Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)

MISA seeks ways in which to promote the free flow of information and co-operation between media workers, as a principal means of nurturing democracy and human rights in Africa. The role of MISA is primarily one of a coordinator, facilitator, and communicator; for this reason, a key MISA strategy is working together with like-minded organisations and individuals in the effort to achieve a genuinely free and pluralistic media in southern Africa.

The MISA Secretariat is based in Windhoek, Namibia; its main tasks are:

• Advocacy: To conduct advocacy in accordance to the organisation's mission, act on media freedom violations and conduct research - leading to publications, some of which are posted on the MISA website.
• News Exchange: To make sure that local news from the independent media is made accessible to the whole region and that regional news from the independent media is made accessible to the world, in part through postings to the MISA website.
• National Chapters: To establish a MISA platform in each of the SADC countries, MISA worked to recruit all institutional and individual members representing the independent media in the region; specific chapters are listed and detailed on the MISA website.
• Capacity Building: MISA works to build the skills of members of national chapters, individual MISA members, and the independent media. For instance, MISA has provided training courses for journalists throughout the region, with a particular emphasis on Malawi.

Drawing on these strategies, MISA undertakes campaigns and activities in the following areas: freedom of expression, broadcasting diversity, media monitoring, gender and media support, and legal support. Broadly, MISA carries out actions such as registering human rights and media rights violations, establishing a press bureau, and supporting independent media development in the radio and television media sectors. MISA has also set up a warning communication system to respond to media rights and human rights abuses against journalists in the region. Specifically, MISA has designed campaigns such as the following:

• SADC Journalists Under Fire - Launched in May 2003, this campaign saw MISA's media freedom monitoring programme take on a holistic approach. That is, programme activities went beyond the mere issuing of a media freedom or freedom of expression alert to advance strategies for advocacy, lobbying, research, training, and information, as well as a mechanism for direct and immediate practical support to victims of media freedom violations. The launch of this campaign went hand-in-hand with a research study that MISA undertook of its alerts, from 2000 to 2002. (MISA monitors and reports on media freedom violations occurring in some of the SADC countries it operates in. MISA has also annually published its State of Media Freedom in 11 SADC countries, which is a print version of its daily media monitoring reports. This information is also distributed using an email listserv and is posted to the MISA website in an effort to make the information available to researchers, in particular.
• Ask Campaign - Carried out in 7 countries in the SADC region, this effort has focused on lobbying government and legislative bodies to create legal framework for the adoption of access to information legislation.

The MISA website provides details about the above strategies and activities, as well as access to information about MISA's exchange programmes, events, job postings, research papers and other publications, and information about individual MISA chapters.

Human Rights, Media Development, Democracy and Governance.