Empowering Local Radios with ICTs

The project is working to improve the lives of the economically poor, especially women and girls, through encouraging public debate on issues of local public concern. At the outset of the project organisers realised it was necessary to understand and be deeply involved with the radio stations' way of operating and community, to better understand each. Some stations are urban while others are rural, some are very familiar with social media, while others struggle with electricity. Because of such variety, the first stage of the project was to carry out research about the community and the local radio stations, getting information about community listening habits, as well as input on issues of local public concern in areas of health, agriculture, and one other relevant area for the community. For each radio station, UNESCO surveyed the programming quality, gender equality, ICT literacy, financial management capacity, and existence of correspondent networks.

Based on the findings, the project is working to increase knowledge among radio staff about ICTs for improved programming, editorial work, communication and interaction, broadcasting and delivery, financial planning, and management. This is done through various workshops which cover how to use the internet, management of daily contacts, mobile-friendly content production and use of related broadcasting software, as well as use of ICTs in radio programming and diffusion. Other training focuses on such topics as radio formats and gender, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief information. There will also be a national forum of all sponsored radios on ICTs and sustainability.

As part of the project, a radio correspondents' network will be created or strengthened, providing radio stations with greater plurality of sources and diversity of local news. Radio staff will manage the correspondents' networks, who will also be trained in both journalism and use of ICTS and mobiles for interviewing and reporting.

A series of Open Educational Resources are being produced from the trainings, aiming to broadly share knowledge about local radio. These resources will be available to copy, share, translate and adapt, and are intended as a collaborative way to turn local radios into social service providers. Another component of the project is an emphasis on accessing national and regional expertise for the project implementation in all activities: research, workshops, surveys, monitoring, etc. Professionals and organisations involved are closely accompanied by our staff, assessing the activities to enhance the outcomes.

In accordance with UNESCO work, another project focus is to give priority to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) when choosing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for local radios. Besides being no-cost, such software is developed to best satisfy the needs of the users, since it is developed by the users themselves.

The project website includes analysis of and links to open source technology, information about the participating radio stations, and news about ongoing training .

The project is also running MyLocalRadio.org, which is an online community of practice for people wanting to freely collaborate, share knowledge and build local radio together. It is available in English and French languages and has also a mobile version designed for improved usability, also aiming at feature phones.


Click here for more information from the project website.

Media pluralism, Local Governance, Gender