Executive Summary Executive Summary The following report captures activities undertaken by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) during the period 1 April, 2009 to March 30, 2010. This report attempts to narrate activities and measure their impact and, in so doing, link such activities to the annual work plan submitted by MISA at the beginning of the year being reported. This document is submitted in compliance with the funding agreements with partners, among them the Royal Danish Embassy, Royal Norwegian Embassy and the Royal Swedish Embassy. As will be noted MISA has endeavoured to carry out most of the planned activities. However, in some environments such as Angola, activity implementation was affected by staff turnover. Despite this, major successes were achieved, most notably in view of concessions achieved by MISA from governments in Lesotho, Zambia and Malawi to commence the review of restrictive media laws. In Swaziland the opening up of the broadcasting sector is expected to assist the democratisation process of this country. MISA witnessed the impact of its advocacy and lobbying work of PanAfrican structures. More critically, MISA has – along with a growing lobby of African and international free expression organisations – successfully lobbied the African Union to elevate media development as a sector in its own right. This is a major policy victory. Above all, the work of MISA remains relevant and in demand as the organisation is the vanguard of media and freedom of expression defence in the region. 14