Climate Change and Community Radio Project

The initiative began with an assessment of radio stations in each country, looking at programming, management and staff, technical capability, internet connectivity, and power. This allowed DRP to understand the needs of partner radio stations in order to build station staff capacity to ensure the production of radio programmes that inform and empower.

DRP then organised workshops - first in Cape Verde, then Rwanda, followed by Cameroon and Zambia. These workshops included staff from the radio stations selected for the programme in each country, as well as more regional reporters. Climate experts and non-governmental organisations that have a stake in the environment, as well as veteran environmental journalists, were also invited to these workshops. Here, journalists and station managers learned from scientists and farmers about the causes of climate change, the need to adapt farming practices, and how these issues relate directly to their own communities. They also sharpened their reporting skills on climate change and learned how to produce compelling radio programmes that not only inform but also entertain their listeners.

In addition to training, DRP offered ongoing support to local radio stations by providing stations with weekly bulletins on climate change topics, which are written in-country on a timely topic, with a problem statement on one side and solutions and production tips on the other side. These weekly bulletins are accessed on the Climate Change News Service website or are emailed to participating radio stations. Support to radio stations also included the distribution of two-minute radio scripts on a climate change issue, called “Seedlings”, to stations each week. Seedlings can be factual piece of information, a poem, or a piece of music that relates to environmental issues. Stations can modify the Seedlings to meet local needs and voice them, and can play them multiple times per day between regular programmes. An in-country trainer also visited the stations to mentor, build skills, and troubleshoot any problems.

In addition, DRP provided funds for a community activity, which could include a permaculture demonstration, or tree planting, or a demonstration on how to build a better stove.

In order to increase interactivity with listeners, the project also provided training to journalists in the use of FrontlineSMS.

In Zambia, DRP is working with meteorologists on a project called “Talking About the Weather and Doing Something.” As part of this project, DRP organised a workshop for weather forecasters in Lusaka to teach them how to write for radio using less technical terms. This was followed up with a second workshop that brought together forecasters and radio reporters from community-based radio stations. The workshops were designed to assist forecasters and radio reporters in preparing weather reports that are practical and help farmers to determine the best time to plant and harvest their crops - particularly with changing weather patterns brought on by a changing climate.

In Zambia, DRP also helped farmers develop radio programmes about new farming technologies, such as organic and conservation farming, for other farmers. This approach is being used as studies have shown that when farmers share new skills with their peers, those farmers who are listening are much more likely to adopt the new techniques.

Climate Change, Agriculture, Natural Resource Management

DRP is a solution-based nonprofit organisation that works with local radio stations in Africa to bring the development information to those hardest to reach. Since 2014, DRP has partnered with more than two dozen community-based radio stations across Africa on projects in Cape Verde, Rwanda, Cameroon, Malawi, and Zambia to help their communities adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change. DRP focuses on community radio because more than 80% of Africans get their news and information from radio.

Here are some examples of how radio is used by community-based radio stations that partner with DRP:

• In Zambia, Chongwe Community Radio Station Manager Penias Tembo says since partnering with DRP in early 2016, his rural station has focused on environmental issues – particularly climate-smart agriculture and deforestation. As a result, he says his station has become the go-to source for environmental information for farmers. Since January 2017, Chongwe Radio, with support from DRP, has helped listeners plant more than 10,000 trees in the community. Additionally, about 100 community members formed what they call a Radio Champions Group to help the station organise community activities, such as tree plantings, and to raise funds to keep the station on the air.
• In Cameroon, using a DRP Weekly Bulletin as source material, Bonakanda Community Radio produced a programme on the benefits of rain harvesting to irrigate vegetable crops during the dry season or when rainfall drops. After the programme was broadcast, dozens of farmers along the slopes of Mount Cameroon began to harvest rain water. One of them, Idah Mwambo, said, "I have tomatoes when most people don't have tomatoes. My harvest has increased and I make more money because off-season tomatoes are more expensive."
• In early 2017, Yatsani FM in Lusaka, Zambia organised a DRP-sponsored community activity on sanitation and hygiene in a local neighbourhood hard hit by a cholera outbreak in 2016. Hundreds of citizens took part, and it resulted in an intensive trash pick-up campaign. There were no new outbreaks of cholera in this compound in the spring of 2017. At another DRP-sponsored community activity in Zambia that involved planting trees, a Member of Parliament vowed to help pass legislation banning the indiscriminate cutting of trees in the country.
• Following a DRP training session at Lebialem Community Radio in Menji, Cameroon, on the need to protect the water supply, reporters produced a radio programme on the issue. As a result of the programme, water management committees were formed in 25 villages. A Menji water authority official said that there "has been a floodgate of applications for the council authority to create water management committees."
• On Cape Verde's Nicolau Island, Sodade FM station manager Jose Almeida says DRP's climate change project has helped his station build stronger relationships in the community by being able to take part in conflict resolution. He says his station is a "problem solver" now. He points to just one example where the station did a programme on trash strewn in the streets and interviewed citizens concerned about the lack of a cover on the trash truck, which allowed garbage to blow into yards and crops. After the programme, the municipality began regular trash pickups, and the local government purchased a trash truck with a metal cover.
• In Rwanda, two community-based stations produced a story about restoring local plants and trees to a national park in the southwestern part of the country. As a result of the radio programme, dozens of volunteers showed up to help remove non-native plants and to plant native species. The 17-hundred-acre park boasts more than 200 different types of trees and 140 species of orchids.