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Virginia Muwanigwa Correspondent
This is the tenth in a series of articles analysing regional progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment. As the curtain slowly but surely comes down on 2015, the media, information and communication sector is one of the areas under regional and global scrutiny.

Regional, in line with the SADC Gender Protocol (SGP) targets for 2015 and global as a reflection of the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), in which the media was one of the critical areas of concern.

Within the SADC region, review processes began long before 2015 dawned as part of the ongoing assessment of progress since the Heads of State adopted the protocol in 2008.

In Article 30, in the regional instrument, under gender in media content, States Parties agreed to take measures to ensure the media at best played a transformatory role in debunking patriarchal myths and stereotypes or at least, was not complicit in perpetuating them.

Specifically, the regional leadership agreed to “discourage the media from: promoting pornography and violence against all persons, especially women and children; depicting women as helpless victims of violence and abuse; degrading or exploiting women, especially in the area of entertainment and advertising, and undermining their role and position in society; and reinforcing gender oppression and stereotypes”.

The leaders also committed to “encourage the media to give equal voice to women and men in all areas of coverage, including increasing the number of programmes for, by and about women on gender specific topics and that challenge gender stereotypes”.

Finally, the protocol exhorts States Parties to “take appropriate measures to encourage the media to play a constructive role in the eradication of gender based violence by adopting guidelines which ensure gender sensitive coverage”.

Noting the limitations of the media in relation to Universal Access to Information, Communication and Technology, in Article 31, States Parties promised to put in place information and communication technology policies and laws in the social, economic and political development arena for women’s empowerment, regardless of race, age, religion, or class. These policies and laws would include specific targets developed through an open and participatory process, in order to ensure women’s and girl’s access to information and communication technology.

Analysis of progress in the media sector against other targets shows that while some gains are visible, change has been rather long in coming. And equality still seems unattainable. And this is despite most countries adopting laws and or reviewing their constitutions to guarantee gender equality and women’s empowerment in the social, economic and political sphere.

Ironically, the media, in its professional set-up seeks to entrench accountability by leadership in the social, economic and political spheres. One of the tenets of the media, as was the theme in the annual Highway Africa conference in 2013, is to speak truth to power.

This appears to have been deferred in looking inward to ensure that the media walks the talk as far as gender equality and women empowerment within its structures, processes and content is concerned.

The SADC Gender Protocol Barometer 2014 notes that several international and regional instruments contain provisions on gender equality within the media, especially at the decision-making levels. Section J on the Media in the 1995 BPFA, calls on the media to promote women’s full and equal participation in media management and for the media to aim at gender balance in the appointment of women and men to all management bodies.

In Southern Africa, both the SGP and the SADC Strategic Implementation Framework (2006-2010) call for 50 percent women at all levels of decision-making and in media content by 2015.

Gender Links (GL), which is co-ordinating a SADC-wide programme to ensure gender is integrated within the media, notes that the proportion of women sources in the media has gone down slightly from 22 percent recorded in 2013 to 21 percent in 2014.

The Barometer reveals that regional trends show relatively slow progress in achieving gender equality in the media in the SADC region. Women comprised 17 percent of news sources in the 2003 Gender and Media Baseline Study (GMBS). This rose to 19 percent in the 2010 Gender and Media Progress Study (GMPS), which monitored 157 media houses in SADC.

In 2011, supplementary monitoring of 30 partner media houses by GL, showed women comprised 19 percent of sources. However, by 2012 this had increased to 21 percent and by 2013 to 22 percent in the self-monitoring exercise undertaken by 76 media houses that form part of the COEs. “The 2014 spot-monitoring exercise shows that there has been a one percentage point drop in women sources in the COE media houses from 22 percent to 21 percent.’

While progress has indeed been sluggish, there have been some successes. To date there are 108 Media Centres of Excellence (COE) within media outlets across the 15-country region, co-ordinated under the programme. The COE project, co-ordinated by GL, supports media houses in mainstreaming gender in institutional practice and content.

Some media houses have gone beyond participation and owned the concept to the extent of allocating their own budgets towards gender mainstreaming, according to GL. To this end, media houses contributed 26 percent of funds to run the COE project in 2013. The centres have thus used the protocol targets as a benchmark for initiating in-houses programmes and barometer against which to measure progress.

The barometer notes that the lowest proportion of women sources has increased from 8 percent (Malawi) in 2003, to 15 percent (Malawi) in 2014. Madagascar and Mozambique recorded the highest proportion of women sources at 46 percent.

Pertaining to gender in the media in terms of representation, the Glass Ceilings in Southern African Media Houses Study (2009) revealed that 41 percent of those working in the media and 28 percent of those in management were women. The Gender Score Card (GSC) introduced by GL as part of the COE process, measures media performance against 20 indicators for gender equality in and through the media. These indicators inform media policies and action plans.

The GIME research, according to the Barometer, found that gender is mainstreamed in various ways at different institutions, though this tends to be done in an ad hoc way and teaching it is often left to the lecturer’s discretion. If the region, and indeed, the world is to meet gender equality and women empowerment targets, there is need for the media, as a watchdog to play its role. And the media can only do so with credibility if its own progress shows commitment to the principles of gender equality.

• Virginia Muwanigwa is a gender activist and chairperson of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, which is the focal point to the SADC Gender Protocol Alliance. She is also the Director of the Humanitarian Information Facilitation Centre (HIFC).