They take part in their personal capacity, not as formal representatives of their respective organisations. Government officials and office bearers of political parties are excluded from participation.

The panels discuss intensively each of the 42 indicators. All of them are formulated as an ideal goal, for example: 'The right to freedom of expression is practiced and citizens, including journalists, are asserting their rights without fear'. The experts exchange legal opinion and practical experience in regard to this benchmark and contemplate to which level their country has achieved this aim. A rapporteur takes detailed notes and compiles the results into a comprehensive report. Two days of debate usually produce information and assessments worth weeks of field work by a researcher.

One aspect of the exercise that helps to concentrate minds and keep discussions is the scoring. After extensive, qualitative debate panelists are asked to allocate (quantitative) scores to each of the indicator in a secret ballot that measure the degree of achievement:
• Country does not meet indicator.
• Country minimally meets aspects of the indicator.
• Country meets many aspects of indicator but progress may be too recent to judge.
• Country meets most aspects of indicator.
• Country meets all aspects of the indicator and has been doing so over time.

These scores can then be used both as a measurement of development in a given country over time (it is planned to repeat the exercise every two years), as well as to make comparisons between various countries.
This report documents the result of a test run in four countries (Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Kenya). First versions of some of the indicators turned out to be either not clear enough or too complex, and these were changed accordingly without causing damage to the comparability of the results.

The results of the scoring show that panelists generally took a realistic view neither attempting to be patriotic and give undue praise nor being overly critical or cynical. Botswana and Zambia ended up with an equal overall score of 2.2 (countries minimally meet aspects of the indicators), mainly due to the lack of any attempt to reform the broadcasting sector (where both countries scored exactly the same low: 1.7). Namibia and Kenya both scored 2.7 overall, meaning that these countries meet many aspects of the indicators, with high marks for freedom of expression in general for Namibia (3.2) and professional standards for Kenya (3.2).

These results now make for powerful lobbying tools. As all panelists have clout in their sphere of influence they can draw on them in helping to shape opinions inside and outside the political arena. The dismal score for Botswana, for example, came as a surprise to the panel, who spoke of their country as a democracy without democrats, where there is a lot of fear among citizens, partly due to intimidating threats made by state operatives like the police, security officers and the army. The report is now being used to make people take an honest look and open their eyes on the real state of affairs.

In Zambia, panelists resolved to work urgently towards the repeal of still existing pieces of colonial legislation, such as sedition laws, that impinge on freedom of expression. And in Namibia there was consensus that a defunct Media Council as a self regulatory mechanism for the media should be urgently revived.

In Southern Africa, now that the test phase is completed, MISA will continue the process. To date, the AMB has been applied to all 11 SADC countries where MISA is active. These include Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Next