Our Mission

For more than a decade, Panos Institute Southern Africa (PSAf) has been cultivating an informed and inclusive environment for public policy debate in the region, working with the media and other communicators to enable marginalized populations to play an active role in the decision-making process that drives development.

As an independent, regional information and communication organization, PSAf:

• Creates accessible and effective communications channels, and provides platforms for informed debate.


• Builds the capacity of journalists and other information providers to report on development issues vital to the region.


• Generates, processes and packages accessible information on critical development issues, ranging from globalisation and sustainable natural resource use to HIV/AIDS treatment.


• Conducts research on communication and development issues to promote more informed decision-making.


• Partners with national and regional media, as well as civil society, academics and NGOs.

Our Vision?

A Southern African community that is informed, engaged and empowered to drive its own development agenda.

Growing and Evolving

Panos Institute Southern Africa is constantly evolving and growing. PSAf was founded in 1996 as a branch of Panos London, and became an autonomous organization in May 2005. With a regional office in Lusaka, Zambia, PSAf works with other Panos Institutes based in London, Paris, Canada, South Asia, West and East Africa and the Caribbean. PSAf mandate principally covers 12 countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC): Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In 2004, PSAf became the host for the newly-created Zambia Community Media Forum (ZaCoMeF), a groundbreaking organization spearheading community media advocacy efforts in Zambia. In 2005, PSAf became the host of the Panos Global AIDS Programme (GAP) Secretariat, which coordinates Panos HIV/AIDS programmes around the world. And in 2006, the National Civil Society Millennium Development Goals Campaign Secretariat joined PSAf in Lusaka.

Regional Challenges and Opportunities

PSAf works in a region facing a host of complex challenges that hamper economic development and growth. Widespread poverty threatens development prospects throughout the countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), as millions of people still live in hardship and extreme poverty with depressingly low access to food, health care, education, shelter and clean water.

The region continues to be the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and rural households are generally most vulnerable to the pandemic's effects. Their ability to cope with the disease - as well as a growing number of orphans and vulnerable children - is weak. Even with a recent increase in access to antiretroviral drugs, ensuring that treatment reaches the most vulnerable in southern African society continue to be a major challenge. The pandemic continues to rob the region of highly skilled human resources and to divert major resources in both the informal and formal sectors. Moreover, HIV/AIDS is intertwined with myriad other development problems, like food security and governance, and poses a major threat to southern Africa’s long-term economic and political gains.

On the political and economic fronts, the SADC region has made some remarkable progress, particularly with the end of major conflicts in Mozambique, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the resultant emergence of democracy across the region. However, institutions of democracy and governance are still in their infancy and require robust checks and balances. Corruption poses huge threats to poverty reduction, the fight against HIV/AIDS, democratization and economic growth. The region is also grappling with challenges resulting from globalisation, free trade and technology advancement. In the midst of these challenges, many poor and marginalised populations have little or no access to relevant and useful information that would help increase their preparedness and resilience. In many southern African countries the communication environment is still unsupportive of the poor and marginalised. Many of the available communication channels are not easily or cheaply accessible to the less privileged, yet most needy. Though community media has begun to emerge across the region as an alternative to commercial and public media for the poor and marginalised populations in rural areas, the capacities and competency in these media organizations are still too low to meet growing demand.

Seizing Opportunities: The Panos Role

Despite these hurdles, there are major opportunities throughout the region and Panos Institute Southern Africa is working to seize them. There is huge potential for media development and pluralism, especially with the increasing recognition of the importance of media reforms and policy development in support of media freedom and freedom of speech. New information and communication technologies, evolving rapidly and in many forms across the region, also provide many opportunities to democratize communications, enhance media and information rights, and increase the efficacy of journalism in the region. Further, the emergence of regional groupings and agreements focusing on poverty reduction in Africa, notably SADC, the New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) also offers opportunities for strong partnerships and regional legitimacy.

Several donors, NGOs and government agencies, along with the private sector, are actively involved in finding practical solutions to the many challenges facing the region. Within this environment, PSAf plays a distinct and unique role creating effective public spheres in which those most affected can be actively engaged in finding effective solutions to their own problems.

In the coming pages, we tell the story of how PSAf is building an informed and inclusive environment for public policy debate in the region and helping the most vulnerable in our society have a say in development.