Portia Crowe
Journalist in Dakar, Senegal
Portia is a West and Central Africa correspondent with Reuters, based in Dakar.
She was previously a correspondent for AFP in the region. In that role she interviewed Sierra Leone's president, Julius Maada Bio, ahead of his re-election and reported on abuses against migrant workers building Senegal's “city of the future.”
Previously, as a freelance journalist, she reported on Francophone Africa’s first “unicorn” startup and Nigeria’s new central bank digital currency for BBC Afrique. She covered The Gambian election in print, photo and radio for four outlets and profiled Senegal's “First Lady” of graffiti for The Guardian.
In 2021, Portia was openDemocracy's interim assistant editor for Francophone countries, launching West Africa coverage for the 50.50 feminist investigative project. In that role, she recruited, commissioned and coordinated francophone journalists across five countries and wrote and edited features, news and investigations. Read her team's investigation into a U.S.-funded “crisis pregnancy centre” providing misinformation to vulnerable women in Côte d’Ivoire here.
Shortly before the pandemic, Portia travelled to Niger to make a radio program about climate change and food insecurity, and to Uganda to report on environmental activism, the LGBT+ community, South Sudanese child refugees, and a landmark court case against the oil giant Total. In 2019, she made a BBC radio documentary about the covert cremation industry in Greece and Bulgaria and produced a short film on the topic.
Previously a finance correspondent for Dow Jones in London and a senior reporter for Business Insider in New York, Portia was shortlisted for the Financial Times' and McKinsey's Bracken Bower Prize in November 2020.
She has also written personal essays for The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, and HuffPost. She spoke about one of those on CBC radio.
Contact: [email protected]
https://www.reuters.com/authors/portia-crowe/
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