By David Walker
Radio Apac in Northern Uganda celebrated its tenth anniversary this past week.
COL's implementation of this activity included the technology, training, business and sustainability models. I made several visits to Apac, working with the community to implement the activity over a three year period from 1999 to 2002 and monitored their progress thereafter while moving them towards self sustainability.
Examples of their achievements over the past decade have included playing an important role in the Ebola outbreak emergency, providing the community with ongoing information concerning the crisis with the LRA, providing voter information during election campaigns along with candidate and community debates, and was ground breaking in demonstrating to the Government of Uganda the validity of community radio and media. Licensing was liberalised through the efforts of COL and the leaders of the community of Apac. Today, community radio flourishes in Uganda.
The station has had impact on gender, health, environment, education, and many other areas for the Apac and Lira Districts and indeed the country. Radio Apac broadcasts in Luo, the language of Apac and northern Uganda. At the time the national broadcaster, Radio Uganda, did limited Luo programming with their signal not reaching many areas of the country.
Innovations such as the connection of a WorldSpace antenna, which allowed rebroadcast of a high-quality audio satellite signal on Radio Apac's FM network, were implemented. BBC's Focus on Africa and pan-African music stations via WorldSpace were popular additions to the locally created content.
VHF radio also was utilised for local live interviews from the field onto FM broadcast.
Solar power provided all electricity to the station which made it self-sufficient and off-the-grid; in many parts of Apac and Lira electricity was not available. Computers were also utilised and the station evolved into a media centre and central gathering point for the Apac community.
Many communities, both in Uganda and in other parts of Africa, followed the innovations of Radio Apac with their own stations.
By COL working directly with the stakeholders including providing the technology and training over the long term, the project, although a higher risk, differed from the norm of operating by many intergovernmental organisations at the time whose engagement was limited to discussion, recommendations then disengagement – since many did not have the staff or skills for implementation – leaving the stakeholders to find a way to implement without financial or ongoing professional guidance.
When sitting in meetings about development or the MDGs, I know from my own experience, that COL's credibility of having worked with stakeholders directly at the field level over the long term with technology, training and providing avenues for employment and income generated notice by donors, created loyalty with stakeholders as champions of COL and also set the organisation apart from not being just another "voice of concern" but rather one that can really be there to make a difference.
In the case of the community of Apac, COL can see the long-term benefits of the risk with the reward of having made the difference that so many evaluations or Results Based Management systems hope to demonstrate.
October 2009