SECTOR 4

Beyond these two university offerings, for degree programmes students may
travel outside the country (particularly to South Africa) for their studies. Neither
university offers short courses or certification programmes for media practitioners.
Outside of formal degree programmes some media houses provide in-house
training, however, panellists described this as rather basic – generally, they do
not provide support to journalists who wish to attain further training. ‘For further
training, you need to do it on your own, cover your training costs and to take
leave or resign.’
A few media advocacy groups and civil society organisations provide occasional
short courses in certain aspects related to their work, although these do not
often happen due to limited funding. ‘MISA used to offer training, but hasn’t
done so in recent times due to funding issues.’
‘Civil society used to provide some training on key issues such as climate change
etc. but with the weakening of civil society in general and with the drying up of
funding, they are no longer able to do so. This absence of training clearly shows
in the reporting.’
The Swaziland Community Radio Multimedia Network has worked with Bush
Radio (based in Cape Town, South Africa) to provide capacity building to volunteers
at community radio stations in ICT; in Lubombo – an IT (Information Technology)
programme is being run specifically for journalists and the community.
Through its Centre’s of Excellence programme, Gender Links has also worked
with various media houses to provide training on gender mainstreaming in the
media and on developing gender policies. It also has a programme with the
public broadcasters – SBIS and Swazi TV.
It is important to note that the Council of Churches has engaged SNAJ (with
funding from the Canadian government) about helping media houses to better
report on human rights issues and to help communities better understand the
role of the media.

Scores:
Individual scores:
1

Country does not meet indicator

2

Country meets only a few aspects of indicator

3

Country meets some aspects of indicator

4

Country meets most aspects of indicator

5

Country meets all aspects of the indicator

Average score:

56

AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER ESWATINI 2018

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3.0 (2005: 1.9; 2007: 3.8; 2009: 2.1; 2011: 3.3;
2014: 2.9)

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