Supporting the Growth and Development of Community Media: The Work of EcoNews' Community Media Programme in East Africa

The Community Media Programme's primary objective is to promote the development of community-based media in Kenya, east Africa and the east and southern African sub-region. The premise is that media owned, controlled and produced by, for and about communities can serve as vital for a for debate on development, governance and human rights at the local level as well as for the preservation and promotion of local culture(s) and indigenous knowledge. Such media also can provide critical two-way conduits for the flow of information between the local level and the national and international levels, enabling communities to feed issues of concern to national and international policy-makers and vice versa.

The Community Media Programme has three main areas of activity. It supports advocacy and training activities of the Kenyan Community Media Network, which it houses and to which it provides legal cover. It coordinates the fundraising, technical and training aspects of an east African pilot project to establish three community radio stations in:

• Mang'elete, Kenya
• Terrat, Tanzania
• and Kagadi, Uganda

Finally, it is a lead organisation for the Community Media Network of East and Southern Africa (COMNESA)and is responsible for awareness raising, research, advocacy for enabling media regulation for community media, and community media training.

The Kenya Community Media Network (KCOMNET)

The Kenya Community Media Network (KCOMNET) is a national network of individuals and organisations interested or involved in participatory, community-based media for development and democratisation. Formed in November 1995 at a sub-regional workshop on community media convened by EcoNews Africa in Nairobi, the network comprises professional media workers as well as community-based and non-governmental organisations dealing with information, communications, development, civic education and human rights. Recognising that one of the greatest impediments to the involvement of community groups in relevant policy-making in Kenya is a regulatory environment unconducive to freedom of expression, freedom of information and community-based organising, its aims were to further the recommendations of the workshop in Kenya through an advocacy and training programme.

The Community Media Programme of EcoNews Africa supports KCOMNET by providing it with legal cover, a secretariat and resource centre base, communications assistance and its own expertise.

Over the past year, much of KCOMNET's work has been on advocacy for an enabling regulatory environment for community media. KCOMNET has demanded constitutional and legal amendments, repeals and additions which guarantee the freedoms of expression, information and communication.

While much progress was made on lobbying with the Task Force on Media Law, with the Task Force incorporating almost all KCOMNET's proposals into its report to the Attorney General, the possibility is that its recommendations will be subject to decisions of a political nature in the Attorney General's office before submission to Parliament. In addition, the presentation of the first and second drafts of the proposed Kenya Communications Bill to Parliament had negative implications for community broadcasting as the Bill, to some extent, preempted the work of the Task Force.

For this reason, KCOMNET began directing its lobbying towards other media organisations, such as the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ), political parties and parliamentarians and other civil society reform initiatives, such as the Centre for Law and Research International (CLARION) and the Citizen's Coalition on Constitutional Change (Four Cs) to ensure its agenda is represented, understood and supported by all organisations likely to be able to influence the process of media reform in Kenya. Over the last year, KCOMNET initiated contacts with every organisation seeking constitutional, legal and policy reform specifically with regards to the media. These overtures were successful as KCOMNET has participated in every relevant lobbying effort on regulatory reform on media and its recommendations were incorporated into the draft Media Bill prepared by the KUJ.

In addition, noting the lack of harmony between the proposed Kenya Communications Bill and its regulatory proposals on community media, KCOMNET expanded its mandate to address concerns of universal access to telecommunications and the need to harmonise the mandates of the proposed regulatory bodies for broadcasting and for telecommunications to ensure that community media is catered for by both. To this end, KCOMNET participated in the three national lobbying efforts around the first draft of the Kenya Communications Bill, as well as in a sub-regional inter-governmental meeting on changes in telecommunications regulation. Its efforts saw the first draft withdrawn. In preparation for the second draft, KCOMNET participated in a sub-regional workshop on technological convergence and telecommunications regulation organised by EcoNews Africa and the Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA) for COMNESA. The aim of this workshop, from KCOMNET's perspective, was to prepare a wide range of Kenya media stakeholders for the issuance of the second draft.

