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Major challenges face the majority of African countries in the context of rural development. Among these is the need to secure food supply for rapidly expanding populations which requires a significant improvement in production and productivity of crops, livestock and fisheries while simultaneously avoiding a deterioration or destruction of the natural resource base. Other challenges are to create employment and opportunities for income generation in order to improve living conditions (education, nutrition and health) and to adapt to the external requirements of the world economy and to structural adjustment policies.
These challenges must be seen in the context of the important changes taking place in Africa: the decentralisation of economic and political decision making; the strengthening of democracy and pluralism; the encouragement of the private sector to take over some of the functions previously performed solely by governments; and to encourage all those who are part of rural communities to establish autonomous groups and organisations for the production, processing and marketing of their produce.
The changes facing rural society in Africa are therefore very significant in terms of their need to develop methods and systems of production, business management, supply and sale, land tenure, the organisation of communities, and in terms of new relationships with central government. For these changes to succeed and become a permanent part of the new environment of rural African society, it is essential that the risks and benefits are known and accepted by all, that resources are mobilised in the best possible manner, and that the rural communities have the information, knowledge and exchange systems of enable them to adapt to the technical, economic and social situations which are developing so rapidly.
Information, knowledge and technology are strategic factors in these changes and they must be distributed, exchanged, broadcast and adopted at faster rates in order to allow the rural world better control of its production tools, its integration into economic systems, to improve living standards, and to manage and protect its natural resources. The rural communities must also have the means for communication to enable them to express their viewpoints, to maintain a dialogue and debate among themselves and with their partners, and to exchange experiences, knowledge and techniques.
Finally, most African societies are characterised by a wide diversity of ethnic and linguistic groups spread over extensive territories, and with limited means of communication (roads, transport, telecommunications, etc.), poorly developed distribution of electricity, and still very low levels of literacy and education.
In such a context, radio broadcasting has always been the safest most reliable and cheapest way of communicating win rural communises, crossing the barriers of displace, illiteracy and diversity office groups concerned.
For many years, those in charge of development have used Ibis medium to broadcast a variety of technical, social, economic or polecat messages to rural people in a wide range of languages and over large areas. These messages were open designed and produced specially for rural target groups by the various technical ministries concerned, agro-industrial companies or training institutions. Generally the programmes took the form of round table discussions, interviews, magazine programmes or public awareness or social mobilizaton campaigns.
This form of vertical communication has continued for a long time with little audience participation and interaction. It has been focused on the distribution of messages and instructions directing rural people rather than taking into account their needs and aspirations, or initiating a dialogue with them.
However, taking into account the mediocre results of this unilateral and authoritarian approach to communication, attempts have been made progressively to try and reach out to rural audiences and make communication more interactive.
Regional radio stations have been created to better cater for the socio- economic and linguistic needs, listening clubs or radio clubs have been started to create a dialogue with audiences, encouraging them to take concrete action and to give a better feedback on the impact of programmes. Regional correspondents have also been appointed who are responsible for collecting local information and incorporating this in national broadcasts.
All these efforts to improve communication with rural people demonstrate the value of radio to those who are promoting development and increases their awareness of the need for a more open form of communication which is more directed towards meeting the needs of the rural audience. However, these efforts have continued to be dispersed, isolated and unresponsive to the measures undertaken to improve the situation. These early forms of rural radio have had an uncertain existence that has depended on the good will of public authorities and on their external partners to finance their production and broadcasting activities.
Since the beginning of the 80s, FAO and several bilateral and multilateral aid agencies working together have drawn lessons from these past experiences, and started a programme to support rural radio. They have developed a new approach based on the mobility of modern equipment, interaction with audiences and an inter-disciplinary content of programmes. They have created mechanisms for cooperation between the main partners in order to transform this new radio into an autonomous means of dynamic communication that is in permanent dialogue with the population and at their service.
In the same period, new types of local and community radio have appeared in rural areas. Their aim has been to encourage closer communication within communities, to take better account of their economic, social, cultural and linguistic needs and to create the dynamics of solidarity and development in the communities concerned.
