Vision
A just and peaceful society through socially constructive application of knowledge
Mission
Foster an inclusive society by creating enabling environment for freedom of expression that promotes pluralism and
dialogue within the government, media and civil society towards nation-buildingSACMID Intervention:
- Promoting dialogue for driving progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and National Five Years Plan for improving people’s quality of life & their ability to live dignified lives
- Develop effective media legislation, freedom of information laws, regulating and licensing arrangements and bring people together from various stakeholder groups as equals, in discussion on public policy issues relating to the World Summit on the Information Society Action line, Internet Governance and media to shape policy on behalf of the public interest.
- Develop and publish policy communication materials (policy briefs, monographs, reports, journals, newsletters, etc) suitable for different audiences and harness innovative mechanisms to promote a culture of dialogue within the Government, Media and Citizens for improving governance by providing two way communications between citizens and the state.
- Create Parliamentary Caucus on Media Development and to develop an approach to create an enabling political and legal environment for media that allows independent media outlets, journalists, and other actors to operate freely and with equitable access to finance and information.
- Promote gender-sensitive policies and strategies in media (particularly government media, private, community media & online) to strengthen female voice in the public and media domain in line with UNESCO Gender Sensitive Indicators for the Media (GSIM)
- Enable civil society groups to generate an understanding of communication rights, the reality of their implementation and key issues in a given environment, and to plan actions that can help improve the situation in practice and build a better understanding of the relationship between the media sector, economic and governance institutions.
- Facilitate in-depth scrutiny of the state of communication rights, to examine not just limitations in freedom of expression, concentration of media ownership, the impact of the copyright monopoly, the degree of surveillance, and access to ICT.
- Promote, engage and strengthen the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by raising awareness, providing capacity-building tools, and bridging the stakeholders of the UPR process in order to ensure the universal advancement of human rights
- Identify, join and represent in international alliances and develop strategically important relationships & organize national, regional and international events to stimulate debate on the role of media and communications as well as SACMID focus issues
- Conduct independent and collaborative research about media development indicators and indicators for media viability, promote knowledge-driven media development by taking into account the challenges and opportunities created by the rapidly changing media environment
- Encourage civil society to act as a watchdog in media governance and the market dynamics. Convert passive readers to active citizens. Motivate citizens and governments to act in the public interest, content should be politically/socially/economically opportunistic and tied to unfulfilled promises.
- Reforming media policies to improve access to information and to conceive of communication as a means of delivering better services to citizens for fostering equitable growth and obtain better results from media development, helping to realize the full potential that media offers to help countries combat poverty, and deficiency in governance and democracy.
- Create inclusive knowledge societies and empower local communities by increasing access to and preservation and sharing of information and knowledge in line with knowledge societies through protecting human rights, freedom of expression; universal access to information and knowledge; respect for cultural and linguistic diversity; gender equity and quality education for all.
- Convening space for tech industry, small & medium-sized enterprises, journalists, civic tech, entrepreneurs, researchers/academia, students, IT solution providers, banks, telecoms, insurance companies, NGO’s, donor organizations, and local and national governments to connect virtually and in person to share advances in open data/data-driven journalism/open government, share lessons, and form new collaborations.
- Build the skills and capacity of media and communications specialists to report on development issues & bring debates to the people and raise awareness of issues affecting citizens and nations.
- Strengthen academia & research group, especially media development research and training institutions in media studies recognizing marginal voices and alternative communications flows & amplifying the voices of marginalized people in development debates and helps researchers to engage with the media and communicate their findings to journalists and other non-academic audiences.
- Empowered female journalists in their professional capacity, promoting and addressing gender equality and women’s empowerment in media systems, structures and content. Build on and systematically monitor women status and media diagnosis.
- Introduce media & information literacy aiming to engage and empower the stakeholders through organizing Bangladesh School on Internet Governance/ Bangladesh School on freedom of expression/Bangladesh School on Media Development/Bangladesh School on IPR etc and by setting up a Radio News Agency (RNA).
- Monitor and reflect, via research, surveys and publications, on the present and future challenges facing the media & promote ongoing journalistic capacity building that answers the needs of media professionals and the media industry;
- Improve the protection of journalist security and safety, better address threats and violence against media professional and foster early warning mechanism and response capacity through awareness-raising, promoting partnership in line with UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists in line with UNESCO Journalist Safety Indicators.
