Creating Sustainable Community Radio Stations - A Major Challenge!

This booklet focuses on UNESCO's efforts since 1998 to facilitate the launch of eight different community radio stations in Mozambique. In light of the fact that only a quarter of the population speaks the common language, Porteguese, at a level sufficient to understand a radio broadcast news bulletin in that language, the programme aimed to use community radio to give people in various locations a voice.

The booklet highlights efforts to eliminate obstacles that have made local radio efforts vulnerable to failure, including strong community ownership, effective training programmes, a technical sustainability system, and financial viability. The booklet explores the first three of these factors, beginning with a description of efforts to create community ownership through pilot programmes organised in three cities in Mozambique. The section explores this process of development, which began with the preparation by local citizens of a set of statutes for community media associations. A coach responsible for the mobilisation process supported these and other community-based efforts. The second section of the booklet, "Creating Adequate Training Solutions", describes a five-tier strategy that includes a series of intensive eight- to ten-day training courses, a community training programme led by coaches, exposure to the workings of commercial and public radio stations, management seminars and workshops, and establishment of a training station. Each of these inititiatives is explained in detail. Next, the booklet explores the creation of technical resources necessary to anticipate and ameliorate problems such as inadequate technical configurations, inadequately prepared local staff, insufficient funds set aside for potential technical problems, and insufficient community mobilisation to ensure community backing in times of trouble. The final section highlights the programme's central strategy, which is to ensure that the community itself is an integral part of the creation of community radio and an active beneficiary of a process of knowledge-based local development.