In urban areas, the increasing access to broadcast frequencies and the democratisation of the controlling authorities in many countries has permitted the appearance on the FM band of private, commercial or socially motivated radio stations, which have offered audiences new forms of alternative radio, often aimed at young listeners and with no link to the authorities or to government
Finally, farmers' associations in several countries have also begun to create radio stations with a view to organizing networks to meet their own communication needs at village, regional or country level.
Thus, in twenty years, the concept of rural radio has developed considerably:
Rural radio is therefore progressively transforming itself into a method that supports communication within rural communities, and between communities and the current economic, political and social centres of power.
In the media environments that are evolving, there is a profusion of initiatives that are developing, new partners are appearing and there is continuing deregulation and disappearance of monopolies. This has created a new situation in which several concepts of rural radio have emerged, which are more complementary than competitive to each other:
This great diversity of partners and initiatives in rural radio should provide an opportunity for the development of rural radio as it encourages a multiplicity of approaches, greater coverage of territory, closer contacts and a better reflection of the existing linguistic and socio-economic diversity. It also offers more opportunities for the various people involved in development (village communities, decentralised authorities, producer groups and associations, economic operators, etc.) to use this means of communication themselves.
However, since the potential for advertising revenue is greater in the urban areas than in the rural sector, there is a danger that the rural areas will be overlooked. This would be to the detriment of the rural areas, which would be excluded from the benefits of radio stations in their locality. Thus, while these new initiatives must be based principally on commercial, political or religious organisations, their public service mission must not be ignored since this alone can guarantee a degree of equitability and justice in the treatment of citizens with regard to their access to information and media.
At a time when new technology and world-wide information networks are attracting much international attention and already diverting a substantial proportion of available financial resources, it is important to emphasize that for rural Africans radio remains the only means of communication within their reach. Radio alone is adapted to their economic, social and cultural conditions and gives them both access to information and provides them with a source of expression and communication. It has to be recognized that the credibility and survival of African rural radio is now threatened. To survive and develop, it must adapt to a rapidly changing environment and meet a number of challenges with regards to infrastructure and equipment, the legal and institutional mechanisms governing it, its capacity to meet the needs of its listeners, to form networks, and to train its staff. All the international partners must combine their forces and support this approach.
These hopes and concerns were presented to FAO by various governments in the form of a request for the Organization to consider the matter and arrange an international meting of all partners in order to draw up a plan of action for the development of rural radio in Africa.
This meeting in Ouagadougou is the latest part of the series of international meetings that have been organized in recent years by UNICEF, the Cultural and Technical Cooperation Agency (ACCT), the World Association for Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), the Agricultural and Rural Cooperation Centre (CTA), the Panos Institute and other organisations.
This meting has been preceded by extensive analysis and assessment work, which has been carried out by national consultants in 21 African countries in order to produce a report on the current state of rural radio in a cross-section of the region. Their reports reveal the existing institutional organisations, the technical situation of equipment and infrastructure, the programme techniques and formats used, the problems found, the projected development plans and the needs expressed to implement them.
An assessment was also carried out in nine countries in which FAO has contributed to the start or relaunch of rural radio projects in the last ten years.
This preparatory work is reported in the studies and summary reports are at the disposal of participants of this workshop in English and French.
The objectives of this Ouagadougou meeting are:
The meeting's aim is to agree on an outline for a plan of action for the development of rural radio in Africa and to find the technical and financial means necessary for its implementation.
Rural radio has many tasks and it is important to place them in the general framework of its public service mission. The essential objective is to give the rural world access to information and knowledge, and participating in the dialogue, expression of views and decision making which is necessary if rural people are to control their economic, social and cultural environment and play a full part in the development of the country.
This public service mission of rural radio must not be confused with what has often been the appropriation of the means of information and communication by a Government or political party that has unilaterally broadcast social, educational or ideological messages. In contrast, the public service mission of rural radio has to be at the service of everyone, without distinction of language, or ethnic, religious or philosophical grouping, age, sex, or proximity to or distance from the decision making centres. Public service thus means equality of treatment with regard to all the public, and covering an the territory concerned, offering a diversity of topics in programmes and languages to cover all questions relating to rural development and guaranteeing an equality of treatment and expression to an the various segments of the public concerned. Finally, public service means a guarantee of independence of rural radio from political, economic or religious influence and control.
