MISA Regional Annual Report 2023 Chairperson’s Report The year under review reinforced and reinvigorated our belief that organisations such as ours are of vital importance in our region today more than ever before. We can proudly state that this comes when the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) brand grows bigger and stronger as we continue to cast our nets deeper and wider. The key lesson is that working in silos will only make us weaker and less effective. Chairperson MISA Regional Governing Council Golden Maunganidze “ We can proudly state that this comes when the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) brand grows bigger and stronger as we continue to cast our nets deeper and wider. The key lesson is that working in silos will only make us weaker and less effective. This lesson has helped us reinforce and strengthen our thought-leadership position. It assisted like-minded organisations in coming together under the auspices of the Spaces of Solidarity (SOS), where we managed to review stakeholder needs within our region regularly. Inspired by our 2021-2026 Strategy, which serves as our operational manual, we achieved more than anticipated within one year. Our footprints are visible in all the member countries where MISA is an outstanding pillar standing firm in the defence of free expression. Our deliberate and well-coordinated interventions and calculated efforts to allow MISA regional Chapters to speak to each other have hugely helped us confront, with much energy and tact, the “elephant in the room,” which is attacks on freedom of expression. Suffice to say, we remain a credible and legitimate shield of expression in the region. As they say, borne out of African realities, organically, we remain the boots on the ground with by far the biggest in-country presence than any organisation in Southern Africa. Our interventions are not confrontational but based on evidence-based advocacy. This requires 4 www.misa.org