MISA Regional Annual Report 2023 environment, we rightfully engaged like-minded organisations in the region campaigning for the same to establish the Spaces of Solidarity Forum (SOS) in October 2022. This was a resounding public affirmation by the 23 organisations’ commitment to the cause of defending expression in the age of fragmentation. The Forum escalated its work in 2023 through multiple interventions in the African Union, Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), United Nations (UN), Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. This is a glaring example of how genuine collaboration and solidarity can be structured in the age of fragmentation. As MISA, we have continued to play an active role in line with our mandate to defend expression through our re-election in the IFEX governing council 2023-2026 and subsequently chairing the same. Further, MISA retained its role in the Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) as its Vice Chairperson, further strengthening MISA and those of like mind’s quest to reset the collaboration approaches in the region and globally. Because of this enduring belief in genuine collaboration as a panacea to the attacks on expression in this fragmented world, on behalf of IFEX, I was to sit in the 31-member committee that drafted the charter for media and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the 22nd of August and concluded its work on 10 November 2023. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Maria Ressa, chaired the committee. In the same year, MISA consolidated its position as an expertise institution, market 8 leader, and knowledge production ethos by commissioning a State of AI Research in Southern Africa and working towards the Model Regulatory Framework on AI in Southern Africa, to be launched in March 2024. We celebrate these select milestones not only because they have each played a significant role in shaping our expression movement but also because they remind us of the difficult path we, in the global south, have travelled. This inspires and spurs us to act with the same resolve and determination as we confront the challenges ahead. We commemorate these milestones in tribute to those outstanding journalists and expression activists who passed away in 2023 and the successive years before, many at the hands of repressive regimes and the unjust wars globally. We further celebrate the achievements of the heroic stand by the progressive thinking community worldwide. Through their deeds, these heroines and heroes anchor our pledge to pick the spear to defend and advance the vision of a free, democratic and prosperous Southern Africa, the continent, the global south, and the broader global community, for which we continue to strive for. Looking at the horizons, we appreciate the heavy load that we need to lift as a regional network. Our 2023 annual report thus offers us the opportunity to reflect on the enormity of the challenges we face and the ground that still needs to be covered in attaining our strategic objectives. Nonetheless, MISA remains on course! We are on course! www.misa.org