It is also important to distinguish clearly the definition of the public service tasks of rural radio from the performance of these tasks. The definition of a public service mission must be one that bypasses individual interest to take account of community interest. In this definition, the State, in equal collaboration with an social, economic and cultural partners, should continue itself to playing the roles of encouragement, information and arbitration.
The performance of this task may lie with various operators. It may be entrusted to public, pare-public, group association, community, or private bodies provided that they confirm to the common rules which are defined and accepted by an those involved as part of the specifications that define the rights and obligations of each party, and provided they have the characteristics required to be entrusted with a public service mission.
This mission includes objectives at various levels. Thus, rural radio must be:
The benefits of development, the strategic importance of access by rural populations to information and knowledge, and the lack of existing means for this in most countries, make it imperative for existing radio stations to be complementary and to form networks. What then are the implications of this at The legal, regulatory and institutional levels?
Legal and regulatory levels
If an the needs of the rural population are taken into account, the implementation of these tasks at national, regional and local levels, requires the concerted and complementary mobilisation of the radio stations at these various levels despite their need to operate according to a diversity of rules and statutory regulations. At a time when new radio stations are springing up rapidly both in urban and rural areas it is essential to take the appropriate legal and regulatory measures at the national, regional and local levels in order to:
The examination of legal and regulatory matters is already proceeding in several countries where thorough studies on these matters have been completed or are in progress (1). These studies must be distributed widely in order to inspire similar actions in each country concerned.
It is important to emphasise that the rural radio stations or similar broadcasting organisations that develop from the public sector must not escape examination and revision of the legal status and regulatory conditions that govern their operation. In fact, their central position, the experience they have accumulated over the years, the competence of their staff, the extent of the means they have available to them in teens of technical equipment and capacity for production, broadcasting, engineering, maintenance and training, must all give these stations or organizations a pivotal role in the development of the various forms of rural radio, and give them an important role for coordinating, consulting, training and supporting all other stations in operating in the rural sector.
In most cases, the present statutes of these public service rural radio stations prevent them from playing this role and give them a poor image with the other players involved in this sector. Therefore, their statutes must be modified to give them greater autonomy legally, administratively and financially in order to provide them with a capacity for negotiation with ad the other partners concerned. This would allow them to conclude agreements and contract, to be present at all levels where initiatives are taken in rural development mattes; to be recognised as a force for making proposals to the other patties concerned; and would give them the authority to generate financial resources and manage these independently. While maintaining their general public service mission under the new statutes, rural radios should be separated from the central services of national radio broadcasting, which would give them the administrative, financial and editorial autonomy their require.
The institutional level
Legal and regulatory modifications must be accompanied by institutional changes that will allow rural radio to play a full role as an instrument of promotion and support of rural development to meet the needs of rural audiences in terms of access to information, knowledge and culture, and in terms of expression, communication and exchange of ideas, experience and technical knowledge.
To achieve this, it is essential that:
In order to achieve these objectives, precise institutional measures must be undertaken:
These regulatory measures and institutional mechanisms for cooperation, multi-disciplinary action and interactivity, are often cumbersome and difficult to set up. However, they are essential to guarantee that rural radio coves the topics of development, takes into account the characteristics and needs of it audiences, and opens the way for multimedia links. It is the responsibility of the institutions concerned to find more flexible ways of making these structures operational and effective.
Several countries have already taken interesting initiatives in the legal and institutional fields by setting up rural radios as directorates or general directorates, giving them autonomous statues at an administrative and financial levels, and entrusting the operation and responsibility of regional and local stations to them, together with responsibility for programmes in national languages.
The reality of African rural radio in practice reveals serious inadequacies in terms of equipment and infrastructure which threaten the very survival of the stations. The production equipment is old (sometimes over twenty years old) and always over-used. Having been acquired from different donors and cooperation paroles or via aid mechanisms, the equipment is often of diverse origins or are end-of-series products. This causes serious problems with maintenance and supply of spare pasts and leads to the graveyards of technical equipment with which all stations are familiar.
Rural radios rarely have specific equipment; they generally share the few available studios and equipment with other departments and services of national radio. When placed in competition with other sectors, the needs of rural radio generally do not take priority either in terms of production facilities or broadcast slots. The result is that rural radio programmes cannot be broadcast at the most convenient times for rural audiences or in a sufficient spread of languages to cover the needs of the main communities.
