The Global Report series for BBC television aimed to pioneer a new way of reporting about the developing world by focusing on individual families struggling to meet basic needs for better health, better food, better incomes, and a better future for their children.
The series included:
A Week of Sweet Water
Winner of the Grand Prix of the European Environmental Film Festival, the 40 minute drama-documentary A Week of Sweet Water told the story of one family among the thousands struggling to survive on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. Produced by David Wallace and written and presented by Peter Adamson, the film focused on Minata and Boureima’s efforts to make ‘the welding’ between the seasons and of their 10-year-old daughter facing initiation into womanhood.
The Kerala Solution
Part of the BBC Global Report series of international documentaries, The Kerala Solution investigated how one of India’s poorest States had reduced its rate population growth to almost developed-world levels. Produced by Adam Lowe and written and presented by Peter Adamson, the film explored the reasons for falling family size through the lives of two young mothers in the lakeside village of Komarakom. View The Kerala Solution
Valley of Hope
Also part of the Global Report series, Valley of Hope was made in co-operation with UNICEF and told the story of La Esperanza – a remote village in Colombia where a quarter of the children died before reaching the age of five. Showing how a few low-cost interventions were reducing this toll, the film illustrated the potential for a ‘child survival revolution’ capable of saving the lives of many millions of children throughout the developing world. First broadcast in November, 1983, Valley of Hope was produced by David Bowen-Jones and written and presented by Peter Adamson.
Global Report (1983-87)
This annual, 90-minute end-of-year documentary for BBC Television reported on stories that didn’t make the nightly news but touched the daily lives of a majority of the world’s people – stories of the struggle to grow enough food, to secure basic health care, to send children to school, to improve housing, and to earn a better living in some of the world’s poorest countries. Written and narrated by Peter Adamson and produced by BBC series producers Peter Armstrong, William Nicholson, and Peter Firstbrook, Global Report told its stories through the eyes of individuals and families in from Ethiopia to China, Sri Lanka to Honduras.