Supported projects

ROTTERDAM - In the fight against drugs crime in their ports, the mayors of Rotterdam (Aboutaleb) and Antwerp (De Wever), kicked off in 2019 a more intensive collaboration between their ports. The big meeting took place behind closed doors at the Feyenoord Stadium.

SAMOS - The harrowing conditions in the hotspots of the Greek islands of Lesbos, Samos and Chios have created a mental health crisis. Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and self-harm are the most common mental health problems reported by NGOs in the field.

MEXICO CITY - La Civil tells the story of Cielo, a mother in search of her daughter, abducted by a criminal cartel in Northern Mexico. As the authorities fail to offer support in the search, Cielo takes matters into her own hands and turns from housewife into avenging activist. The story was ...

THE HAGUE - The Netherlands is an important financial centre behind the international arms trade. Research from The Investigative Desk (the Netherlands) and an Indian news outlet shows how some of the biggest arms companies in the world use the Netherlands as an intermediary to wire profits to tax ...

BRUSSELS - In the almost built-up Flanders (northern region of Belgium), land is a precious commodity. Who are the large landowners who own hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of hectares of land in Flanders? Who are the real estate investors who own whole streets in cities or have their eye on ...

BRUSSELS - “When discussing drug production, we rarely look at the environmental damage and costs. Belgium, together with The Netherlands, is the main producer of synthetic drugs in Europe, and the chemical waste deriving as a by-product from the production here remains.

ANTWERPEN - Antwerp is being undermined. The port of Antwerp is the biggest cocaine import port in Europe. The drug crime creates invisible criminality that affects life in the city.

LEDEBERG - Exploring and getting to know one’s neighbourhood on foot was a rare outlet for many during the Coronavirus crisis. Illustrator Jeroen Janssen and writer Arezoo Moradi set out in Ledeberg, their little patch of motorway-lined land in Ghent, and continue to do so. He draws, and she writes ...

BRUSSELS - What happened to Dieumerci Kanda? Six years ago, the Angolan man entered a Brussels police station to report his missing wallet. For no apparent reason, he is arrested and locked up in a cell. Three hours later he's dead. The official explanation is that he killed himself. But isn't there ...

MATADI - Since colonial times, much and yet little has changed in the Congolese province of Kongo Central. Belgian companies in the Congolese agro-industry no longer play the role they did when they started operating in the then colony more than a century ago. The way in which these companies ...

LEUVEN - One consequence of Leuven being an expensive city to live in is that many people are forced to move elsewhere. The City Monitor showed in 2017 that 15 percent of residents had plans to do so. No less than 56 percent cited financial reasons for this.

ANTWERP / BRUSSELS / GHENT - As of 9 June 2021, the rules for sex work are normalising. After months of vacancy, activity in the zones of tolerance for window prostitution is getting back on track. In the past, sex workers and bar owners have been much investigated, but the property owners are a ...

BELGRADE - In this project a cross-border team of journalists sheds a light on how societies in former Yugoslavia deal with the past, by focusing on how war criminals are reintegrated in their home countries: a closer look at the results of international criminal justice.

BRUSSELS - 'Back to Bled' is a contemporary story about the connection between the city and the countryside, starting in multicultural Brussels. The core of the documentary is friction; friction between city and countryside, ecology and economy, healthy versus cheap, connected versus uprooted.

ANTWERP - The 40-year war in Afghanistan is pushing more and more Afghans to become refugees. Their numbers are also increasing in Belgium. In the port city of Antwerp, Afghans have become the fifth largest nationality group. Gie Goris went to Antwerp and listened to older and younger, male and ...

BRUSSELS - We replace our phones every two to three years on average, and that's bad news for both the environment and the climate. This article investigates where the key problems lie, what governments should do about it, and what we as consumers can do to help.

VOLVIC - An in-depth investigation of the We Report network uncovers the dark side of the bottled water business in Europe, where the market is dominated by multinational companies such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Danone.

NAIROBI - This story uncovers a multitude of worrying allegations about the unregulated surrogacy industry in Kenya.

Since the start of the nitrogen crisis in 2018, more Dutch livestock farmers moved to Belgium than in previous years. This is evident from new research by Spit and Apache. Environmental organisations have been warning for some time that Belgium has become a 'nitrogen paradise' for large-scale ...

TRIPOLI - How much do illegal immigrants suffer from smuggling networks? How do the illegal immigrants get in contact with the smugglers? What is the role of the international community in curbing the spread of this business? Investigative journalist Mahmoud Elsobky searched for answers to these ...

BRUSSELS - 'Back to Bled' is a contemporary story about the connection between the city and the countryside, starting in multicultural Brussels. The core of the documentary is friction; friction between city and countryside, ecology and economy, healthy versus cheap, connected versus uprooted.

DAMASCUS - The Syrian government has raised billions of Syrian pounds to rebuild war-stricken cities through a "reconstruction tax." But where does the money really go? A joint investigation by OCCRP, SIRAJ, and Finance Uncovered, supported by Journalismfund's Money Trail grant programme.

PARIS / DAKAR - Over the last decade, the Chinese appetite for peanuts has turned them into the new 'gold' of Senegal. The two countries signed an agreement in 2014, after which China became the leading importer of Senegalese peanuts.

BRUSSELS - Open your tap and close it again. The water you just saw was yours for two seconds before draining again. But what do you know about that water? Where does it come from and where does it go? And how long will it continue to flow from the tap?

NANYUKI - De Mens en de Hoorn is a project by Olivia Kortas and Kasper Goethals in collaboration with photographer Johannes De Bruycker. Based on the story of Najin and Fatu, the last two northern white rhinos on earth, they tell about the dysfunctional relationship between humans and their planet.

TIRANA - Over the past 30 years, Albania has evolved at breakneck speed from an extreme communist dictatorship to an unbridled neoliberal democracy. This makes the country an interesting laboratory for contemporary social developments, such as migration, identity construction or gender and the ...

ACCRA, ABUJA - This story puts the spotlight on a clandestine network of gunsmiths and arms traffickers operating in West Africa in contravention of local laws. It shows how these gunsmiths and traffickers exploit the porous borders across the West Africa and Sahel region to traffic illicit small ...

BRUSSELS - How will this pandemic shape the next generation? The middle class is fighting a valiant battle to reconcile family and professional life, but the vulnerable are fighting the same battle with more limited resources.

PUYUELO - Only 15.8% of the total population still lives in the so-called Empty Spain, which covers just over half of the interior of the country. While Spanish cities have doubled or even tripled in size over the past century, the population in the interior of the country has barely increased.

FREETOWN - Sierra Leone is one of the least developed countries in the world. Two of the main out of many challenges the West African state is facing are rampant corruption and some of the lowest educational outcomes worldwide.