Gender and Media Diversity Centre Synopsis
This report gives an overview of the Gender and Media Diversity Centre (GMDC) during the period 1 March 2011 until 29 February 2012. Our mission statement is to create “a more representative, responsive, and professional media as well as citizens, women and men, who are empowered to critically engage with the media.”  This vision is achieved through the collection, connection, and dissemination of existing knowledge and resources, as well as collaborating on new research and exchanges. Our target users include trainers; training institutions; media practitioners; academics and researchers; students; gender and media activists; and national, regional and international organisations. 

Objectives:
The Centre aims to:
•	Promote more analytical, responsive, and contextual journalism.
•	Produce knowledge products in different multi-media formats and popularise them among its target.
•	Use new media to communicate GL’s work as well as ignite gender, media, and diversity debates on social media platforms.
•	Provide resources that make the links between media theory and practice.
•	Build the capacity of citizens, media and journalism students, media, and journalism educators to understand gender and media literacy concepts.
•	Develop a culture of critical media production and consumption.
•	Offer citizens a platform to discuss pertinent gender issues in society.
•	Support and encourage writers to engage with gender issues.
•	Publicise the work of media scholars, students and practitioners.
•	Develop north-south and institutional partnerships with strategic organisations.

Activities and inputs

Governance

The GMDC advisory group met in May 2011 in Johannesburg. So far, ten institutions and media NGOs have signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Institutions that sign MOUs automatically qualify to become members of the Advisory Group. The rest of the institutions are members of the GMDC. The GMDC also has gender and media activists globally, such as Margaret Gallagher (UK) and Amu Joseph (India) who form part of the international advisory group. 

During the year under review, the GMDC participated in an initiative led by UNESCO and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) to develop gender indicators for the media. The GMDC also took part in the Africa Media Summit. On 19 September 2011, the Africa Information and Media Summit (AIMS), a meeting that brought together the Pan African Conference on Access to Information, as well as the Highway Africa Conference, adopted the African Platform on Access to Information (APAI) in Cape Town. During the year the GMDC held seminars and online debates on the gender dimensions of access to information, winning at least half of the gains that they sought. 

Seminars
The GMDC continues to provide platforms for citizens to discuss pertinent gender, media and diversity issues. These seminars are in line with the GMDC’s vision to disseminate and create knowledge; connecting people with the relevant information and promoting collaboration that allows citizens to engage. A total of 624 people 62% women and 38% men  attended the GMDC seminars. Themes covered included: 
•	Fifty-fifty debate on women in politics in the DRC, Mauritius and Lesotho.
•	Launches of the Gender and Media Progress Study (GMPS) in Swaziland, Tanzania and Mozambique.
•	Gender and climate change in Botswana, Swaziland, Mauritius, Zimbabwe and Madagascar.
•	Gender, media freedom and Access to Information seminars in DRC; Mauritius; Namibia, Tanzania and South Africa. The Access to Information debates solicited inputs for the draft African Platform on Access to Information (APAI) document submitted to the committee drafting the declaration adopted in September 2011. The GMDC has undertaken a comprehensive audit of the losses and gains in APAI the current issue of the journal, showing that about half the recommendations made it into the document, that otherwise would have been totally gender blind. Below is   an example of strong language on gender in the final Declaration: 

Gender and Media Diversity Journal
The Gender and Media Diversity Journal (GMDJ) is the bi-annual journal of the GMDC. The journal provides up-to-date and cutting edge information on media diversity in Southern Africa and beyond. It is a space for the dissemination of research findings and projects; case studies; campaigns; policy developments; and opinion and debate on media practice in the region. Each journal covers latest developments but also focuses on a different thematic area identified in consultation with the GMDC advisory group. 
GL produced two Journals, Gender, Media, Diversity and Change:  Taking Stock and Gender, Popular Culture and Media Freedom, were produced during the 2010/2011 Financial Year. 

Gender in Media Education
http://gemcommunity.genderlinks.org.za/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=24847
The GMDC in partnership with UNESCO has started work on the establishment of  Gender Mainstreaming Centres of Excellence in Journalism and Media Education and Training in institutions of higher learning in Southern Africa. The process emerged from the Gender in Media Education Audit. The Audit measured if and how gender is mainstreamed in journalism and media education and training. The research highlighted gaps and good practices in institutions of higher learning across the region.

