The GL Opinion and Commentary Service The Opinion and Commentary Service is one of GL’s most innovative projects. Under the banner “fresh views on every day news”, the service commissions  thirty  provocative articles on gender issues from activists and opinion shapers around Southern Africa in English, French and Portuguese each month, and markets these to the media.

The service attempts to address the findings of the 2010 Gender and Media Progress Study (GMPS), which showed that women's voices are still grossly under-represented in the media, especially in opinion and commentary, and that coverage of gender issues is negligible. It also builds the capacity of journalists to write gender sensitive articles in all areas of development.

The service is divided into three: Anglophone (anchored at GL headquarters in Johannesburg); Francophone (anchored in Mauritius); and Lusophone (anchored in Mozambique). This section of the report covers the period March 2011 and February 2012.

Anglophone Service
The English service published 157 articles; the highest number during Sixteen Days of Activism period. As shown in the Theme Chart below, the highest number of articles is on sustainable development and “I” stories. During the Sixteen Days of Activism, GL published an online newsletter on the gender and climate justice campaign. On average these stories were reproduced almost six times by the mainstream media. This is based on feedback from editors and other direct tracking that GL is able to do using google media search engines and others. In the age of online media, it is difficult to track with any certainty how often stories get used. However, what is evident over the years is that usage of the English service has improved dramatically. This is the direction that the French and Lusaphone services need to be heading. 

Francophone Service
This serves DRC, Madagascar, and Mauritius. The French Service published 96 articles in 2011/ 2012 and of these, 23 were on climate change. On average, the articles were used 2.7 times. The service is now well established in Mauritius, where it has sparked many debates, such as local government and the abortion issue. The service needs greater traction in the other Francophone countries – Madagascar and DRC. The service attracted seven new writers this period. GL has created a separate Francophone list serve and search facility in a bid to grow the service. 

Lusophone Service takes off

The floods in Mozambique early this year gave a much needed impetus to GL’s new Lusophone Service, launched on the organisation’s tenth birthday on 17 March 2012.  From 24 to 25 March 2012, GL hosted a Gender and Climate change workshop in Namaacha, Mozambique. The workshop served to introduce journalists to the concept of gender and climate change as well as the Lusophone Opinion and Commentary Service.

This workshop organised by Gender Links Lusophone office brought together 24 participants, (ten females and 14 males) representing various Mozambican media houses based in Maputo, and journalism students from Eduardo Mondlane University. The workshop provided a unique opportunity to bring together participants with different views on gender.

Challenges 
•	Cost recovery: As the Service grows in strength it becomes even more apparent that the Service should be able to generate income. 
•	Writers’ capabilities to write provocative articles.
•	Tracking usage.
•	Breaking through in Angola.
•	Increasing usage of French pieces and getting new writers for the same.


Next Steps
There is an urgent need to: 
•	Finalise tracking systems.
•	Revise marketing of the service, especially liaising with editors.
•	Create templates for French and Portuguese Service articles to be sent out to Lusophone and Francophone list serves.
•	Build capacity for writers through giving them feedback, which allows them to improve on the quality of their writing.
•	Build GL’s radio networks.
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