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I s s u e 3 3 - M o n t h , 2 0 0 2
Measuring Real
Development Impact
In the final evaluation of phase I of the project, the evaluators assessed in different ways the perceived impact of the project, and noted among others that ”There is no doubt that the project has contributed positively to the development of the media situation in the country.” The question, however, is always how to measure and how to demonstrate impact of media interventions. To facilitate an enhanced capacity – as concretely and in as much depth as possible – to register and know what qualitative impact is being created through our physical implementation, the project is presently finalising the development of a qualitative indicator monitoring tool, to be used to measure community development as spurred by UNESCO's support to development of radio stations in eight communities throughout Mozambique. The development of this tool is being carried out by a consultant, who has interviewed 200 individuals in Cuamba and Chimoio and registered the answers on questionnaires. Furthermore 20 focus group discussions were carried out with core "communities within the overall community". These data are now being processed in order to ensure a good and as precise baseline in a number of specific areas. The monitoring tool will then every 9 months or so be able to show what development has taken place in the different areas identified, including the development in the perception of the communities' strengths and weaknesses as well as concrete knowledge, attitudes and practice in areas such as HIV and AIDS. It is the mobilysers of the community radio stations, who will locally be in charge of this continuous monitoring of impact, as they are responsible to continually update the audience research already carried out by the communities. The latter is to be used to regularly update the programmes presented in the weekly community radio programme format. After the initial processing of the data locally, the project will provide support and backing to discuss and support in the finalisation of the analysis. It is our intention and hope that we, through these intervention forms will ensure that the eight communities will have a basic guarantee to have access produce their own and listen to others’ programmes with good and relevant content, dealing with everyday realities in areas such as health, education, culture, agriculture and economic development.
Management, Administration, Programming, Audience Research and Preventive Maintenance are among the core areas to be dealt with. Besides from this the project plans to carry out a series on 'training-cum-production' processes in the 8 partner community radio stations in the area of HIV/AIDS, ensuring a slow and in-depth process, where the community programmers, through the support from a visiting trainer, will work on transforming the community problems into effective and adequate local programme formats. These processes will last around three months and and will be carried out in collaboration with a project coordination by the National Aids Council. Finally the project is presently exploring ways of ensuring a close cooperation with UNFPA in the preparation and organisation of a number of thematic workshops, ensuring adequate back-ground knowledge for the community programmers in areas such as health, gender and other core development issues.
"Basic Journalism" in May, "Ethics, Democracy and Governance" in July, and Independent Media Management in September. These courses are
foreseen to be carried out in collaboration with the NSJ Trust as during
the project's phase I.
During phase I the Media Project supported the establishment of two communication centres in Beira and in Tete. The functioning and sustainability potential of these centres has just been evaluated, and a number of concrete recommendations have come up, presenting a scenario for additional strengthening of these structures, where one is working well and the other having considerable problems. To discuss the impact of these findings, also in view of the planned support to opening of more of these centres, will be discussed in a technical advisory group meeting on March 25 at the Media Project. This meeting will also look at another part of the project's component in support to the independent print press: Management training. This as one of the experiences during the past 10 years in Mozambique - as in other countries in a similar socio-political situation - is that it is relatively easy to start a new publication, but it is extremely difficult to ensure that is becomes a sustainable and viable activity. Therefore, in order to strengthen selected independent print media a management training process has been foreseen. The technical advisory group will also discuss the results of UNESCO's initial assessments and preparation developed in this area. It is the hope that this meeting will provide advice and guidance as to how UNESCO and partners can proceed with this. Media
Development Project
c/o UNESCO, P.O.Box 1397 Maputo, Mozambique
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