failing to explore the gender dimensions of every day situations, such as the power dynamics at play in the HIV AIDS pandemic, the different impacts of the national budget on women and men etc. • But examples of gender aware reporting gathered as part of the qualitative analysis show that transformation is possible: The qualitative analysis also yielded several “best practise” examples of gender perspectives being integrated into every day news and yielding more balanced, more interesting and ultimately more professional stories. MISA’s Gender Policy states that giving voice to all segments of society is intrinsic to participation, citizenship and in turn to democracy. This research therefore is merely the beginning of a concerted advocacy campaign to ensure that the voices of women and men are heard, on all subjects, in the news. Implementation and Monitoring This first year of the three-year plan took off rather slowly due to various reasons. The delay in securing the cash flow from the donors. Disbursements to the national chapters was therefore slow, though most of the problems were at that level as the national chapters had to learn who the system was to work. Another problem was the delay in securing the services of staff at the Regional Office as the Executive Committee decided to advertise all management positions. Appointments were only finalised in February 2003 with the incoming staff only joining later in the year as work and temporary resident permits take at least three months to get from the Namibian Government. The newly created post of Program Manager: Media Law and Policy has still not been filled as the interviewed prospective applicants were not considered suitable. It will take sometime for the implementation to be fully functional as new staff need time to settle in and familiarise with the MISA culture. Staff training, however continued, though the major advocacy training was delayed due to the staffing situation indicated above. The National Directors and Regional Programme Managers met for a 3-day training workshop on the Strategic Plan Implementation in Johannesburg August 18 – 20, 2002. Another one day meeting for the same group on the strategic plan implementation was also held on February 14, 2003 which dealt on workplans and budgets for the fiscal year starting April 1, 2003. Advocacy Training for this group could not be held during the first year as planned was only done in June 2003 using the MISA Media Advocacy Toolkit. 47