Tanzania: UN Women to host gender & media summit

Tanzania: UN Women to host gender & media summit


Date: July 6, 2018
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HE Vice President of Tanzania and UN Women Executive Director to attend

Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA: UN Women announced today it will host a Gender and Media Summit on August 22 to 24, 2018 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Focusing on the acceleration of the implementation of the reporting of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Gender and Media Summit is expected to be graced by HE Vice President of Tanzania Mrs. Samia Suluhu Hassan; the UN Women Executive Director Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka; and leading media personalities of Tanzania.

The three-day summit will include several sessions and discussions of the status of gender reporting in Tanzania, and will launch the result of the media monitoring exercise and research held earlier this year; along with a handbook on gender responsive reporting, with a special focus on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Speaking at the Inception meeting of the project in February, UN Women Country Representative Ms. Hodan Addou stressed on the role of media in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals: “To achieve gender equality, we must work on many issues—laws, education, representation in government—the list is long. But, media needs to be a priority as they have an enormous impact on the ways that women, men, boys and girls think about their roles and their value to society.”

According to Global Media Monitoring Project 2015 (GMMP), a global study which ascertains the representation and portrayal of women in the world’s news, “women make up only 24 per cent of the persons heard, read about or seen in newspaper, television and radio news, exactly as they did in 2010”. The GMMP notes that in Africa, women’s relative presence in the news has only increased from 19 per cent in 2010 to 22 per cent in 2015.

In Tanzania, specific data collected in the Southern Africa Gender and Media Progress Study reveals that women consist only 22 per cent of news sources, which was two percentage point more than the regional average of 20 per cent. The GMMP 2015 also notes that globally the percentage of stories in, which gender equality or inequality issues are raised is only 9 per cent.

Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and supported by Gender Links, the Summit is a component of the Acceleration of Gender-Responsive Sustainable Development Goals Localization – UN Women Executive Secretariat Capacity Support Programme; and aims to bridge the gender gap in media. The Gender and Summit comes after a week-long training on gender responsive reporting held in Dar es Salaam, in July 2018, for 32 journalists from 15 Tanzanian media house, and students from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

CEO of Gender Links, Ms. Colleen Lowe-Morna notes that “The media plays a frontline role in shaping attitudes, norms, and perceptions in achieving and contributing to gender equality. It is important to see the media putting the Sustainable Development Goals on the agenda, Goal 5, which seeks to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. This Summit presents a rare opportunity for Tanzanian media to showcase best practices on gender-responsive reporting.”

A key component of the Summit is the Awards for Excellence in Gender Responsive Reporting in the categories of Print, Radio, Television, Photojournalism, Institutional and Leadership in Media. All accredited Tanzanian journalists residing in the country are encouraged to submit their best stories on gender responsive reporting by August 6, 2018. Winners of the Awards will be recognized as brand ambassadors for gender equality in Tanzanian media.

For more information on the Gender and Media Summit, and submission of entries, please click here.


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