Maravi

‘Any secretive govt will not be credible’

‘Any secretive govt will not be credible’
By Mwala Kalaluka in Maputo, Mozambique
Thu 22 Oct. 2009, 04:00 CAT

ANY government that is secretive and non-approachable will not be credible in the eyes of the voters, PANOS Southern Africa media and ICTs development programme officer Gillies Kasongo has observed.

And United Nations Millennium Campaign (UNMC) policy advisor for Africa Thomas Deve has accused pharmaceutical companies of violating ordinary people's rights to cheap drugs.

The two were presenting papers during the on-going UNMC-organised southern Africa media workshop held under the theme 'Enhancing the role of the Media in building a global movement for the accelerated achievement of the MDGs' at Hotel Cardoso in Maputo.

Kasongo said it was important for journalists to sufficiently report on development research in view of the secretive nature of some governments as issues that touch on the people's development should be debated openly if democracy was to be strengthened.

"There are challenges in this type of journalism," Kasongo said. "Journalism itself is a craft established on the premise of public interest."

Kasongo noted that reporting development research could help fight social inequalities and injustices and create a growing understanding of the issues facing the country by and increase the willingness and ability to debate these issues openly.

Kasongo urged media practitioners to raise mass mobilisation on issues around development research and MDGs.

And Deve said there had been a weakness by the media to take to task pharmaceutical companies that are watering down the advocacy by those infected by HIV/AIDS to access cheaper drugs.

"There are laws which need to change for these things to take place," he said.
Deve said it was important for journalists to query political party candidates over their stances on such inbuilt inequalities occurring on the global economic front, especially in view of the emerging neo-liberal policies affecting poor countries.

"You now find that parliamentarians are now picking up our issues for campaign," he said. "Any parliamentarian should be in a position to defend human rights and fight injustices...They should be the ones pushing for democratisation."

He said in a presentation dubbed 'Making the vote count', that journalists should have a sense of imagination of what the ideal situation should be when prodding political leaders to account over their campaign promises.

"When you try to hold people to account that is the first gesture they will say 'stop this business' even when they have not done anything wrong," Deve said. "Discussing policies during campaigns is one way you can hold government accountable."

Deve said space for violation of human rights had sharply increased in most of the regional countries as some countries had instituted laws to regulate civil society organisations.

"Speeches at rallies are some of the things we need to monitor," he said.
He also said what was happening around media freedom in countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe was another equally worrying example of human rights violation.

"We are now inviting you to join the campaign but from different scopes," he said. "Elections give you an opportunity to interrogate the economic vision...Civil society organisations on various aspects of the current development discourse within the multilateral trade regime are more aligned to UNMC's perspectives and positions on these issues than other international multilateral bodies like IMF, World Bank and WTO."

Deve asked the media to rephrase and domesticate reporting formats on the MDGs so that the eight goals are broken down into the promises and commitments that politicians make during election campaigns and for which they should be held accountable for.

"If journalists investigate, the citizens can hold the executive to account," he said. "Part of the advocacy process demands that you adequately scrutinise the situation of the people you are articulating on."

He said the media had a role to play in measuring the government's responsiveness on the areas of public concern arising from the non-realisation of their election commitments and promises.

"MDGs, during an election! Let us see whether this is happening in Mozambique . Civil society organisation is very...we want to see, is there political support?" Deve asked. "You have to be very strong to challenge the authorities because there are power dynamics."

The three-day workshop is being held in line with the forthcoming October 28, 2009 elections in Mozambique.

Labels: GOVERNANCE

posted by MrK @ 5:23 PM