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Rumbidzayi Zinyuke-Senior Reporter

The media should be active in promoting peace and development in their reporting to ensure that all Zimbabweans can have access to information that will contribute towards the improvement of their lives.

This came up during a meeting between United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinator Mr Edward Kallon and Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa yesterday.

Speaking after a closed door meeting, Mr Kallon said communication was an important tool for development and encouraged Government to continue using media to spread positive messaging, particularly ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections.

“This has been a fruitful and cordial meeting focusing on communication and how we can work together to increase outreach to the ordinary Zimbabweans, especially those in the periphery. We are talking about women, young people, people with disabilities and those living in the rural parts of this country,” he said. He stressed the need to improve on development journalism to get the message to the people.

“We also had discussions on how communication can contribute to peace, especially in the harmonised elections in 2023 and my appeal was that the communication and public information during this period should focus on peace, the Constitution and economic development,” said Mr Kallon.

Minister Mutsvangwa said Government on its part was committed to ensuring a peaceful environment ahead of the elections and stressed the need to build capacity among journalists to remove the media polarisation that exists currently.“We are concerned about the welfare of journalists in this country. We agreed with the UN resident coordinator that the training of journalists is important so that we can improve their capacity and they can produce evidence-based reporting. 

They should start talking to issues not tissues. We were talking about giving them more exposure so that we can begin to remove the polarisation which we continue to see in our media,” she said.

She said as the nation moves towards the elections, it was important to make Zimbabweans understand their rights in terms of voting and that they exercise their right in peace.

“This is what we basically need in this country. We need peace, we need stability so that we can develop the economy of this country and this is what the UN and all the agencies in this country are working together with Government to achieve. As a Ministry, we are grateful that we will be working together on these issues especially when it comes to communication to make sure we don’t leave anybody behind and neither do we leave any place behind,” said Minister Mutsvangwa.

The Ministry was already working with Unesco to reach out to marginalised communities through the launching of community radio stations.

Government has licensed 14 community radio stations and so far three have been launched.

 “Community radios are playing a very important role to make sure that information goes to each and every one. We are also making use of these community radios to put early warning systems in areas which are disaster prone like Chimanimani and Chipinge so that our people are aware when these disasters come upon us,” she said.