TOKYO, Japan—For her “well-written, comprehensive and extra-ordinary articles,” BusinessMirror correspondent Imelda Visaya-Abaño bagged the Development Journalist of the Year Award in the Asian Development Bank Institute’s Developing Asia Journalism Awards (Daja) on Friday night.

Abaño, the first Filipino overall Daja winner since the awards’ inception in 2004, received a trophy and a certificate for her article on climate change in developing countries entitled “Scorched Earth” published on May 19, 2009, on the BusinessMirror’s Perspective Page.

“Among all the articles, the judges were very impressed with the way Abaño’s article presented the
complex issues on climate change. It was a comprehensive and extra-ordinary piece that was made simple for the readers to understand,” said Monzurul Huq, one of the four judges and the president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.

Abaño is one of the 22 finalists from some 200 journalists from developing Asia and the Pacific who submitted published articles written in 2008 or 2009 dealing with one of the following issues: Poverty impact of the global financial crisis; Government responses to the global financial crisis; Infrastructure development; and Climate change adaptation.

“We judges were each very impressed by the overall high quality of entries for this year. The awards were meant to recognize the efforts made by Asian and Pacific journalists who provide high-quality coverage of issues affecting growth and development in developing countries,” said Anthony Rowley, presiding judge of the 2009 ADBI awards.

Aside from the Daja overall award, Abaño was honored last year by the United Nations as the Gold Prize Winner for excellence in reporting on humanitarian and development affairs. She was also this year’s recipient of the 10 Young Leaders Award in the Philippines given out by the Philippines Graphic magazine for her reporting on development and environmental issues. In 2002 Abaño won the Asian category of the Global Awards on Environmental Reporting organized by Reuters and International Union for Conservation of Nature in Washington, D.C.

Abaño is on a two-month fellowship covering the United Nations General Assembly in New York sponsored by the Dag Hammarskjold Fellowship Fund for Journalists.

Another Filipino journalist working in Bangkok-based Asia News Network, Yasmin Lee Arpon, won Daja 2nd runner-up in the Government Responses to the Global Financial Crisis Category for her article “Shopping for Debts.” Other award categories are: Young Development Journalist of the Year (won by India); Poverty Impact (won by Cambodia); Government Responses on Financial Crisis (won by Sri Lanka); Infrastructure Development (won by China); and Climate Change Adaptation category (won by Solomon Islands).

Abaño, Arpon and 20 other Daja finalists comes from Cambodia, India, Nepal, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Solomon Islands, Afghanistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Fiji, Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The awards ceremony came at the closing of a four-day workshop on economic, financial and environmental literacy in Tokyo organized by ADBI in cooperation with the International Institute for Journalism of InWEnt–Capacity Building International, Germany.