Community Radio

Introduction

Community Radio is one of the community media forms most broadly used, defined and known when considering the sector globally. With different roles in so-called developed and developing countries, the immediacy, the reach, the cost-effectiveness and the decisive bridge formed to not least more marginalised and illiterate communities is common throughout the world. Where electronic community media forms may certainly gradually take over this preferential role of the radio for some audiences, this will take a long time yet for the world’s illiterates and places in the world where connectivity continues to be non-existent, scanty or out of reach economically.

The International Association of Community-oriented Broadcasters (AMARC) www.amarc.org defines community radio as radio of, by and for a given community. This means that the radio is owned, produced and listened to by the community, upon which substantial parts of the programming will concentrate. Community ownership, community voice and community engagement are, as such, the central aspects of community radio.

Community radio is special as it overcomes obstacles of distance, illiteracy, form and norm by making available a space where oral communication has priority, as does local culture, in a medium which is affordable and manageable. For this reason community radio has for the past 20 years been the preferred communication medium when striving to support community development interventions with information and voice. Issues related to sustainability, capacity building and support through (national) networks, associations and fora of likeminded, are among those of importance here.

Evaluation and Assessment of Community Radio

While evaluation and assessment of community radio takes many possible shapes and forms, as described in the general M&E, it would be strongly recommended to carry out a fully-fledged assessment of a community radio and its environments as proposed below, due to the special nature of community radio: owned and managed by a community and with objectives beyond those of airing news, but with community development and social change as an objective – oftentimes in fragile settings and thus with a need to mobilise partnerships to meet the day to day challenges.

Below you will find some of the most important areas to consider for the overall, broad evaluation and assessment. If assessing for a specific purpose, specific aspects of the focus areas presented below can be singled out for use.

When evaluating and assessing with an overall focus towards needs for a general forward-looking strengthening, it could, in the case of community media, usually be recommended to carry out a broad-based ‘impact and sustainability assessment’. While the sustainability assessment is presented as a separate and final point below, a general Monitoring Plan and Evaluation could include the following special focus areas.

• Enabling environment
  • legal environment for community media and community ownership
  • national and local relevant policies, development plans and other priorities
  • supporting media organisations
  • networks of community media
  • availability of potential funding partners and sources
  • other enabling aspects of national, local importance

• Ownership, management and organisational performance
  • the organisational and management framework of medium
  • the internal organisation (and internal democracy)
  • management routines and procedures
  • the level of community ownership
  • production routines and community involvement (all communities in the community=
  • community involvement in areas other than production
  • management routines and procedures.

• Technical facilities and operations
  • equipment available and its maintenance status
  • management of technical facilities, including preventive maintenance routines
  • technical support framework

• Content
  • the programme format: how was it produced? how often and how is it revised? is it being followed?
  • the programme format: how does it reflect the community interest and needs? what about relevance?
  • which voices are heard on the radio? carry out source-mapping.

• Reception and Usage
  • map the availability, use and control of radios, electricity and batteries for reception of programmes
  • in which ways is the radio received and used?
  • does the audience consider the programmes theirs to react to, be part of?
  • what is the role and importance of the community radio in the community and individual lives?

• Community Impact
  • gather baseline data available, community radio vision and mission, other expresssions of development desires
  • map community status vis-a-vis identified community development needs and dreams
  • based on analysis of the above, identify community changes
  • identify to which degree and how the community radio has played a role in generating the identified change

• Sustainability Assessment
  • identify and map aspects of (i) social, (ii) institutional and (iii) financial sustainability
  • social sustainability
  • institutional sustainability
  • financial sustainability
  • analysis of the three levels of assessment, extraction of forward-looking recommendations