apply: Oct. 9
Dates for online course: Oct. 28-Dec. 9.

Original news story published by the Inter American Development Bank here.