to tell the broadcaster what to air, as this would be construed as government interference with its editorial independence. Against the backdrop of these developments, in May 2022, the EU deployed an Election Follow-up Mission (EFM) to Zimbabwe to assess the status of implementation of the recommendations of the EU EOM to the 2018 elections. The final report of the EFM noted slow and limited progress in the implementation of the recommendations offered by the EU EOM in 2018. However, it also positively highlighted that several actions to undertake a comprehensive electoral reform had been initiated following the 2018 elections. At a press conference on 20 May 2022, Chief of Mission, Elmar Brok, underlined the need for the reform process to move forward in a “timely and inclusive fashion” to promote credible elections in 2023. These developments also came at a time when Zimbabwe was forging ahead with the Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Amendment Bill despite the plea to the Zimbabwean government by UN Special Rapporteurs to forego the proposed law. It is feared that if enacted in its current state, the Bill will muzzle the work of civic society and negatively impact the operating media freedom, freedom of expression and access to information environment ahead of Zimbabwe’s 2023 general elections. Similar pleas were made in 2022 by UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association, Clement Nyaletossi Voule, in a report presented to the Human Rights Council’s 50th Session held between June 13 and July 8, 2022. Meanwhile, the government forged ahead with its media reform agenda following the repealing of the widely discredited Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which paved the way for the enactment of the progressive Freedom of Information Act. On 18 – 19 May 2022, a law drafting meeting (Writeshop) was convened in the Midlands capital of Gweru to consider and further input into the proposed amendments to the Broadcasting Services Amendment Act (BSA) through the Broadcasting Services Act Amendment Bill. A similar exercise was conducted in Kadoma on 11 -12 August 2022 on the Draft Zimbabwe Media Practitioners Bill, which among other issues, is designed to give effect to the principle of coregulation of the media. Earlier, on 9 March 2022, Honourable Kindness Paradza, the Deputy Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, told participants at a MISA Zimbabwe Broadcasting Stakeholders meeting in Harare that the Broadcasting Services Amendment Bill seeks to address the lack of diversity and plurality in the sector. “The amendment Bill seeks to further open up the airwaves by licensing community and campus State of the Media Report 5