GL is working with institutions of higher learning through sustained interventions that bring together curriculum review and development; policy development; capacity building; specific training in gender and media literacy; e-learning courses for trainers; monitoring and evaluation; and the sharing of good practices at the Gender and Media Summit that happens every two years.

Specifically, GL is working in partnership with UNESCO on a project that involves   
three face to face workshops with journalism and media educators from six Centres of Excellence and Reference. On-line discussions take place in between workshops, through the Community of Practise that has been set up for this purpose. Expected results include: 
•	Subjects offerings in journalism and media courses that mainstream gender.
•	A report on the content and methodology underpinning the training.
•	Personal accounts from trainers about the impact of the training and technology on their own learning.
•	Courses are publicised and circulated through the COP for other institutions of higher to engage with and utilise.

Gender and Media Literacy Training 
The gender and media literacy course is a GL initiative that is undertaken by the GMDC, aimed at creating a critical citizenry that is able to interpret and make informed judgements as media consumers. Citizens are also empowered to create information and their own media messages. In total, 272 women, and men, 51% women and 49% men benefitted from the gender and media literacy course in 2011 and 2012.  

The Gender and Media Literacy course utilises the Watching the Watch dogs Gender and Media Literacy Toolkit. The toolkit consists of binder, “core” exercises and notes. Each module allows for maximum participation and creativity on the part of learners, as well as adaptation to local circumstances. The binder format allows participants, at whatever level or in whichever location, to add material based on the numerous exercises and assignments. The materials take account of the Outcomes Based approach to Education (OBE). 

The objective of the media literacy course is to develop a culture of critical media consumption among different target groups. The tool kit draws from research and training material developed over a number of years on gender and the Southern African media. 

In addition, the course equips participants with gender analysis and a range of communication skills including media monitoring, how to take up complaints, design and cost campaigns, and use new media to leverage these campaigns. Trainers who run gender and media literacy mainstream gender in their courses. 

The course has been undertaken with citizens, learners, NGOs, women in politics, educators and journalists. GL undertook the course with journalism and media trainers, students and journalists. In addition, through a partnership forged with loveLife, the GMDC footprint is extending into popular culture.

Outcomes – the benefits of sustained relations
The GMDC has now been in existence for six years, thanks to generous funding from DANIDA and the DFID Governance and Transparency Fund. During that time the GMDC has forged many cross cutting and mutually reinforcing linkages. A comprehensive external evaluation and impact assessment will take place in 2014. As illustrated in the example below of the National University of Lesotho (NUL), there is emerging evidence that the sustained, cross cutting linkages (the GMDC, media literacy, publications and resources, as well as the internship programme) is creating institutional change that cascades to the rest of society through the outreach programmes of such partners. 

Challenges
•	ICT is the glue of the GMDC, yet ICT culture is not yet fully embedded in Southern Africa. Resources gathered by the GMDC are online are not accessible to the majority of its target in SADC. For instance, the media alerts and highlights are an important resource in teaching but usage has been very low despite several trainings with students and trainers to popularise them.
•	The ICT sector develops at a fast pace. The Centre has to keep abreast of the ICT developments and use them to the benefit of its target. This may not always be easy.
•	Curriculum change in academic institutions in SADC is challenging. Some institutions have not reviewed their curriculum in the past five years because of a lack of financial resources. Men dominate in academic institutions and at times gender issues are met with resistance.
•	Signing MOUs has been a challenge because of the bureaucratic nature of academic institutions.

Next steps
•	Holding a GMDC advisory group meeting in July, in tandem with the next gender and media educators workshop with UNESCO. Inviting gender 
•	Signing MOUs with all members, and recruiting new members, such as Lovelife as well as gender and media networks.
•	Updating the media literacy toolkit
•	Planning for the upcoming media literacy training, linked to the Sixteen Days of Activism.  
•	Mobilising resources for the GMDC.
•	Broadening the international contacts and networks of the GMDC. 
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