Some Keys to CR Sustainability

This 11-page presentation was made at the AMARC Africa’s Community Radio Pan African Conference held from April 18-23 2005 in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference theme was “Local Content for the Sustainable Development of Community Radio”.

The presentation first sets the context of the creation of community radio (CR) in Guinea-Conakry. It provides an analysis of the situation, identifying certain constraints: the absence of a legislative and statutory framework governing community radio; interference by the authorities in the management of the radio; and conflict of competences between the management committee and the head of station.

It provides alternatives to sustainability: developing an adequate institutional and legislative apparatus; conceptualising local and appropriate content; and managing and facilitating programming. It also provides suggestions as to collecting and processing information.

Alternatives to sustainability provided include:

• Launching a plea at the level of the authorities for the formation of a legal framework to govern the functioning of community radio;
• Legislating the rights and tasks of the population vis à vis the functioning of community radio;
• Setting up an apparatus that defines the conditions of the partnership between the populations, civil society and the state; and
• Defining the mechanisms linked to the control, continuity and coordination of the functioning of the radio.

Click here for the full presentation in PDF in French.