THIS MEDIA Toolkit on SADC Regional Integration has been developed as part of efforts to advance the integration agenda in Southern Africa. The main objective of the toolkit is to promote and catalyze dialogue on regional integration and development through a well-informed media that motivates action for informed decision-making on policy and result-oriented implementation of key regional programmes aimed at poverty alleviation.
The toolkit focusses on some of the key priority areas in the SADC integration agenda, namely trade, industrialisation and agriculture. In this regard, the media toolkit is structured as follows:
• Section 1: An Overview of SADC
* This presents a brief history of SADC – its formation and objectives -- including the Institutional Arrangements and other key Strategic Frameworks, with special focus on trade, agriculture and industrialisation.
• Section 2: Understanding key words/terms in SADC Regional Integration
* The section unpacks and defines some of the commonly used but often misunderstood words/terms in the SADC regional integration agenda.
• Section 3: Telling the SADC Story
* The main section of the toolkit aims to unpack how the media can actively participate in the regional public debate/discourse and tell the SADC story.
• Section 4: Conclusion
* This is a brief summary aimed at reinforcing and highlighting the important role that the media should play in tracking and advancing regional integration in SADC.
Another important segment of the toolkit is a list of Key Contacts in SADC that aims to provide a central reference point for journalists in the region and other communication practitioners to easily access SADC-affiliated organisations, as well as research institutions and think-tanks that work on integration issues in Southern Africa. Access to such information and key institutions is critical since one the major challenges for most media practitioners writing about SADC regional integration is the lack of access to officials and other sources of information. It has also been observed that where information on SADC is available, it is usually not written in accessible language is cluttered with scientific and technical jargon. In this regard, this media toolkit is meant to demystify SADC regional integration issues by making the subject easy to understand. The idea is to provide journalists with a quick reference source on regional integration issues.