REGIONAL PERSPECTIVESStrengthening Cross-Boarder Media Coverage of Elections and Election Issues Within the SADC Region. The next two years are shaping up to be interesting times in southern Africa, with at least nine national elections planned and two others pending, and one more scheduled for 2001. Since the media plays a key role in electoral processes and in development of regional perspectives, SARDC is making provision to strengthen cross-boarder media coverage, with the objective of broadening the regional exposure and perspectives of key journalists and existing media outlets. The rationale for seizing on the electoral context is that it presents a unique opportunity when a range of issues can be debated in the public domain including regional development issues. We plan to use this opportunity to bring national issues more sharply into regional focus and vice versa, through strengthening direct media exposure within and between countries in the SADC region. The initial objective is to harness the context of national elections forthcoming in five of the 14 SADC member states in 1999, through cross-boarder elections coverage and media exchange, while providing stronger access within the SADC region to information and debate on national development issues in a regional context. National parliamentary and presidential elections in 1999 are in Malawi, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia. Elections coverage is conducted in collaboration with other regional organizations, including the Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABA), Inter Press Service (IPS), Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) network, and a number of national media outlets in various countries, including Portuguese-language coverage for Angola and Mozambique. In selected countries where this facility is weak, media training will be undertaken in collaboration with media training institutions such as the Nordic-SADC Journalism Centre and the departments of journalism and communications at the Malawi Polytechnic and the University of Namibia. This project is expected to facilitate stronger media exposure and experience in regional coverage of elections and related issues through working assignments in those countries which are holding national elections, for journalists from elsewhere in the region, and improved capacity of national media training institutions through regional linkages. In addition to media exposure and regional media coverage of national election issues, the outputs include a Media Guide to Reporting Elections in Southern Africa, and a regional workshop on reporting elections. SARDC is an independent regional information resource centre whose objective is to improve the base of knowledge about economic, political, cultural and social developments, and their implications, by making information accessible to governments and policy makers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, regional and international organizations, development agencies, parliaments, and the media.
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