The production equipment and transmitters of regional stations are in an even worse condition. Sometimes they may be non-operational for months or even years at a time. Where equipment needs and options have been investigated by national technical manages for central radio broadcasting before acquisition, it is generally more standardised and in better running order. This is the case in particular for stations created under the local rural radio development programme supported by the Cultural and Technical Cooperation Agency (ACCT). The problem which arises however is that of maintaining this equipment, as competent technicians are often far removed from the radio sites and a breakdown can immobilise a station for several weeks or even months at a time.
Mobile production equipment (tape recorders, sound equipment, vehicles equipped for site visits or reporting) are scarce and over-worked. Production consumables (tapes, batteries, cassettes) are also very scarce because of difficulties of supply and cost. This difficulty of access to mobile production facilities and consumables is a major obstacle to rural broadcasters completing their tasks and often forces them to produce their programmes in the studio, which goes against the whole spirit of having an interactive approach with the rural people.
The situation regarding transmitters is also poor. in most cases they are very old and unreliable and the medium or short wave transmitters used by national and regional stations often fall far short of covering all the target area.
Frequency modulate (EM) transmitters are still rare in rural locations apart from local community-type stations which generally use low power transmitters rarely exceeding a broadcast radius of 50 kilometres.
With regard to reception, receives that are available on the market are of diverse origin, often of mediocre technical quality and do not provide value for money. There is no after sales service for receives nor any maintenance system or supply of spare parts. Batteries are also expensive and of poor technical quality.
Budgets for the replacement of old equipment, acquisition of spare parts and maintenance are low or even non-existent. Moreover, they often depend on one-off donations from external partners, which constitute only a partial response, providing no continuity for dealing with the existing problems.
The scarcity of equipment and inadequate technical infrastructure and funds constitute major obstacles to the proper operation and development of rural radio in Africa, despite the fact that the unique and specific nature of rural radio should be reflected in the equipment and infrastructure that is adapted to its needs and environment.
The search for solutions to these problems of equipment and infrastructure is an absolute priority and must be undertaken in conjunction with the various partners at national, inter-African and international levels.
At national level
The production of plans and projects for the development of technical equipment and infrastructure for rural radio is an essential starting point. However, these plans and projects must be standardised for the national, regional and local elements and should include the following points:
At the inter-African and international levels
As discussed in previous chapters, rural radio in its present form represents a recent development in communication and still has very little structure with regard to legal, regulatory and institutional aspects, and in terms of infrastructure, equipment and technological choices.
The same applies to training and research.
There is only one training institution specialising in rural radio. This is the Inter-African Centre for Rural Radio (CIERRO) in Ouagadougou which was created by URTNA. In almost twenty years of existence, CERRO has trained producers and technicians specialising in rural radio in most francophone African countries. CERRO offers a two year course leading to a diploma recognised by the public authorities in the countries concerned, and it provides short training courses and retraining sessions. Its functions also include research, documentation and dissemination of information in rural radio. There is no institution of a similar nature in anglophone or lusophone countries in Africa.
Rural radio staff who have benefited from training, from institutions other than CERRO, have generally been trained at centres which do not specialise in rural radio. These include schools of journalism, training centres linked to national radio and television, public information institutions in many African countries, universities and foreign communication training institutes such as the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) in France, the German Radio Training Centre in Germany, the Radio Netherlands Training Centre, the BBC Training Centre, UK, etc.
It is important to note, however, that most rural radio staff have not had any long-term initial training and have generally either been trained on the job or, at best, they have attended short training courses. These short courses attempt to meet the ever growing need for training that has resulted from the numerous new stations that have been established in recent years, and such courses are generally arranged by various external partners committed to rural radio, often in collaboration with CERRO. The training is frequently provided as part of a project for initiating or rehabilitating rural radio or is an initiative responding to topical concerns such as environment, health, nutrition, security of food supply, and population, where rural radio is to be used as a medium for information, mobilisation or education.
In particular, these have been projects supported by ACCT, UNICEF, FAO, CTA, UNESCO, and German, Swiss, and Dutch aid agencies as well as other partners.
These training sessions are sometimes addressed to mixed groups and may consist of radio produces and presenters, who often have had no initial training, technicians from various ministries involved in development, public institutions, NGOs, and other bodies associated with rural development.
