Supported projects

LUSAKA - Zambia is blessed with abundant natural resources, coupled with its strategic geographical location as a landlocked nation in the southern part of Africa. Since its inception, Zambia has been largely dependent on copper and other minerals. Copper production has been a major contributor to ...

LOME - Investigative journalists Andrew Weir and Nicolas Vescovacci reveal the networks of influence and finance that built up the logistics empire of Vincent Bolloré and made him the target of official investigations into alleged corruption in Africa.

BRUSSELS - Nature and the climate are not doing well and that does something to a person. Increasingly, the psychological impact of the climate and biodiversity crisis is coming to the attention of the public. Young people would be especially sensitive to this, research indicates. MO* organised a ...

NAYPYIDAW - This is a story that describes the downfall of the financial sector of Myanmar after the military coup in February 2021. Due to a history of nationalisations and demonetisations, people and businesses lost trust in the banks immediately after the coup. That resulted in a bankrun.

VARNA - Improper management of a wastewater treatment pipe in the Varna lake has led to repeated toxic leaks since 2019. 

BRUSSELS - Money is Petar's main reason for becoming a long-distance truck driver: it can give his child a future. But as the weeks and months go by, Petar feels his dreams slipping through his fingers.

BRUSSELS - The sperm bank appeals to the imagination. Especially its pioneering years, when there were no rules and doctors did as they pleased. Yet hardly anyone knows how it used to be, because donor insemination happened in the greatest secrecy.

AKIAK - In the fight against global warming, the Arctic is one of the most important front lines. There, the earth is warming three times faster than average.

NAIROBI - Kenya's attorney general's office opened a corruption and fraud investigation in 2019. The dams were supposed to bring water and electricity. Nothing is left at the site.

CAPE TOWN - While in Belgium almost eighty per cent of the population has been vaccinated, in Africa the percentage is still pitifully low.

DERRYCRAVE - As part of a cross-border project to investigate the peat extraction industries in Ireland and Latvia, the Irish investigative platform Noteworthy has examined the impacts of unlicensed peat extraction across the country. The findings reveal a system of largely unregulated peat ...

JOKKMOKK - Sweden is trying at all costs to switch to renewable energy by 2040. But this is coming up against fierce protests from environmentalists and members of the local Sami reindeer communities who oppose the colonisation of Sapmi - the land of the Sami.

GOMBE - Is return an answer to racism? Youth worker, activist and opinion maker Don Pandzou (34), a Belgian youngster with Congolese roots, finds out. Growing up in Belgium was not an easy experience for Don. Racism and discrimination left emotional scars.

BUDAPEST - Hungary during the 2022 election campaign: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán exercises a degree of media control that is unparalleled in the EU. A group of young journalists is taking on state propaganda.

BRUSSELS - “Are we, as mainstream media, doing our job well enough?” It's a question that has preoccupied VRT investigative journalist Luc Pauwels for years. Because he sees too many worrying warning signs.

BRUSSELS - In March 1922, Belgian philologist Théophile Simar published a study entitled Étude critique sur la formation de la doctrine des races au XVIIIe siècle et son expansion au XIXe siècle. In it, the term ‘racism’ is used in a scientific context for the first time. A hundred years later, the ...

BRUSSELS - For years, the Belgian political world rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs. That truth is now becoming all the more painfully clear.

BUCHAREST - Facing an acute labor shortage and a drastic decrease in population, Romania has allowed tens of thousands of South and East Asian workers, from Vietnam, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, into the country. The investigation is following the path of Vietnamese and Indians workers ...

MINSK - 72 Hours That Changed Belarus tells the story of the post-election collapse of human rights in the country through the first-hand experiences of those affected the most: a young couple injured by a stun grenade, a recent law graduate who documented torture and later fled to protect herself ...

ANTWERP - The pollution around the 3M plant near Antwerp (Belgium) has been known for years. Yet the PFOS scandal did not erupt in Flanders until the spring of 2021.

GHENT - On the occasion of International Women's Day on 8 March, three generations of women spend three days together. Twentysomething Cosima Bas and her mother Anna Luyten dig into the life wisdom of the oldest. This is Chantal De Smet (76), a striking figure of the second feminist wave in Belgium ...

BRUSSELS - Wout Van der Steen is an 8-year-old deaf boy from Wuustwezel. His parents are happy to let him go to a mainstream school, where he is entitled to an interpreter of Flemish Sign Language. This interpreter translates everything, both what the teacher says and what his classmates say. 

MARIUPOL - The Sea of ​​Azov is the shallowest sea in the world. The entire region around the sea has been a battleground for centuries. Russia and Ukraine share control over the Sea of ​​Azov. In 2003, both countries reached an agreement about 'free navigation' for all.

BRUSSELS - In the three-part podcast If the roller shutter stays closed, we tell the story of Philippe and Peter. Two regulars at De Harmonie, a social restaurant for elderly local residents in Brussels' North Quarter. During the lockdown, however, the doors remained closed. What does this mean for ...

NIVELLES - State police commander Léon François starts using questionable investigative methods in the fight against drug traffickers in the 1970s, without legal regulation. Who are the gangsters and who is the police? The boundaries blur. Top cops and politicians, ex-premier Vanden Boeynants in the ...

BELGRADE - A lot of money and political interest is at stake in Serbia, where there are significant lithium reserves. Geologists from mining giant Rio Tinto found Europe's largest lithium deposits under the farmland of the Jadar valley — enough to produce at least one million electric car batteries ...

BRUSSELS - Suffering from Parkinson's disease or cancer, European farm workers experience inadequate recognition and failing compensation schemes, a cross-border research of media in ten European countries shows.

HSINCHU - Microchips are at the heart of our digital world. Without them, our smartphones and laptops do not work, our cars fall silent and the internet crashes. So it comes as no surprise that car factories are halting production due to a global chip shortage, China and the US are fighting a trade ...

HAMBURG - Europe’s dump yard and the system behind the international recycling business

BRUSSELS - Though they are right under our feet, soils do not receive much attention. Yet the many free services they provide for us are truly priceless, and they are under pressure. What can we do to prevent all this, and to repair damaged soils, Tim Vernimmen asked eight soil scientists in four ...