SECTOR 1 “...In a dominant one-party state, there is not much you can do.” The final Media Practitioners Act, passed in December 2008, excluded stakeholder recommendations. The stakeholders invited to these early meetings, however, were selectively chosen and not all media stakeholders were invited, with many of them seeing the Act only once it was in the Government Gazette. The self-regulatory Press Council of Botswana, for example, which comprises mostly publishers of print media, was never approached in this process. Members of the Press Council voiced their objections to the Minister of Communications, Science and Technology, and were told to try and approach the Attorney General’s office as “everything is with the technical people”. “Of course we refused, because we knew the government would just say they had consulted stakeholders on the new law. In a dominant one-party state, there is not much you can do.” Scores: Individual scores: * 24 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country minimally meets aspects of the indicator. 3 Country meets many aspects of indicator but progress may be too recent to judge. 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator. 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator and has been doing so over time. Average score: 1.0 (2005 = n/a; 2007 = n/a) Overall score for sector 1: 1.2 (2005 = 2.2; 2007 = 2.2)* For 2009 the indicators were reviewed, amended and same new indicators such as those addressing Information Communication Technology (ICT) were added. Consequently, the comparison of some indicators of the 2005 and 2007 report is not applicable (n/a) is some instances in which the indicator is new or has been amended. Evidently, this has to be taken into account too, when the overall sector scores are compared. AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER BOTSWANA 2009