Media development in Zimbabwe imperative

Media Institute for Southern Africa regional director Tabani Moyo has said media development in Zimbabwe requires a holistic approach, alive to the gains accrued thus far and complex enough to connect the scattered dots through an outward-looking strategy responsive to the evolving needs of the media development ecosystem.

He made the rsmarks in an article he authored and circulated through their ogaisation account.

"The gains that have been scored since the explicit constitutional guarantees that provide for media freedom, freedom of expression, access to information and the right to privacy, which came into effect with the dawn of the new charter a decade ago are instructive of the need to remain engaged on the reforms agenda," he said.

"Since then, the gains have been incremental, which include but are not limited to the repeal of the infamous Access to Information Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), replaced by the progressive Freedom of Information Act (2020); the broadening of access to information through post-cabinet media briefs; the licensing of new players in private, commercial and campus broadcasting; shift by the Ministry of Information and broadcasting authority from the attitude of antagonism to open door policy and a responsive media policy engagement process through the Media – Police Action Plan appended in 2016 under the leadership of Misa Zimbabwe among others."

Moyo said post the elections, the gains accrued can be gradually lost if there is limited scope in understanding the work beyond the plebiscite.

"I, therefore, seek to connect the dots. Hopefully, the media stakeholders, development partners and the government will remain engaged in a connecting-the-dots mindset in attending to these moving targets.

The shifts in geopolitics and reconfiguration of the global order have seen a rise of right-wing thinking that is inward-looking and seeing issues in silos. This sad situation builds a sense of turf mindset and entrenched positions rather than a collective sense of responsibility and working together for the collective good of all," he said.

"Governments, development partners, and civil society have become inward-looking and narrow-minded. When everyone is inward-looking, humanity is at its most vulnerable position."

He said the gains scored in the Zimbabwean context reflect the collective ownership and responsibility in moving the needle on the media development questions.

"Instead of opting for easy options of being inward-looking and acting in silos, there is a need to move to the centre and advance a collective cause of media reforms that are outward looking and reflect a better society that is in sync with other progressive league of nations in the region, continentally and at global scale," he said.

"If there is one outstanding issue about Zimbabwe's media regulatory, which stands out like a sore thumb in the region, it is that it is highly fragmented! This is paradoxical as it attempts to regulate a highly converged industry."

Moyo said the sector is governed, for example, through a chain of statutory regulatory bodies, notably The Postal and Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz), the Broadcasting; Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ); the signal carrier, Transmedia, Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC), which is a constitutional commission and the Censorship Board among others.

"Yet the nature of the communication ecosystem in Zimbabwe, the region and the global stage are highly converged. This entails that the regulation mechanisms in the country are playing catch up to the practises, thereby simply reducing them to duplicitous acts, hindrances to sector growth and outright redundancy.

In connecting the dots, there is an opportunity to synchronise the regulatory regime through convergence and collapse the multiple regulatory agencies under one roof for efficacy, effectiveness, and responsiveness to evolving needs," he noted.

"Developments in information technologies are now revolutionising entire facets of life through advances in AI, which requires agility in the government playing a facilitatory role in responsive communication ecosystems in Zimbabwe that speak to the broader league of nations that have since embraced the same."

He said the government of Zimbabwe has been pitching its strategy on the "whole of government approach", which is predicated on the government being calibrated into a service delivery machinery.

"Suppose there is any semblance of this happening. In that case, it must start playing out in the convergence of communications systems anchored on a healthy mix of online and offline communication approaches. You can't be a fragmented centre and yet yearn to be relevant in regulating converged services," he said.