With its original slogan, "gender equality in and through the media" GL is credited with creating a gender and media movement in Southern Africa and championing this cause across the globe.

From the original Gender and Media Baseline Study, GL's cutting edge gender and media research portfolio has covered the full range of media education; institutional composition of the media; media content and audience response. GL's advocacy on gender and the media has included being a founding member of the Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) Network; co-hosting the biannual Gender and Media Summit and several research and book launches. Policy work includes pilot projects to develop gender policies with media houses; pilot projects to develop gender policies and codes of ethics with regulatory authorities and the Media Action Plan on HIV and AIDS and Gender that aimed to ensure that 80 percent of all newsrooms have HIV and AIDS and Gender policies by the end of 2010. Training includes the training tools that GL has developed; ongoing in-service training conducted with media training institutions; the pilot project to mainstream gender in media education, and the Virtual Resource Centre of Case material for trainers. GL has also established a Gender and Media Diversity Centre, a partnership based on "connection, collection and collaboration" between media development NGOs and knowledge institutions.