bring the presidency in disrepute. Whilst a decision is still being awaited on the case, a victory will be a victory for all media freedom and freedom of expression activists. For the first time MISA increased the award from US$1000 to US$2500 with support from the Southern Africa Trust. Another award that MISA gave during the year is the John Manyarara Investigative Journalism award which was given jointly to the Sam Sole, Stefaans Brummer, and Wisani wa Ngobeni for their work on the Oilgate Series that was published in Mail and Guardian and the Mabvuto Banda for his work on “ Mwawa Uses Government Funds for Wedding” series which was published in the Nation Newspaper in Blantyre Malawi. As part of this project MISA sponsored 6 journalists to attend the Power Reporting- a workshop for investigative journalism for African and international investigative journalists. MISA chapters continued to award excellence in their various countries. Awards were successfully held in Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, and Zambia with some of the chapters (Botswana, and Tanzania) reporting an improvement in the quality and quantity of entries that were received which is a positive reflection on the impact of MISA’s work with journalists the region. In Namibia the awards were reintroduced after a year of absence. Other chapters like Swaziland, and Lesotho are still in the process of establishing the awards in their countries. 4.3 Gender Activities The Gender and Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) was officially launched in March 2006. MISA was the lead coordinator in the monitoring that took place in Southern Africa and through this ensured that for the first time all the SADC countries were included. The 2006 GMMP report findings found that across the globe, women constitute 21 percent of news sources (19 percent in Southern Africa) illustrate that women’s voices are still significantly less represented in the news than those of men. The GMMP showed an increase in women’s voices in nine SADC countries including Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Angola, Botswana, Lesotho and the Seychelles experienced a decline in women’s voices in the news. The highest proportion of women sources in the news in SADC was South Africa at 26%. This figure is very telling in that it merely confirms that 74% of the news sources are still men and in other countries, the figures are even worse. The imbalance in the statistics still challenges the principles of democracy and free speech as it implies that only a small segment of the population is given a voice. This is a challenge that MISA and its partners have to deal with in a much more focused and strategic manner. Advocacy efforts have focused specifically on the gender deficiencies in the media but MISA and its partners need to situate these within the broader debates on human rights, media diversity, ethics and professionalism in the media and media sustainability. MISA further contributed to the GMMP by sponsoring the publication of the various country reports which were launched at various events throughout the region in 2006. MISA in collaboration with the Gender and Media Southern Africa Network (GEMSA) and Gender Links, convened the second gender and media summit that was held in Johannesburg in September 2006. The two-day summit brought together 224 participants made up of media practitioners, editors, media marketing executives, and gender activists. The programme also featured 81 examples of good practice in diversifying sources, markets and ownership of the media. Ms Ammu Joseph, a well known media and gender activist from India presented the key note address 34 Annual Report 2006