SARDC provides information and analysis of current events through special reports and news features, books, fact sheets, chronologies, data bases, policy analysis, seminars, conferences and specialist services. This information is well-received because of its scope and accessibility, drawing positive responses about the quality and mix of information, analysis and documentation, which makes it available to a cross-section of society, from parliaments and policy makers to media and information agencies to grassroots NGOs.

SARDC is also a documentation centre containing over 7,000 subject files on regional issues, a library of books and periodicals, and a computerized data base of select material, with reading room facilities for policy planners, diplomats, parliamentarians, researchers, journalists, NGOs and others studying issues with a regional perspective.
     The Regional Documentation Centre produces bibliographies and acquisitions lists, and facilitates exchanges and attachments.
     The Environment Resource Centre contains over 8,000 subject files, and a library and bibliographic data base specializing in environmental issues and disaster management information.
     The SARDC office in Maputo maintains an English-language library of information on Mozambique, and a selection of relevant Commonwealth publications; and has produced a consultants data base for UNDP on Mozambique which is currently being posted to the Internet.

As well as strong writing, editing and documentation skills for collection and circulation of information, SARDC has organized a number of seminars in Harare, Maputo and elsewhere, and has excellent logistical capacity in this regard. Some of our main programmes, such as environment, have started with a regional conference to define priorities. Seminars have included one for parliamentarians from five countries on research capacity, advisory committee meetings for books on water and on biodiversity; and workshops with the SADC regional advisory committee on gender.

The Editorial department scans regional publications, prepares booklets and other publications, as well as twice-monthly publication of news features and special reports, and bi-monthly production of the newsletter for the SADC secretariat, SADC Today, highlighting regional development issues. This department monitored change in South Africa after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, through twice yearly reports, Unfinished Business: South Africa's March to Democracy, until the elections in 1994. SARDC continues to monitor and assist the pace of change in Mozambique through a regular chronology produced by its local office in Maputo and a current book. The SARDC Maputo office undertakes documentation, networking, translation and training; and is coordinating agency for the Mozambique National Human Development Report for UNDP. Entitled Peace and Economic Growth: Opportunities for Human Development, the report to be launched in Maputo in December 1998, breaks new ground in the calculation of human development indicators for Mozambique.

SARDC is expanding its exchange programmes and working contacts with other organizations in the region and internationally, and seeking new methods of packaging and distribution of material to broaden the outreach for its range of publications. During the past year, we have improved and sustained our output of accessible, usable information, and widened the scope of our subject matter in a number of areas.

PROGAMMES with Projects for the three-year Work Plan 1997-1999:

• India Musokotwane Environment Resource Centre for Southern Africa (IMERCSA) administers a number of environmental information projects including Communicating the Environment Programme (CEP), with IUCN and SADC-ELMS; completion of the second phase of this successful project, started in 1992, which has produced an accessible report on State of the Environment in Southern Africa and a thematic update, Water in Southern Africa; environmental fact sheets and articles; and an environment resource centre with bibliographic and contacts data base for southern Africa; currently working on a project on the State Of Environment reporting Programme in the Zambezi river basin (SOEPROZ), and a book on the Biodiversity of Indigenous Forests and Woodlands.
        IMERCSA is one of 26 collaborating centres worldwide (three in Africa) working with UNEP on global environmental reporting, published as The Global Environment Outlook.
        IMERCSA houses the Disaster Management Information Project (DMIP), to collect and disseminate disaster management information and maintain a bibliographic data base and directory; this project covers drought and floods, AIDS and other pandemics, conflict, refugees, etc.
   
• Women in Development -- Southern Africa Awareness (WIDSAA), the second phase of a long-term project to impact on gender policy in southern Africa through establishment of information tools such as a data base/bibliography of existing material, national profiles on the status of women, and a regional Status of Women report titled Beyond Inequalities: Women in Southern Africa; developed in cooperation with the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Zambia, a range of contributors in the region and national partners in each SADC country; this programme works closely with SADC and the recently established SADC Gender Unit, and is a member of the regional advisory committee on gender.
   
• Sustainable Democracy, started in 1989 with a seminar preparing for elections in Namibia, this project has continued to assist the peace processes and elections in southern Africa through seminars, sharing regional experiences, voter education through radio outreach and presentation of electoral terminology in local languages, and publications; has developed a cost-effective regional model for elections observation and monitoring; recent projects involve workshops for media editors in eight countries on democracy and development, which have raised issues around ethics and training; and strengthening information access through sharing information by means of democracy factfiles, a newsletter, articles, data base and strengthening electronic access.
   
• Information 21: Communicating the 21st Century, this is a project to strengthen capacity in the SADC region to store, retrieve and use relevant information, with the objective of improving information flow, through networking and appropriate technology, within and outside southern Africa, based on a regional perspective. A long time in gestation, this project was approved by the SADC Council of Ministers in mid-1995, one output which has been achieved is publication six time a year of the SADC newsletter, SADC Today, in English and Portuguese.

Structure and Management
The Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) was established in 1987, in Harare and Maputo, in response to an expressed need within southern Africa for greater access to information about the region.
     The Centre started with a documentation unit, and has grown to encompass seven departments, all engaged in different aspects of SARDC's aims and objectives. These are: the India Musokotwane Environment Resource Centre for Southern Africa (IMERCSA), Women in Development Southern Africa Awareness (WIDSAA), Sustainable Democracy, Editorial, Documentation Centre, Information Management Systems(IMS), Administration & Finance. The directors and programme heads design their own project development and fund-raising in liaison with their colleagues, while IMS maintains the computer network of 25 work stations, and designs the SARDC publications. The Administrator/Finance department is responsible for accounting, personnel and administration.
     The SARDC staff numbers over 50 people, including five in Maputo and one in Dar es Salaam, of which about 35 are professionals and the rest support staff. All permanent and contract staff are nationals of southern Africa, and almost half of the staff at most levels are women. The Executive Director is a Canadian writer, editor and broadcaster who has written widely on southern African issues and has lived in this region for 25 years. SARDC has short-term attachments for journalists and documentalists from southern Africa, and has a Regional Training Editor from outside the region. SARDC takes on consultancies and training attachments, from within and outside the region.
     SARDC's management style is participatory. Programme heads are responsible for the day-to-day running of their departments. To achieve set goals, departments meet regularly to review their work, hold brainstorming sessions and staff seminars. Together with their deputies or assistants and staff involved in the writing of articles, they meet monthly to discuss and plan programme activities. The management committee meets monthly to discuss administrative issues -- planning, funding, personnel, equipment etc. Administration and programme decisions are taken collectively by the senior management, for budgeting, annual reporting and planning purposes. The centre evaluates its activities through consultations with staff and users of our material, questionnaires, etc. and programme-specific formal evaluations. Our policy of offering training and advancement of staff has facilitated greater job satisfaction as staff from programme heads to junior members assume new and more challenging responsibilities.

Legal status
SARDC is registered in the Netherlands as a non-profit-making foundation or stichting, and has NGO agreements with the governments of Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Tanzania, where its offices are located. Headquarters and principal operations are based entirely in southern Africa.

Major Sources of Funding
SARDC is largely project-funded, but raises about 20-25% of expenditure through income from consultancies, subscriptions, publications, etc.