BY NIGEL NYAMUTUMBU
Key media actors, among them editors’ groups, journalists unions, self-regulatory bodies, media professional and advocacy groups in Southern Africa have set strategic priorities towards the realisation of citizens’ rights to freedom of expression, access to information and media freedom in the region.
In what will culminate in the establishment of a vibrant network that will coordinate regional advocacy interventions, the framework for coming together to respond to a myriad of challenges facing Southern Africa was agreed to by these media stakeholders at meetings held in South Africa and Lesotho, which were coordinated by the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ) and the African Editors Forum (Taef), through its regional affiliate the Southern Africa Editors Forum (Saef).
Southern Arica is generally facing a harsh socio-economic environment characterised by increasing levels of poverty; growing unemployment; prevalence of migration to economically better countries such as South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, deindustrialisation; dwindling media revenues and downsising of media operations.
There is a notable growing socio-economic inequality; increasing crime rates; and deepening corruption. In addition, there is a growing case of capture of public sphere institutions including the state, the media and civil society as well as competitive electoral authoritarian regimes that thrive on impartial political and socio-economic reforms.
Responses by civil society are affected by donor dependence and donor driven civil society finding it increasingly difficult to navigate through sustainability challenges presented by a situation in which traditional donor countries place more focus on survival issues affecting their citizens.
Overall Southern Africa’s is facing stunted regional integration initiatives characterised by negative developments such as xenophobia, counter-progressive protectionism in relation to regional trade.
The obtaining socio-political and economic environment within Southern Africa is mirrored in the media environment, which is still to democratise despite progressive legal frameworks.
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While as many countries within the region have relatively democratic constitutions that provide for either of freedom of expression, freedom of the media and or right of access to information in their constitutions, there are still exemptions and other laws that inhibit these rights and freedoms.
Beyond the national constitutions, there are other regional instruments among them, the Sadc protocol on media, information and culture, that provide the basis for democratising the media sector in the region.
There are also policy guidelines of the Cyber Security draft policy that Sadc developed, public broadcasting content sharing through the Southern Africa Broadcasters Association (Saba) and the Sadc Guidelines for Democratic Elections that form a key regional legal framework impacting the state of media vis-à-vis fostering a democratic media in Southern Africa.
Many media issues that need regional coordination are also being addressed at a continental and international level.
This includes issues around internet governance, access to information and the role of the media in supporting the development agenda within the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
However, the region has experienced an increase in common media policies among member states that are placing controls on journalism practice, restrictions on media freedoms and common state practice condoning threats and violence against media.
There is, therefore, need to increase solidarity amongst media stakeholders in Southern Africa to ensure sharing of skills, information and strengthening voices calling for democratic and positive media change.
It is in light of this context that media actors, following a process of in-country consultative engagements and a mapping exercise coordinated by MAZ that three strategic areas were identified to be priorities for the development of the media sector in Southern Africa.
These areas were identified to be around communicative rights such as freedom of expression, access to information and the safety of practitioners as well as citizens.
The second area pertained to the internet and digital rights, with a focus on democratic governance of the cyber space.
Lastly, media actors made a compelling case for the need to transform state controlled media to genuine public service media.
In terms of communicative rights, the strategic and regional overarching issues pertain to the need for constitutional provisions on free expression, the right of access to information and freedom of the media to be put into effect.
In the case of Namibia, Zambia, Lesotho, Botswana, Malawi and Swaziland there is need for the enactment of access to information legislation.
In countries such as Swaziland and Zambia, there is need for concerted regional efforts to check continuing and growing cases of threats, harassment and intimidation against journalists.
Where such cases are emerging, there is need to ensure that they do not spread and intensify.
In consideration of the growing scourge of fake news and falling professional standards of journalism in most of the countries under review, there is need to come up with interventions that promote and uphold journalistic ethics.
In terms of digital rights, it is imperative to note that almost all Southern African countries are at different stages of developing and implementing cyber laws.
Concerns have been raised with cyber laws in Tanzania and processes to develop such laws in Zimbabwe.
South Africa has faced challenges with privacy invasion and snooping and journalists are being attacked in Zambia and Tanzania over Online journalism and content sharing.
While SADC has developed a regional cyber policy guide, its application has been more on control by national governments seeking to influence how citizens access to information, particularly on social media.
There is need to raise civil society concerns on the infringement of citizens’ rights online, but more so the need for democratic cyber laws, that promotes security while protecting citizen rights.
Part of the challenges around online or internet rights are skewed ownership structures of telecoms in which governments are major stakeholders or use proxies hence use both overt and covert means to control the social media space.
In Zimbabwe, the government has a record of interfering with social media platforms and broadly the internet as was the case in 2016, 2017 and in January of 2019 while in South Africa journalists’ mobile phones were jammed in 2015 and some had their private conversations hacked.
Southern Africa media advocates agree that cyber security and citizen social media rights are a major issue going forward.
On the need for the transformation of state-controlled media to genuine public service media, media stakeholders cited with concern the election observer mission reports that Sadc, the African Union and other international missions note in so far as the conduct of the government controlled media.
The state-controlled media is often biased towards the ruling parties within the region and there are often partisan appointments that neither serves the media nor the populace.
In cases where there is some semblance of public service media within the region, there are often attempts at curtailing this through threats and political interference.
As such, there is definite case for regional media actors to combine efforts in defence of media freedom in the region.
Working towards these three interlinked identified priorities, three organisations were identified to coordinate work around these areas. The Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) regional chapter were asked to coordinate the communicative rights thematic area, with the Bloggers of Zambia coordinating the digital rights thematic area.
Saef will coordinate work around the public service media, while MAZ will assist in the overall coordination and in particular spearhead engagements with regional bodies such as Sadc and the regional body’s Parliamentary Forum.
In working towards this coordinated approach, media actors that work around these the identified priority areas will hold thematic engagements and develop common positions that will be used to influence the development and implementation of democratic policies in the region.
All these interventions will be consolidated through a coordinated platform that will establish the regional network in defence of media freedom in Southern Africa.
It is only through such collaborative effort, strengthened networking and solidarity that citizens in Southern Africa will enjoy freedom anchored on a democratic media.
Nigel Nyamutumbu is a development practitioner, currently serving as the programmes manager of the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ). MAZ has been coordinating advocacy interventions in Zimbabwe and in the Southern African region with the support of various development partners. He can be contacted on +263 772 501 557 or njnya2@gmail.com This article was first published by The Accent, a MAZ initiative
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