Social and Environmental Projects
in Madagascar

PROJET RADIO

FUNDED BY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION FOOD SECURITY DIVISION, Andrew Lees Trust (ALT) launched the project in 1999 with a pilot study to identify the information needs of isolated rural communities in southern Madagascar and to develop methods to improve access to education and information using radio for rural populations with the aim of empowering illiterate rural producers to help themselves improve their standards of living  – in particular to increase food security and reduce the effects of poverty. In 2002, using the lessons learnt, Projet Radio scaled up to create a:

RURAL RADIO NETWORK FOR DEVELOPMENT, SOUTHERN MADAGASCAR

Context
The project radio network was launched in Toliara province across the south of the island, an area over 70,000square kilometres populated by approximately two million people living in mostly rural environments. This constitutes one of the poorest regions in the country where 88% of the extremely poor are rural producers, women and children suffering from lack of infrastructure, poor roads, and little access to healthcare or schools - 67% of children do not attend primary school and approximately three quarters of the rural population are illiterate.

"education, which could give the people the wherewithal to help themselves was seen as too costly, of poor quality and largely irrelevant to the needs of the poor" - World Bank Poverty Assessment 1996.

The deep south also experiences recurrent drought and 25 % of the population suffer from regular food shortages.The majority of villages are situated 2-5 km from a permanent source of drinking water. During the dry season as many as18 communes (20%) have no access to water within 10km. (EC SAP 2002) and 40% of children under five are malnourished.

The southern society is polygamous and rural communities still maintain traditional belief systems including ancestral worship, taboos, and magic. Traditionally pastoralists, local people believe that cattle slaughtered at their death will provide for a better afterlife.
In 1996 a World Bank Poverty Assessment  stated ‘Poverty was also characterized by the virtual non-existence of infrastructure and lack of communication and information, especially in the south where over a third of households mentioned the lack of appropriate transportation. For access to information people relied mostly on informal means of communication, including hear and say and the market, where people meet to exchange information’…..‘This isolation leads to powerlessness of small farmers, one clear source of frustration and resentment ‘..

‘The most striking features of poverty in Madagascar as identified by the poor are isolation and powerlessness. The poor lack the means of communications with all but their own immediate community’  

At the start of the project only 6% of the southern population had access to a radio. With little access to education or information, local people lacked the means to learn new ways to improve their situation, and the southern rural communities remained largely isolated and marginalised.

For these reasons, Projet Radio decided to test and then launch a communications project using radio with the aim of broadcasting programmes that deliver vital education and information to empower poor rural communities to improve their social and economic wellbeing

‘PROJET RADIO’ RURAL RADIO NETWORK

In order to reach across a wide geographic area with little infrastructure or resources, the project decided to capitalise on existing resources and create maximum partnership and synergy of development action. The project structure is therefore based on participation and exchange with three groups of principle stakeholders, who are also beneficiaries of the project:

1. Rural village communities – listening groups
2. Local NGO and service providers - associated as the Partners for Communication and Information for Development (PCID)
3. Affiliated FM community Radio stations

Project Radio provides training, equipment, radios and coordinates the mechanisms of exchange to facilitate a regional communications network between the stakeholders. The Projet Radio team also produce programmes, distribute radios to villagers, provide editing facilities and support partners:

MECHANISMS for EXCHANGE – LISTENING

3370 Village Listening Groups participate in the project and agree to help identify information needs through focus groups, assist in programme production, provide feedback for evaluations and pre tests, and listen regularly to the broadcasts

In exchange the project has provided them with solar/clockwork-powered radios to enable them to regularly receive the projects’ educational broadcasts.  

Programmes are made to respond to villagers needs and provide them with ideas and solutions to help alleviate daily problems such as how to prevent disease in cattle, where and when to vaccinate children, how to graft manioc and improve rice yields, how to prevent HIV transmission, grow sorghum, and make windbreaks.

As well as learning about services, and new practices, the villagers also appreciate the improved communications that radio affords to link them with other communities, hear news about the rest of the country, and receive weather warnings. For many, the radio is a lifeline with the rest of the world.

MECHANISMS for EXCHANGE – PROGRAMME MAKING

The project recognises that radio information alone cannot bring about development change but that face to face contact, training, services and practical support is essential if villagers are to take up the new information they hear by radio and apply it in their daily lives

Extensive partnership and collaboration with local NGOs and service providers allows the project to respond to information needs across all sectors of development whilst ensuring synergy with local development action.

Already technically adept in their own particular discipline: health, agriculture, food security, conservation, energy and natural resource management, culture, primary education, family planning, fisheries etc, NGO partners are well placed to produce educational programmes that can work in parallel to their field initiatives.

Programme themes include how to treat cattle disease, store food, market prices, improved hygiene practices, protection against disease, management of forest resources, improved agriculture and nutrition practices, HIV awareness.
The programmes also promote development activities in the region so people learn how to access supports and training
such as building fuel efficient stoves, updates on forestry law and land ownership, where to get locust control products, and free vaccinations at the hospital
Given the vast geographical and logistical challenges of development work in this region, radio programmes greatly improve the capacity of NGOs and service providers to reach their target populations and reduce the amount of physical time needed to educate from village to village.

