The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) was established in 1992 in response to the UNESCO-sponsored Windhoek Declaration of 1991, and mandated by concerned journalists to implement decisions adopted under the declaration in the Southern African region. MISA seeks ways in which to promote the free flow of information and co-operation between media workers, as a principal means of nurturing democracy and human rights in Africa.

  

MISA is a non-governmental organisation with representation in 11 of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries. It focuses primarily on the need to promote free, independent and pluralistic media, as envisaged in the 1991 Windhoek Declaration. The role of MISA is primarily one of a coordinator, facilitator and communicator, and for this reason MISA aims to work together with all like-minded organisations and individuals to achieve a genuinely free and pluralistic media in southern Africa

 

MISA’s Regional Secretaria coordinates its programme in Southern Africa. It is based in Windhoek, Namibia, and its main tasks are:

 

Advocacy: To conduct advocacy in accordance to the organisation's mission, act on media freedom violations and conduct research as the basis of specialised and popularised publications.

 

Coordination: MISA has eleven (11) offices, also known as Chapters throughout Southern Africa.

 

In this respect, the role of the regional secretariat is to establish and coordinate a MISA platform in each of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, recruit all institutional and individual members representing the independent media in the region. Click here for a list and contact details of the National MISA Offices.

 

Capacity Building: To capacitate national chapters, individual members and the independent media.

 

Management: To establish and implement financial control systems for MISA programmes and core functions, develop and maintain a rolling planning system for MISA strategies, programmes and core functions and liaise with key opinion- and decision makers central to the fulfillment of the organisation's mission.

 

Mission

 

The mission of MISA is to play a leading role in creating an environment of media freedom and free expression that promotes independence, pluralism and diversity of views and opinions, media sustainability, competency and professionalism in the southern African region.

 

In dealing with these elements, MISA will ensure that gender-specific needs form an integral part of all its activities. MISA aims to create an environment in which civil society is empowered to claim information and access it as an inalienable right and in which the resultant freer information flow strengthens democracy by enabling more informed citizen participation.

 

The objective of MISA is to lobby for promotion and protection of media freedom and free expression. It is also to strengthen and support the development of a vibrant, professional and participatory media sector as an essential part of the deepening of democracy in southern Africa.

 

Vision

 

MISA’s vision is of a southern Africa region in which the media enjoys freedom of expression, independence from political, economic and commercial interests, pluralism of views and opinions. Our vision is of a region where members of society, individually or collectively are free to express themselves through any media of their choice without hindrance of any kind. A region, too, where access to information must be unhindered and where information is readily available.