EXECUTIVE SUMMERY MISA was created over 15 years ago with the mandate to fight for freedom of expression and media rights in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This mission has not changed. Now in the second year of the Strategic Partnership Programme 2 (SPP2), MISA has made significant progress in each programme towards the attainment of a more plural, diverse and independent media environment. The call for the Right to Information took center stage in MISA at both national and regional levels in the past year. The most notable milestone in the campaign for the Right to Information was the greater awareness and growing understanding of the indispensability of the Right to Information by policy makers. The Right to Information has become a recurring or indeed a pending item on the law reform agenda and whose urgency can not simply be wished away. The Right to Information permeated policy discussions and legal processes within civil society and government, attested in countries like Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Tanzania. This is a major positive shift compared to previous years where the call for the right to information was detested and brushed aside under the veneer of national security concerns and in conflict with privacy rights. MISA noted an increase in interest and understanding of Access to Information as an essential tool for effective governance, particularly for those countries (all in theory) in the fight against corruption in public institutions. However, the biggest draw back constituted sudden unexplained indecisiveness and cold feet from policymakers in moving the process from political rhetoric to concrete tangible actions. This was the cases in Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Malawi where suddenly the legislative process stalled. In Zimbabwe despite our vigorous battle to repeal AIPPA, the situation remained stagnant if not worse. MISA intensified its campaign for diversity and liberalisation of the airwaves in Southern Africa under the Broadcasting and ICTs programme. The major challenge of state ownership and control of national broadcasters in the region saw the focus of the campaign being the transformation of such broadcasters into public service broadcasters. The highlight of this transformation initiative were national conferences which brought together stakeholders and policy makers and set the tone for lobbying. The campaign was also enriched by research on the state broadcasting sector and news content analysis in some state broadcasters which provided direction on where to focus the broadcasting reform initiatives. MISA’s campaign efforts registered successes in countries like Botswana and Swaziland. In Botswana the regulatory authority awarded three more national broadcasting licenses, ending the monopoly of the state broadcasters. Legislators also sent back a draft broadcasting bill which did not fully guarantee transformation. In Swaziland, the government drafted a very progressive Public Service Broadcasting bill which gave a lot of optimism for transformation in that country. MISA also continued its support for community media. Highlights of this campaign included the South African 4 Annual Report 2006