3.3.4 MISA Namibia The Gender and Media Baseline study was launched at a workshop held in Windhoek in July 2003. The Minister of Information & Broadcasting officiated at the launch and the Minister of Women Affairs and Child Welfare was in attendance. Together with the Secretariat and Gender Links, the Chapter held a follow-up workshop of media stakeholders to discuss the findings of the GMBS. Government response and endorsement of the importance of the study was very positive. The response and input from the media was, however, disappointing and the national plan of action was done by the few people who remained behind. The action plan has not yet been implemented. 3.3.5 MISA Swaziland As part of gender mainstreaming, MISA Swaziland conducted three workshops which are on raising awareness and sensitizing the media on gender issues. These workshops gave birth to the Media Women’s Association of Swaziland (MWASA). This association is largely constituted by female journalists from all the media houses whose sole responsibility is to adequately address issues on gender equity and equality. 3.3.6 MISA Tanzania The Tanzania GMBS workshop for the development of the GMBS National Plan for Advocacy brought together 20 participants including media practitioners, representatives from NGOs, MISA Tanzania, Tanzania Media Women’s Association and the University of Dar-es-Sala am. The workshop received wide television and newspaper coverage. 3.3.7 MISA Zambia The Zambia GMBS workshop held on July 17-18, 2003, brought together 25 participants mainly from the media, NGOs, Press Association of Zambia and was officially opened by the Permanent Secretary, Gender in Development Division, Sr Auxilia Ponga who challenged the media to critically look at the way they were covering gender issues. 3.3.8 MISA Zimbabwe The Zimbabwe GMBS national action plan workshop was the last in a series of workshops and was held in September, 2003. The two day seminar was held during the period when the privately owned Daily News in Zimbabwe had been closed for operating “illegally” under the country’s new media laws. At the time of the workshop, MISA Zimbabwe itself was under police investigation and also threatened with closure. The 26 participants to the workshop were from the media associations, the national media monitoring project and non-governmental organizations. MISA Zimbabwe in its activity reports notes that gender mainstreaming across all the programme areas continues to be a challenge. Proper gender indicators were not developed at the planning stage and as a result, it has not been easy to measure performance in terms of gender. There should be an effort to develop gender indicators in the work plan. Time should be allocated for reflection and planning to allow for adoption of gender mainstreaming approaches across the five programme areas. MISA Annual Report (April 2003 – March 2004) 18