Speech of Jean-Pierre Husi,
Director of the Fondation Hirondelle,
during the Workshop Radio and Television in the Service of Development

Addis Ababa, April 7^th and 8^th, 2003

For the last 8 years, the Fondation Hirondelle has been creating independent media, distributing non-partisan information in areas in crisis or at war.

The first radio service of the Fondation was created in 1994 at Bukavu, in the Kivu, in reaction to the criminal role played by the RTLM after the Rwandan genocide.

The Fondation then created Star Radio in Liberia, the Hirondelle Agency with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. In also created media in partnership with the Unites Nations: Radio Blue Sky in Kosovo, Radio Ndeke Luka in the Central African Republic, a production studio in East Timor, and more recently Radio Okapi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Radio Okapi is a network of 10 radio stations covering the whole DRC. The Fondation Hirondelle has played the role of a pioneer in creating media in areas of conflict. The success of these radio services is confirmed by the testimonies of the listeners, by the support that the local Human Rights associations or journalists have brought it, and by the surveys we have conducted.

These radio services, in their programming schedules, reserve a large portion of their time for development: health, education, animal husbandry, of course. But even more important, the topics deal with the development of a society of citizens in a democracy, which is so important in countries that are just coming out of a civil war. Electoral procedures, civic instruction, political debates, including those between members of the government and the opposition.

These programs have been very successful, as in Bangui where the members of the government would come and get cassettes of programs they had not been able to hear.

These radio services, initiated by the Fondation Hirondelle, have been developed in cooperation with international organizations (UNHCR, UNESCO, UNDP, Search for Common Ground). The success of these radio services is in part thanks to them. I will return to this later.

What are the good practices that guide our actions?

Our procedure consists, first of all, of not considering our audience as just a passive receiver of messages, but as a customer or a citizen, that is to say, as a person who chooses to listen and to hear, or not to do so. This citizen has his needs, his desires, his personality, and he is in the center of our activities.

In order to be true actors in their own economic development, these listeners must first of all become actors in their political development, actors in a society that is socially aware and tolerant. This is what brings us to favor general information, but also political discussion, civic education, programs related to Human Rights, related to assistance to minorities and vulnerable groups.

Our approach consists, even more, of answering specific questions that the listeners ask the journalists, using concrete illustrations. This direct contact with the listeners, which is possible with community-based media, explains in large part the success of these stations.

The credibility of the information given in the domain of development rests on the general credibility of the radio station. Everywhere in the world, listeners make a general judgment about a station, and have a very difficult time making a distinct judgment about different broadcasts on any given station. The West channel-surfs a lot on television, but much less on the radio. One will judge, for example, that the BBC is a believable radio station and that Saddam Hussein's station is not. This type of attitude is valid for all stations, and if we wish to get a broadcast about development accepted by our listeners, we had better do a BBC type radio, rather than anything else.

I will attack the question of The role Development Institutions should play in facilitating the broadcasting of development from the angle of the challenges that an NGO such as the Fondation Hirondelle must face in order to create, then perpetuate, media in areas of conflict.

The First Challenge is to Answer the True Needs of the Listeners:

The Development Organizations can contribute to this:

• First of all by adopting a communication strategy that is decentralized, in order to take into account local realities. In the domain of information, it is what we call community-based information; if your neighbor got scalded, the news will affect you much more than if an unknown person died from being crushed by a bus. Just as there is community-based information, there must be a community-based development information.
  
• Second, the staff of the Development Organization must be sensitized to the fantastic impact of the radio media, as well as trained in interaction with the media.
  
• Next by allowing the journalists to proceed with producing the radio programming. We think that it is necessary to allow the journalists to be in charge of identifying the needs of local listeners and responding to them in the radio productions, by bringing in specialists of development who have the required knowledge. The interviewing of a specialist by a good journalist is more effective than most didactic explanations.

Another challenge is to Have Legitimacy:

To start independent radio services such as ours, we need authorizations, a legal status, and for this they need political support. In this, the Development Institutions such as the UNDP can play a crucial role. Radio Ndeke Luka was able to start up in Bangui in 2000 thanks to the UNDP and a Resident Representative with a vision, who had understood the role a radio of peace and development could play in informing the populations of Central Africa.

Another Challenge is to Be Able to Work with a Minimum Level of Security:

To be able to function, the journalists of these radio services need protection and security, especially when these countries are being shaken by political tremors. Here again, the international Development Organizations have an all-important role to play. By insuring this protection, which is sometimes just symbolic, but vital nevertheless. By lobbying with the political authorities, or sometimes even with the rebel groups.

An other challenge is capacity building: in our stations, we have excellent African journalists, who cherish, like us, accurate information. But these journalist lack sometimes the specialized background to ask good questions to specialists, for instance in the field of heath or social economy. They need specialized training.

Last but not Least, to Insure the Financing of these Media:

The Fondation Hirondelle tries to insure a lasting financing for the media it creates, with the goal of handing them over in the end to local journalists.

At Bangui, for example, where it is practically impossible to generate publicity revenue, we depend on the contributions of international donors. The strategy that we have tried to introduce is to obtain annual contributions from UN agencies (UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP) to the budget of the radio service. This financial arrangement is difficult to establish, however, because these agencies have serious financial constraints. They would prefer to pay on the basis of services received.

I thank you very much for your attention.