Partners for Communications and Information for Development (PCID)

61 Local NGOs and service providers: participate as active development partners and associate as The Partners for Information and Communications for Development (PCID) and agree to:

• act as a platform to discuss regional communications strategies
• help identify information needs and target village communities
• produce educational radio broadcasts in response to information needs
• distribute solar/clockwork radios to their target communities
• monitor the impacts of the programmes

        In exchange the project provides them with regular training, recording equipment, and facilitates meetings; PR also provides assistance and support with programme production, monthly programme editing, programme evaluations, and monitoring of programme impacts.

Partners are trained by the project in participatory production techniques and radio distribution. All programmes are edited in Projet Radio Regional Production Units, where they enter a regional programme library, then are duplicated on to CD and distributed to affiliated local FM radio stations across the region. Programmes are made in local language and CDs are labelled accordingly (by dialect). Approximately 40-44 new radio programmes are produced by the PCID each month.

67% of partners reported changes in their organisation as a result of Project Radio mostly related to improved internal or external communications. Some noted ‘a greater openness in their staff towards other PCID members, local authorities, communities etc’; and 60% said they already co-operate with other PCID members to plan campaigns on common themes. (Harford 2006)

MECHANISMS for EXCHANGE – BROADCASTING

40 FM Community Radio Stations: participate by providing free air time for the project’s educational broadcasts in their weekly schedules, and participate in an informal network of regional radio stations (3R)

In exchange the project provides them with equipment that will improve their technical capacity to reach the target audience (CD players; transmitters; studio equipment) and training to help them maintain their broadcast studios, and develop programmes. They also participate in annual round table meetings to discuss network issues and plans.

The stations are affiliated in the network that is establishing a clear development role in the region; local PCID partners are now building communications into their project budgets, which ensures their ability to pay the radio stations for additional broadcasts, both immediately and beyond the funding phase of Projet Radio– thus helping to maintain the stations and the network in the longer term..

View a Map showing the location of the Affiliated Radio Stations

BENEFITS OF THE PROJET RADIO APPROACH

The pro-poor approach of the PR/PCID programmes, delivered in local language direct to villages via radio, provides non-formal education to all members of the community irrespective of age, gender or education, and will therefore benefit the most marginalised and poorest members of the population.

For many rural populations this is the first access to media and communications that has ever been made available to them.

RESULTS

The project has produced a total of 2868 educational radio programmes to date under the broad titles of animal husbandry, food security, agriculture and fishing, natural resource management, health and family welfare, governance, education and culture.

An evaluation of Projet Radio funded by The UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) in 2007 revealed that Project Radio is achieving some notable success in changing and enhancing knowledge and attitudes on certain Millennium Development Goals such as HIV/AIDS, family planning, mother and child health, environmental issues, social and administrative issues and gender inequality. 

Read the Reports:

La Contribution de la Radio Diffusion vers les Objectifs Millenaire pour le Developpement dans le Sud de Madagascar - Leo Metcalf, Nicola Harford and Mary Myers (PDF 1.59 Mb)

Project Radio Impact Study - Metcalf, Harford and Myers (PDF 7.58 Mb)

Project Radio Impact Study Summary - Metcalf, Harford and Myers (PDF 352 Kb)

More reports

SUSTAINABILITY, THE NETWORK FUTURE

The project aims to hand over the network to its local partners and beneficiaries by 2010. It is envisaged that the PCID will function in regional units with affiliated local radio stations. Skills that have been developed through Projet Radio trainings will remain with all the partners in the region.

To date, over a 1000 field agents from local NGOS, service providers and radio stations have been trained by Projet Radio in a number of participatory and production techniques including:  focus group research,  Participative production cycle, distribution of radio and setting up of listening groups, manipulation of digital recording devices , digital editing, equipment maintenance and technical training, monitoring and evaluation.

The project is also working to develop the Regional Production Units (RPU) and work with partners and stations collectively to develop strategies and proposals to address the sustainability issues.

This is a symbiotic relationship for all those interested in development in the region. Furthermore as the network succeeds, it will attract supports from the national level as it harmonises with national communications strategies

Projet Radio is providing a useful model for rural radio communications networks in Madagascar. It shares its expertise with national communications campaigns such as the CNLS (National HIV AIDS Committee), and provides technical advice to national agencies such as UNICEF Madagascar for the communication component for its national sanitation programme.

 

Further Projet Radio Reports and Studies

PCID Survey Report - N.Harford (PDF 194Kb)

Radio Stations Survey Report - S.Lellelid (PDF 214 Kb)

Listener Survey Report - J.Vadgama (PDF 933KB)

UNICEF Evaluation Report - S.Johansson (PDF 444 Kb)

SALFA Hospital Evaluation - L.Metcalf (PDF 165 KB)

Androy Report - L.Metcalf (PDF 1.411 Mb)

Trees and Sorghum - L.Metcalf (PDF 647 Kb)

PSDR Survey - L.Metcalf (PDF 271 Kb)

Project Radio HIV Report - L.Metcalf (PDF 433 Kb)

Literacy Evaluation Study - S.Lellelid (PDF 373 Kb)