The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a Regional Economic Community comprising of 16 member States across the continent.
These states include namely; Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Established in 1992, SADC commits to Regional Integration and poverty eradication within Southern Africa through economic development and ensuring peace and security.
With its objectives to achieve sustainable utilisation of natural resources, effective protection of the environment as well as strengthen and consolidate the long-standing historical, social and cultural affinities and links among the people of the region. The Council of Ministers in 1996 established the SADC awards to promote regional integration and cooperation and recognise excellence in journalism in the area of print, photo, television, radio.
In the world of fake news and easy access to information, those that continue to report accurately are recognised for their efforts. Media is a key point of communication reaching a very large number of people through channels which disseminate news, music, movies, education, promotional messages and other data.
SADC Media Awards recipients for 2020 were;
- Prosper Ndlovu from the Republic of Zimbabwe- Print Journalism category;
- Mr Godfrey Mpuse from the Republic of Botswana -Photo Journalism category;
- Aristides Afonso Kito Jorge from the Republic of Angola – Radio Journalism category
- Mr Alick Ponje from the Republic of Malawi – Television Journalism category
In a statement the SADC Secretariat congratulated all the winners for winning the 2020 Media Awards and for promoting the SADC regional integration, cooperation and development.
Journalists are urged to enter the competition and access more information on the competition from the www.sadc.int and www.gcis.gov.za websites.
Additional sources www.sadc.int
