1. Executive Summary This report covers the second year of the implementation of the MISA Strategic Partnership Programme (SPP) April 1, 2002 to March 31, 2004. It also follows the first year’s Annual Review undertaken in June and July 2003 and discussed during the MISA AGM held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in September 2003. Crucial to MISA, the annual report and review are part of the internal learning process whose result is to improve the organization’s performance in its advocacy work. The media environment in the SADC countries where MISA operates has experienced mixed fortunes during the year under review. As will be seen in going through this report, the major talking point is the forced-closure in September 2003 of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) publications, the Daily News and Daily News on Sunday and that of Dira newspaper in November 2003 in Zanzibar. In both cases, journalists and other employees of these publications found themselves deprived of their sources of income and livelihood, while the publishers have to deal of the loss of their businesses. But most of, in all these closures, the most affected are the readers of these publications, almost a million in the case of the ANZ stable, how are deprived of their preferred source of information. On the positive side, there were better prospects for media in some of the countries as reported in the report. The promulgation of broadcasting laws in Zambia give the citizens in that country a chance to be served by an independently regulated public service broadcaster, though again, through the unwarranted delays of appointment of board members due to executive ambivalence, the people are made to wait. These issues are discussed in chapter 2 of this report. MISA continued to mainstream gender in its activities while also seek ways of engaging media in the region on issues of gender in and through the media. This report provides the details of activities undertaken during this year in chapter 3. As provided in the SPP, MISA continued its advocacy initiatives in the Right to Information Campaign ‘The ASK Campaign” by holding several planning meetings and providing campaign materials to the countries running the campaign. Details of these activities are the subject of Programme A given in chapter 4. The flagship activities of Media Freedom Monitoring, carried out under Programme B, are given in chapter 5 with the major focus of the programme being the “SADC Journalists Under Fire” Campaign. This project seeks to go beyond issuing Action Alerts to providing targeted assistance to those affected by media freedom violations. Broadcasting Diversity: Programme C, carried out a number of activities during the year as reported in chapter 6. The focus of this programme is advocacy for the realization of the provisions of the African Charter on Broadcasting using the Open the Waves” materials. Details of activities undertaken under Media Support (Programme D) and Legal Support (Programme E) are given in chapters 7 and 8 respectively. These are MISA activities that seek to assist media in the region. MISA Annual Report (April 2003 – March 2004) 4