Strategic Partnership: No News Is Bad News Free Press Unlimited and the European Journalism Centre, together with the Ministry, support media in functioning as change catalysts in their societies. This partnership will increase and leverage the impact of the common objective. Multiple impediments exist in the countries where we work. Worldwide press freedom has declined for the past seven years. Government and non-state actors hostile to press freedom do not allow an effective civil society to flourish. In many countries, regulatory frameworks are absent and impunity for violence against journalists is rampant. Lobbying and advocacy for social change depend in large part on the ability of Civil Society Organisations to communicate openly and securely. Media pluralism is important for civil society development and democracy. Public service media inform all citizens. Private media strengthen the sector economically and community media offer a platform for participatory citizen engagement. Also ownership of media institutions has become a major challenge. In many countries, governments exercise control over content through direct media ownership or through business conglomerates that do not serve the public interest. The common objective of the five-year program for the coming years is: Media and journalists, as independent players in civil society, constitute a diverse and professional information landscape and function as catalysts for change This common objective can be achieved by: 1. An enabling environment for the media is established, conducive to freedom of expression 2. Media serve the interests of the public and act as a watchdog on their behalf 3. Journalists and media actors work professionally and are effective and sustainable. These three 'intermediate outcomes' are program wide, and their progress will be monitored at the program level by keeping track of the progress on nine indicators within the countries and regions where we work. Information on the aims and results per indicator are elaborated on the country level, and can differ between countries dependent on the baseline situation there at the start of the program. Key actors across civil society, government and the public sector stakeholders will have to engage strategically to realize these outcomes. Media play a crucial role in inclusive and sustainable growth and development, linking grass-roots civil society concerns to national and global policy levels. The objectives are elaborated schematically in the attached Theory of Change. This is the top-level activity for the No News is Bad News Program. Most of the funds received here will be distributed to the activities taking place at the country and region-level, which are reported on as separate (child) activities. The MEAL (Monitoring and Evaluation for Accountability and Learning) team is active at this level, working for the entire program. FPU and EJC have established nine indicators, three for each intermediate outcome of our Theory of Change (both the Theory of Change and the list of indicators are in the attachments). These are monitored in each of the countries we are working in. We have operationalised them quantitatively using a progress scale (0- 3) applied to one or more progress ,arkers per indicator. These are formulated on the basis of a baseline workshop, and progress is subsequently monitored relative to the baseline situation. A note on the financial information in the program: transactions in this program are aggregated, using the first or the last day of the period they apply to, not the actual date of the transaction.