Written by Simone Sala, FAO

In August 2015 a survey was launched as a global exercise to take stock of the work of AMARC’s affiliates, community media networks and communication practitioners engaged in communication for rural development.

It helped to identify potential areas for improving the engagement of community media in sustainable rural development as well as feed discussions at the AMARC 11th Global Assembly in Accra, Ghana.

The survey received 54% of responses from Anglophone speakers, 37% from the Francophone community, and 9% from Hispanic speakers. Most respondents were from Africa (45.7%), and all regions were represented. 

It focused on identifying the communication experiences and activities of community media and communication practitioners to promote rural development, investigating how practitioners interact with AMARC’s Communication for Development Platforms and learning how to expand their participation to the Platforms.

Participants were almost equally distributed among representatives of community radio stations, community practitioners, community organizations and other kinds of organizations (e.g. academic institutions, NGOs).

The majority of participating organizations work in rural areas (63.2%) while one out of four works in both urban and rural areas (23.7%) and a minority works in urban areas only (13.2%).

 

The organizations cover a wide area of work, ranging from humanitarian assistance and disaster risk reduction/management (~5% and 9.2% respectively) to Indigenous People and Gender (6.5% and 13.6% respectively), including education (13.2%), environment and natural resources management (9.2%), and agriculture and food security (14.7%). 18% of organizations/practitioners list themselves as specializing in the area of Communication for Development.

Finally, it is worth noting that 71.4% of respondents are aware of AMARC’s Communication for Development regional platforms, while the remaining 28.6% are not. Among the respondents, not everybody who is aware of the platforms is actively engaged, even though the majority (85%) does. This indicates an area which can be further invested in by the partners of the FCCM.

If you would like to participate in the survey, you can access it here in English, French, and Spanish.