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by Nina Monsen
Media should serve as an agent to promote positive images of women in society, but the images media present of women sometimes help to entrench the stereotype of women as victims, vulnerable groups, or physical objects like in beauty pageants and advertising.
All these images ignore women as intellectual beings as well as leaders, politicians, decision-makers, business people, academics and so on. Besides, women are rarely featured in the media. For example, in Zambian media, men comprise over 85 percent of the content. Women are not only featured less often than men in the media, they are also underrepresented within the media institution. A survey by Independent Newspapers in South Africa on 14 of their newspapers, showed that: only 36 percent of the editorial staff, like journalists, photographers and production staff are women, and at newsroom management level only 24 percent of newsroom decision-makers are women.
The South African figures are not untypical for the region. In Zambia, only three out of ten working in the media are women. Namibia, however, is an exception, with 46.6 percent female journalists and with 32 percent of the senior management being women.
Adding to the unfair representation of women, men report on areas considered being important and serious. In South Africa, a survey of the three main media, radio TV and newspapers, revealed that only 27 percent of the reporters covering politics are women. Male editors tend to assign women to report on stories of less importance, which rarely lead to recognition and promotion.
Improvements in information technology have not yet provided the same opportunities for women, especially women in Africa. Research carried out in 1997 by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Women’s Networking Support Programme stated that in Africa, poor infrastructure, high cost of connectivity, lack of time and human resources and no access to computers or computer training were the biggest obstacles for women in getting access to the internet.
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Radio airwaves are not stopped by poor infrastructure. The radio is the most affordable and accessible media in the region. The Zimbabwe Development Through Radio (DTR) is a project that has taken advantage of this. The DTR organises Radio Listening Clubs in the rural areas which enable women to use radio actively.
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Belgian scholarship programme
to benefit SADC students
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Students in the SADC region are set to benefit immensely from a regional scholarship programme being offered by the Belgian Agency for Development Cooperation (BADC) for tertiary education.
The development agency is giving scholarship grants to tertiary institutions in the 14-member region as opposed to direct donor-student sponsorship which is often common practice. Peter Van Acker, a senior official for the BADC regional office in Harare said the decision to deal with institutions rather than students was a deliberate one intended to give the latter autonomy to select deserving students.
Van Acker added that the long-term objective of the programme was to complement SADC’s human resources development needs through its protocol on Education and Training signed by heads of state and government in 1997 in Malawi. Under the protocol, SADC envisages the establishment of Centres of Specialisation that will offer education and training programmes in specialised and critical areas.
According to the SADC protocol, the Centres of Specialisation will be established at existing institutions which will be “strengthened as necessary to be able to offer regional programmes” mainly at post-graduate level as well as at under-graduate level in desciplines such as medicine and engineering.
Although the Centres of Specialisation have not been identified to date, partly because the protocol on education and training is not yet in force (awaiting ratification by the required two-thirds majority), BADC saw it fit to persue a regional scholarship programme at local colleges to enhance skills in critical fields.
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“Our aim is to promote regional integration because we believe countries benefit more that way than when they act individually,” Van Acker said.
The scholarship programme started in Zimbabwe in 1990 but has since benefited universities in other SADC countries. There are currently 15 SADC students doing post graduate studies at the Department of Crop Protection and Animal Science at the University of Zimbabwe and 5 studying Water Resources Engineering at the same university; 5 at the School of Mines, University of Zambia; 11 at the Applied Microbiology Department, University of Botswana; and 8 at the Land and Water Management Department, Sokoine University of Tanzania.
The total 44 scholarships at the four universities for the 1999 academic year are worth about US$316,000. Another US$140,000 has been ear-marked for 24 students doing short term training courses. 12 will be studying Serological Diagnostic Techniques at the Biomedical Research and Training Institute in Harare, Zimbabwe, while the other 12 will be studying Meat Inspection at the Lobatse Training Centre, Botswana.
Van Acker said BADC does not stipulate selection procedures to the institutions, nor does it distinguish between publicly- and privately-owned colleges. “The only requirement is for the institution (college) to advertise extensively throughout the region,” he said.
Articles on SADC issues....
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