Media stakeholders in Malawi gathered at a public service broadcasting (PSB) consultative meeting in Blantyre in September to share ideas on how public broadcasters in the country could perform their constitutional role.

Panos Institute Southern Africa organised and facilitated the meeting, which was attended by media representatives from across Malawi. This was part of PSAf’s efforts to support Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) in the region. Among others, the workshop gathered input from stakeholders on the state of public service broadcasting in Malawi, and make recommendations for strengthening and improving content development and dissemination processes.

The participants recommended some interventions to address gaps in the production and dissemination of development content for the three public broadcasters in, and also analysed current media policies and regulatory frameworks relating to PSB in Malawi.

PSAf Media Adviser Caesar Jere and Media and ICTs Programme Officer Nervious Siantombo told the meeting that input from various stakeholders at the workshop will form the basis of recommendations for strengthening public service broadcasting frameworks at the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation and other media houses.

PSAf launched the PSB initiative in 2009, with support from the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA). The programme is driven by the need to transform state broadcasting into public service broadcasting, allowing public broadcasters to be driven by the public interest. The PSB initiative currently covers three countries namely Botswana, Malawi, and Zambia, with a view of expnading into other Southern African countries at the implementation of PSAf's next strategic plan.