The courses are generally focused on basic or further training in radio production techniques, reporting from the field, public radio shows, magazine programmes, micro programmes, serial productions and radio drama.
Because of the financial and logistic support offered by external partners, such training can be of great benefit for field-work by providing the transport and other essential resources and consumables such as properly equipped vehicles, fuel, generators, mobile recording equipment, sound and lighting equipment for making programmes in villages and for public broadcasts, tapes, cassettes and batteries. This kind of assistance can also include the material and financial means to arrange game shows in villages, to buy prizes for the games, and provide payments for local musicians and presenters.
These financial and technical inputs allow training and production work to benefit from opportunities to undertake field trips for collecting sufficient audio material in order to provide the rural radio programmes with recordings from the rural environment on a continuing basis. However these training courses are rarely monitored by national broadcasting organisations and, when trained staff return to their stations, they are often unable to apply the training they have received due to a lack of transport, mobile production equipment, finance and consumables.
Thus staff trained in production of rural radio programmes (by CERRO or other training courses) are often allocated to other sectors of radio or other media (newspapers, television, |press agencies, ministerial press departments, private sector, etc.). This occurs despite the fact that these individuals are on the staff of national radio. Alternatively, when trained staff are from ministries, development organisations, NGOs, etc., they may not be authorised to carry out production activities as past of the rural radio teams.
Training in specialist areas other than production is not covered systematically or on any significant scale. This is particularly the case for technical work (sound recording, editing, maintenance, programming work, administration, management and research). However, several notable initiatives have been taken in these fields by ACCT, CIRTEF, UNESCO, UNICEF, FAG, Swiss aid agency, GTZ, CTA and other organisations: short term twining courses have been organised to cover aspects of operation and maintenance of equipment, the organisation of print and sound archives, the management and administration of local stations, marketing and audience research. However, these initiatives have been sporadic and uncoordinated.
In December 1992, a seminar was organised in Bordeaux, France, by ACCT, which brought together various organizations involved in the development of rural and community radio in francophone Africa. The conclusions and recommendations from this seminar stressed in particular the need for closer cooperation between all partners and called for a coordinated approach to the training needs of African rural radio at local, regional or national levels, including the training of trainers from African rural radio, and the joint production of training tools.
In 1993, FAO, UNICEF and CIERRO took an important initiative in this direction as part of a joint project aimed at the development and experimentation of a multimedia training package in rural radio and the training of thirteen trainers from eight West and Central African countries. These trainers now have the knowledge and teaching tools to enable them to meet training needs for the production of rural radio programmes in their respective countries.
A first assessment of this initiative was presented during another international meeting organised by ACCT in Bamako, Mali, in November 1994, and it appears that these trainers and the equipment that is available have not been used sufficiently to carry out the training of new rural radio producers despite there being a real need in these countries. There are two main reasons for this:
This assessment reveals the need to make training a national priority and to examine training plans and programmes in the context of existing inadequacies of equipment and infrastructure, and of those legal, institutional and economic limitations which prevent rural radio from actually performing its appointed task in an autonomous and sustainable way.
If these elements are not combined, the investment in training risks being totally wasted, either because it cannot be reinvested due to the lack of infrastructure, equipment and means of production and broadcast, or because the structure of rural radio does not have the statutory means and resources necessary for the completion of these tasks. Finally, trained staff may feel free to leave and will invest the knowledge and technical skills which they acquired during their training elsewhere.
In each country
At inter-African and international levels:
At inter-African and international levels, CERRO must remain the central tuning element but its tasks must tee adapted and its funding increased in order to allow it to:
The international development partners in African rural radio must coordinate their support for CIERRO, assist the setting up of a similar institute for the English and Portuguese speaking African countries, and support the efforts made within each country to meet its training needs.
The resources provided by new information and communication technologies must be mobilized further to develop long distance training and to facilitate the circulation and exchange of programmes and training tools.
Every development plan for rural radio in Africa must be based on a network of stations with well defined tasks and statutes, and infrastructures and equipment' which are adapted to the socio-economic context and operating conditions of each station. Staff must be competent and motivated. Such ambitions are impossible without putting in place research capacity; this is essential if rural radio is to better direct its actions, in particular with regard to programme structure and content and information about the audience, and to gain a better understanding of future trends in order to anticipate demands on and responses by rural radio.
