The project purpose is to ensure that media practitioners in Southern Africa provide relevant, accurate & balanced coverage/information to the public and are aware of their role in the democratisation process and their rights & responsibilities.

Previously, journalists from outside South Africa had to travel to Johannesburg for IAJ courses, but this project hopes to make sure that programmes are organised in other SADC countries. The project organisers are working in partnership with local groups and institutions and in the first phase of the project targeted five countries - DRC, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Swaziland.

As a first step the organiser undertook a stakeholder consultation process in 2004 in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This process was followed by a consultative regional workshop with key regional stakeholders and representatives from the five countries. Both regional media organisations and those from the five countries welcomed this regional programme and made a commitment to working with the project organiser in implementing the objectives set. For each of the five countries, the IAJ has identified institutional partners for its in-country intervention:

• Swaziland: MISA Swaziland and Swaziland National Association of Journalists
• Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Harare Polytechnic
• Zambia: ZAMCOM, MISA Zambia
• DRC: Union of Press (UNPC); IFASIC, Radio Association (ARCCO); PANOS
• Angola: Union of Journalists (SJA); MISA Angola

Together with the institutional partners the project aims to achieve it’s goals this by:

• establishing Centre’s of Excellence in some or all of the pilot countries.
• Establishing a Training Programme in the five countries
• establishing a regional training programme
• ensuring that the IAJ’s regional and country courses are certified
• establishing Institutional partnerships and arrangements between the IAJ and relevant institutions on a country and regional level
• establishing the IAJ’s regional management capacity

Development Assistance.

The IAJ believes that a strong, independent and diverse media is critical in consolidating democracy. The media can be an important agent of change because it can hold government and other powerful interests accountable to the public good. It has a responsibility to bring information to the public and therefore it needs to provide accurate and balanced information for people to make informed choices. The media has the ability to give voice to the public, particularly to those voices which are not easily heard. In order to perform this role in the democratisation process, the media sector must have the necessary conditions. The key conditions needed are an enabling policy environment, efficient capital, infrastructural and technological resources; and an informed and professional cadre of media practitioners.

The media landscape in the region is currently characterised by a restrictive policy environment (increasing repression), poor technological infrastructure and low professionalism. Although there have been some positive developments in the media landscape – increase in numbers of private media, increase in media bodies and associations and increase in protocols governing media (like the African Charter on Broadcasting and the SADC Peer Review Mechanism), the conditions under which media operate in the region are far from ideal. The region also faces serious economic and social challenges which make sustainability of the media a major challenge, as they have to balance their role in promoting open societies with financial sustainability objectives.