Community radio aiding development

Community radio in Mozambique is aiding development and helping ordinary people to realise that they can change their lives, according to UN officials. "We want to create local capacity and development, we want people to see that through access to information they can change their lives," Birgitte Jallov, Chief Technical Adviser for the UNESCO/UNDP media development project in Mozambique, told IRIN. Jallov said that the radio project was part of a broader UNESCO programme in the southern African country which aims to strengthen democracy and governance through the development of the media. In the developing world community radio has increasingly been seen as an important tool. With many countries having low literacy rates, radio is an affordable medium that is able to reach many people. Community radio, such as those that exist in South Africa, have also been used to inform people about important events in their communities or about issues that touch their lives. During the foot-and-mouth outbreak in South Africa's KwaZulu/Natal province in 2000, community radio stations were used to inform the isolated farming communities, particularly small subsistence farmers, of steps that the authorities were taking or where they could go for help. Similarly, during the cholera outbreak in the province towards the end of 1999, health authorities used community radio to tell people where to go for help and what steps to take when caring for an ill person. Community radio has also been used to strengthen democracy particularly in countries emerging from undemocratic systems, where there is a mistrust of information that the official media puts out. "With the changes that took place in Mozambique in the early 1990s, donors really wanted to fund a project that would help establish and strengthen the fragile independent media," Jallov added. "The largest and to some extent the most difficult part of the broader project has been the community radio aspect." The Mozambican radio project is currently in its second phase, which involves the actual establishment of radio stations. Two pilot radio stations, one in Inhambane province in the east and the other in Chimio in the central Sofala province are already up and running. "By March we hope to have a third pilot station established in the north in Cuamba in Niassa province. We have tried purposely to establish these stations outside the capital because people in Maputo seem to have better access to information," said Jallov. She added that in total it was envisaged that eight new radio stations would be established throughout the country. "We have a very strong philosophy that community radio must belong to the community and that is why we have tried to involve the communities themselves in all aspects, which is why during the first phase of the project there was extensive training in all aspects of radio," she said. Communities themselves would largely determine the broadcast content, based on their needs, Jallov said, adding that issues such as the environment, health care and HIV/AIDS would be part of the daily programming. Some media analysts have said that although the UNESCO project has its merits, the manner in which it was set up could be "too interventionist". One analyst argued that a model which involved communities from the "word go" might be "slightly more appropriate". "No one is saying that the project is not valuable and not useful, of course it is, it is just that we have to think about the question of sustainability and once organisations like UNESCO leave will these projects be sustainable? It might be better to mobilise the community to set up the radio stations themselves, so that they have an active stake in keeping the radio station going," the analyst said. Jallov added that although the "tradition" of live radio would be continued there was a realisation that pre-packaged programmes would be more effective and more educational. "Being UNESCO, we are very concerned with the educational aspect and packaged programmes can help to bring information to people in quite an informal way which people enjoy," she said.