Research programmes that exist have remained very cautious and inadequate in most of the countries reviewed and the existing stations have usually been created with minimum investment and without any real preliminary studies being undertaken. This is certainly the reason for the lack of cohesion found in this sector and the precarious nature of existing organisations, unsuitable equipment, poorly defined statutes and specifications, random programming, unidentified audiences, broken down or non-existent equipment and inadequate operating budgets.
Some efforts have been made recently with the support of various external partners, particularly in the field of audience research and equipment adapted to the needs of local and community stations. However, these efforts remain sporadic and dispersed and the sustainability of these initiatives is compromised by a lack of follow-up to initial external assistance.
Therefore, it is essential to define and implement in each country, and at inter-African level, research programmes based on the following:
Rural radio, in its various forms, configurations and networks, constitutes an essential tool for meeting the challenges facing rural African societies. It must provide rural people with the means for information and expression, and the communication and exchange networks they need to control its economic, social and cultural environment.
As part of its general public service mission, rural radio must guarantee democracy and pluralism, it must be more autonomous on the administrative and financial levels, it must function better technically and be more profitable economically.
To meet these challenges, political, institutional, technical and economic conditions must be combined in each country concerned and at an inter-African level. The technical and financial partners in international cooperation must combine their efforts and coordinate their support to implement an overall development plan for African rural radio.
Governments must undertake to make the development of rural radio a priority. This commitment must strongly confirm the wish of each country to give rural people the means of jinformation, communication and access to knowledge which win help eliminate the inequality that exists presently between the urban and rural areas.
The development of rura1 radio must be included in the national policies and strategies for communication for development. The definition and adoption of such strategies must legitimise the rural radio's mission in the development process and involve all national and international partners in a common action platform covering the information and communication needs of all development sectors: food security, protection and management of natural resources, health, nutrition, education, culture, etc.
Rural radio stations must form networks at local, regional and national levels in order to make optimum use of all existing means to meet the needs of the audiences, provide the best possible territorial and linguistic coverage, and reinforce democracy and participation.
In each country, a coordinating mechanism must be set up to define the specifications for the different rural radio stations, control the performance of their public service mission, administer matters relating to legislation and the allocation of broadcasting permits and frequencies, ensure cohesion of infrastructure and technical equipment, and to coordinate training and research programmes.
Similarly, inter-sectoral coordination mechanisms covering all partners involved in rural development must operate in each country in order to legitimise the mandates of rural radio programmes to allow them to address all topics of economic, social and cultural development, and to encourage the mobilisation of all those technical, financial and human resources that are necessary for the implementation of these programmes.
The study of the legal statutes must be adapted to the tasks given to rural radios in their different situations. This must include the adoption of regulatory clauses that extend the administrative and financial autonomy of the public rural radio structures, and the creation of networks between national, regional and local levels. The implementation of good coordination between the actors and partners is the main element which must be included in the political and institutional plan of each country concerned in order to ensure the long-term development of their rural radios.
A development programme for rural radio in Africa is not possible without a complete reassessment of existing equipment and infrastructure and the current technical conditions for the purchase, installation, operation and maintenance of the existing equipment, materials and infrastructures.
This reassessment must be undertaken with the aid of international technical and financial partners and should take into account:
Training and research are essential to the development of rural radio in Africa and must be considered a priority at the national level. A research and training sector must be set up in each country for all personnel involved in the implementation of new forms of radio in rural development. At inter-African level, a mechanism for coordination and support of national training and research programmes must also be put in place with the support of international partners. This task could be entrusted to CERRO for the francophone countries and to equivalent structures for the anglophone and lusophone countries. These initiatives must be based on a network of African researchers and trainers in rural radio and on the creation and operation of an international resource centre in this area.
At international level, cooperation between the main partner organisations involved in rural radio in Africa must be continued and intensified in order to coordinate the support given to the various countries and to the inter-African structures for research and training. In particular:
(1) Study redefining the legal or institutional framework of rural radio and the identification of potential partners using rural radio, Cabinet Diallo, Legal Advisors. Bamako, Mali. FAO, July 1994
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