OGC and Communication for Empowerment
One of the most serious problems facing new and fragile democratic systems in many resource poor countries is the lack of inclusion and participation of poor and vulnerable groups in policy processes. Their inclusion is hampered by, among other factors, a lack of available information available on issues that shape their lives, made available in forms that are appropriate to them, and a lack of capacity to communicate their perspectives into public and policy debates. Seen from another perspective, genuine participation and involvement of the poor in national planning processes will play a major role in successfully achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Communication for Empowerment: developing media strategies in support of vulnerable groups is a policy guidance note developed by UNDP in 2006 to turn these insights into mainstream strategic planning tools. It describes the need to understand and examine two distinct but inter-related aspects of communication:
Information: The ability of the poorest to receive the information they want and need. This element can be influenced by a wide number of factors, including the legal and regulatory environment for media, levels of literacy, purchasing power, availability of radios, pluralism in the media industry, etc.
Communication: The ability of the poorest to communicate their needs and beliefs through media. This can be influenced by factors such as access to journalists, or the ability to influence the content of community radio programs.
OGC is currently engaged in a two year pilot project with the support of the UN Democracy Fund, and in partnership with the Communication for Social Change Consortium (CFSC), to test the concepts and tools set forth the in the 2006 Policy Guidance Note in five developing countries.
Activities have already begun in Madagascar and Mozambique, and in 2008 needs assessments will be carried out in one more African and two Asian countries. After Communication for Empowerment concepts are piloted in five countries, OGC in partnership with CFSC will distil these experiences into a final global report, which will make recommendations on incorporating Communication for Empowerment concepts and tools into national planning and development processes.
What does an Audit consist of?
An audit of a country’s information and communication environment is essentially a four-step process:
- A desk review is conducted to understand the legal and regulatory framework in which media operates. Here one can draw from the many excellent resources made available by international media and freedom of expression NGOs such as Article19 and, in the case of Africa, the African Media Barometer by the Media Institute of Southern Africa.
- Interviews are conducted with key stakeholders at the national level to begin to understand the media landscape in the country and the challenges it faces. Interviews are thus held with government ministries, media houses, journalists associations, civil society groups, etc. Interviews are also conducted with key development actors, including multi-laterals, bi-laterals, and international NGOs. These interviews allow an audit team to understand what donor interventions exist in the area of media development (training of journalists, support to community radio, etc) and how communication components feature in development activities.
- The audit then goes to the local level. For the purpose of this pilot project, only three diverse districts are chosen to be the site of local level studies. Selected districts should include districts with community radio and districts without, and preferably districts with high levels of donor activity and districts with none. This alone can go a long way to understanding how differently media impacts people’s lives depending on the existence of community radio, which experience suggests has a strong influence. At the district level, interviews are conducted with local stakeholders and leaders, in an effort to understand the locally specific environments for information and communication.
- Village level surveys are the final and perhaps most crucial step in the audit process. Villagers respond to questions on a wide variety of areas that relate to information and communication, including the availability and control of radios, views on content, and their opportunities to communicate through media, perhaps through participation in a local community radio.
What is the end result?
Broadly speaking, each audit leaves behind two things:
- An audit of information and communication, in which everything from the legal environment to media penetration and rates of listenership are analysed. The report crucially identifies gaps from the national to the village level.
- A National Stakeholder Group is formed during this Audit process, consisting of a wide range of institutions with an interest and/or role in information and communication. This Group
- Peer reviews the final Audit report
- Houses the data collected during the Audit
- Uses UNDP funds to address gaps identified by the Audit
- Provides a forum for development actors to coordinate their interventions in the communication sector.
Further resources on Communication for Empowerment:
 Communication for Empowerment: Developing Media Strategies in Support of Vulnerable Groups (2006) (Also in Spanish, French, Russian and Arabic)
This Guidance Note explains Communication for Empowerment and its importance to poverty reduction. It identifies trends in the media, and highlights key opportunities and challenges, including the impact of liberalization and the ongoing struggle many media face in holding onto hard fought media freedoms. The Note underscores the particular importance of radio in Communication for Empowerment strategies because of its reach, accessibility to the poor and increasingly interactive character. It also outlines a range of ways that UNDP and other development practitioners can best support Communication for Empowerment based on conducting information and communication needs assessments, and choosing the appropriate context specific intervention strategy. It suggests that UNDP’s established roles in-country of convening, facilitating, advising and advocating, as well as its focus on capacity development and its experience in democratic governance equip the organization to play a key role in furthering Communication for Empowerment |
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Supporting Public Service Broadcasting: Learning from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s experience (2004)
The aim of this paper is to contribute to UNDP practitioners’ understanding of broadcast media sector reform, especially reform concerning Public Service Broadcasting (PSB). The paper highlights some of the key challenges in broadcasting restructuring in trying to meet broader democratic governance and poverty reduction objectives, and is informed by a case study on broadcasting restructuring in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). UNDP has supported two projects in that country which aim to strengthen the broadcasting system in a way that respects diversity and the right of access to information. |
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| The Communication Initiative Network |
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Contact:
Barry Driscoll
Research Associate
barry.driscoll@undp.org