The East African Pilot Project

This is an east African pilot project to establish three community resource centres and radio stations in Kibwezi, Kenya, Terrat, Tanzania and Kagadi, Uganda. The pilot project was initiated in 1993 at the request of three community-based organisations: the Mang'elete Women's Group through the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) in Mang'elete; the Orkonerei Integrated Pastoralists' Survival Programme (OIPSP) in Terrat; and the Uganda Rural Development Training (URDT) in Kagadi. EcoNews Africa is mandated by the three community-based organisations to coordinate activities of the overall pilot project, to solicit financial support for the project and to provide technical and training assistance to the three partner organisations.

All three communities are concerned about development, human rights and governance issues and see the potential use of the resource centres and community radio in providing information and a discussion forum on these issues. The Mang'elete Resource Centre and Radio Station is interested in empowering its community to participate effectively in addressing local agricultural and health problems, including women's reproductive health. The OIPSP views the pilot project as a unique opportunity to empower a pastoral Masaai community faced with severe land alienation, to advocate for the protection and preservation of pastoralism and to share experiences with other marginalised groups across the region. And URDT sees the pilot project as a means to promote community education and build the community's capacity to negotiate for its own development.

During the past year, priority for the east African pilot project has been placed on:

• strategising for the future human and financial sustainability of the pilot project.
• reviewing the pilot project proposals in light of future sustainability plans.
• organisational development in the three communities in preparation for the establishment of the community radio stations (policy development and training around membership, voluntarism, participatory management structures, etc).
• continued training for the project personnel during the final phase of the Nyegezi Social Training Institute.
• setting up production groups to prepare at least six months backlog broadcasts for the community radio station and develop clear broadcasting schedules covering all the information needs identified in the mobilisation process.
• continued information gathering for the production referred to above.
• soliciting quotations and ordering the required broadcast equipment.

The Community Media Network of East and Southern Africa (COMNESA)

The Community Media Network of East and Southern Africa (COMNESA) is a sub-regional network of community media initiatives, communications, information and development non-governmental organisations and media training institutions. Formed in November 1995 at a sub-regional meeting convened by EcoNews Africa in Nairobi, the network links community media initiatives across the sub-region. Its aims are to support the development of community media through: awareness raising about the role of community media in networking, development and governance; research and documentation; advocacy for enabling regulatory environments for community media throughout the sub-region by providing support to national lobbying initiatives; and coordinated training initiatives.

COMNESA has continued working on an action plan in those four areas over the past three years. Member organisations that have the capacity to work regionally have taken the lead in each of the areas. The lead organisations include: Inter Press Service (IPS) on awareness-raising; the Panos Institute (Lusaka and London) on research and documentation; EcoNews Africa and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) on advocacy; and the National Community Radio Forum (NCRF) and the World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC)-Africa on training.

EcoNews Africa has the mandate to coordinate COMNESA activities, keeping the membership informed of activities and addressing requests for information on community media from new members or other interested parties. EcoNews Africa fulfills its mandate by producing of a quarterly newsletter, Community Media News, detailing network activities in the four action areas, profiling community media initiatives in the sub-region and providing analytical articles on various aspects of community media development and practice. It also runs and animates an electronic list server for all on-line COMNESA members to provide updates on the action plan and facilitate electronic discussions of relevant issues. It is also responsible for planning, implementing and coordinating research, documentation and advocacy efforts in east Africa.

COMNESA has really acted more as a platform for coordinating efforts around community media than as a functioning network. COMNESA completed all research (the Panos Institute-Lusaka) and began advocacy work regarding broadcasting regulation (MISA) for southern Africa during the last six months and began on the east African research (the Panos Institute-Addis Ababa/London) and advocacy work beyond Kenya in east Africa (EcoNews Africa). Recognising the consequences of technological convergence, COMNESA began strategising on a sub-regional advocacy strategy regarding telecommunications regulation (EcoNews Africa and MISA). And finally, it has begun a training materials development programme for African community radio (AMARC, EcoNews Africa, the IAJ and MISA).

In response to increasing requests for information (on community media activities in the sub-region and on the financial, technical and organisational requirements to support community media activities) and an extension of network activities into the Horn of Africa, COMNESA expanded its information-sharing and research mandate into the Horn.

Revised July 21, 2002