South African gender elections and media training report

Engaging media practitioners on discussions of gender equality

Published by: Gender Links (GL), Johannesburg , 2005
Via: Eldis

These country reports produced by Gender Links (GL) give a detailed overview of training workshops held in South Africa, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola and Mauritius, ahead of their elections in 2004 and 2005. The reports from these countries show how a how a targeted and well timed approach to gender and media training in the newsroom can yield substantial coverage and public debate on women’s participation in decision making. The following are some of the objectives of the series of workshops:

• by running training courses on gender and democracy for media practitioners, the programme aimed to promote gender awareness and skills of the media
• the project aimed to measure the extent to which SADC governments were honouring their commitment to achieving 30 percent women in decision-making positions in government, and to increase media coverage of this issue
• the workshops were aimed at helping the media to understand how gender equality is integral to citizenship, democracy and freedom of expression.

Other objectives included:

• identifying key gender issues in the elections in these countries and to share the findings of the GL study: “Ringing up the Changes: Gender in Southern African Politics”
• identifying issues of concern by women in politics in their dealings with the media and vice versa
• building relationships between women in politics and media decision-makers and practitioners
• empowering women politicians with practical skills to deal effectively with the media
• assisting the media in thinking through the gender dimensions of their election coverage.