The Sanlam Financial Journalism Awards represent the longest-running awards dedicated to financial journalism in Africa. Its objective is to support the development of journalism. In 2018, 78 journalists representing 58 media organisations submitted 97 entries to the awards.

Entrants to the awards must submit their submissions through Sanlam's website. The African Growth Story category — which aims to recognise the best journalism covering the significance of business and investment on the continent — is open to financial journalists based in Africa who publish and/or broadcast their work on the region.

Entries for this category must focus on the growth of the continent in terms of:
  • investment
  • infrastructure development
  • economic progress, and
  • related topics.
The awards have indicated that stories also should incorporate a "continental" outlook. Previous winners of the African Growth Story category include:
  • Isaac Anyaogu of Business Day in Nigeria (2018)
  • Dominic Omondi of The Standard newspaper in Kenya (2017), and
  • Ancillar Mangena of Forbes Africa in South Africa (2016).
The other categories are open to journalists working in print, radio, TV and online media in South Africa and include:
  • business/companies
  • economy
  • financial markets
  • consumer financial education
All five categories aim to recognise financial journalists who produced compelling business stories between Tuesday, 1 January 2019 and Monday, 30 December 2019.

The judging panel will be presenting the following additional awards:
  • Best Newcomer
  • Lifetime Achievement, and
  • Sanlam Financial Journalist of the Year.
These awards intend to recognise journalists based on the discretion of the judging panel, which exercises a nomination and evaluation process.

Recent Best Newcomer category winners for 2018, 2017 and 2016 respectively include Isaac Anyaogu from the Business Day newspaper in Nigeria, as well as former Forbes Africa writers Melitta Ngalonkulu and Aviwe Mtila.

Neville Otuki, former business reporter at Energy Siren News in Kenya and a runner up in the Best Newcomer category in 2018, says, "Society has critical business stories the public needs to know. It is important that we amplify these stories. Being acknowledged by the awards for doing so is humbling and equally rewarding, not only for journalists but for our profession as well."

Previous winners of the Journalist of the Year Award include Rob Rose, editor of Financial Mail (2018), Sikonathi Mantshantsha, former editor at Scorpio, the Investigative Unit of Daily Maverick (2017), and Susan Comrie of AmaBhungane (2016).

Information about the eligibility, criteria and entry submission process for the awards is available here. 

For more information, visit www.sanlam.com. You can also follow Sanklam on Facebook or on Twitter.