DR T MUNRO ON CO-OPERATION WITH DR KJ DE BEER

From: Tanyss Munro [] Sent: 12 April 2009 01:54 AM To: De Beer Kallie Dear Kallie, I think you should certainly include some of this work (below) and any information on podcasting – if it has been used to reach community, not university students as much. I concur with you regarding the contract for Mr. Tladi – there is not much of it that will be used. I’m glad to hear that you will focus more on the Meraka work rather than the Lederach model. I do think we will be able to include this in some way in the book, so your work will be included and the Contribution Editor will help to see that happens. Please go ahead and submit the final version by April 14th. I will have no more time to look at it until after that date and don’t worry about eh language editing – we can do that. I look forward to seeing you in Vancouver. Warm wishes, Tanyss The media and other civil society organisations have played a positive role in conflict management and democratisation particularly during the pre and post election periods. The country’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), for example, has conducted civic education programmes especially on voter education through radio. These civic education programmes are aimed at conflict prevention. Civil society organisations such as the Lesotho Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (LCN) have also conducted civic education programmes dealing with conflict management through various forums such as the electronic and print media, conferences and stakeholders workshops (LCN, 2007: 6-13; Kapa, 2008: 129-134). Lesotho has about 53,100 telephone lines and about 456,000 cellular mobile telephones in use. Its telephone system can be describes as a rudimentary system consisting of a modest but growing number of landlines, a small microwave radio relay system, and a small radiotelephone communication system; mobile-cellular telephone system is expanding. Maseru district accounts for 71 percent of the main telephone lines, leaving the other nine districts to share the remaining 29 percent. Moreover, public telephones are only found in urban areas confirming that telephone communication is very limited in the rural areas. The country has several radio broadcasting stations and one state-owned television broadcast station. There are about 83 internets hosts and about 70,000 internet users. Radio plays a key role in promoting various development initiatives. The broadcasting service covers about 75 percent of the country with the larger percentage in the urban areas. In the last decade Government has issued a number of radio licenses for private radio stations that have extended listeners’ choice considerably (KOL, 2006: 49-50; CIA, 2009). Tanyss Munro, PhD Governance Commonwealth of Learning Suite 2300, 1055 West Hastings Street, Vancouver BC V6E 2E9 Canada PH: +1.604.775.8270 FAX: +1.604.775.8210 WEB: www.col.org E-MAIL: tmunro@col.org