[UgaBYTES] 4th Pan African AMARC confernce - Resolutions

[Meddie Mayanja]

Many thank, Charles

Actually, more than a quick summary.


-----Original Message-----
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org [mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Charles Oduor Ogada
Sent: Friday, May 08, 2009 8:32 AM
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org; ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org; kentel at list.kenyatelecentre.org
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] 4th Pan African AMARC confernce - Resolutions

Hi Meddie and all,

As I had promised earlier, finds below is a summary of the AMARC conference resolutions.  The detailed report will be found in the AMARC website before long.  

Resolutions:


The 4th Pan African AMARC conference came to an end on 30th, April, 2009.  The conference developed a number of resolutions aimed at
improving the community radio development and network in Africa.   The
resolutions were drawn from the numerous workshops, presentations received and on different thematic issues.

The resolutions highlights are as below:

On Climate Change

*	It was resolved that advocacy be enhanced at the local level and the communities empowered to take participate in climate change campaign.
*	That the community radio practitioners be capacity built to improve radio programming and content generation on climate change.
*	Communities should  use ICTs to document innovations for climate change adaptation
*	National and regional networks to be strengthened for learning and sharing.

On Gender

The workshop and deliberation on gender issues came up with the following resolutions:
*	The radio managers and management boards should be trained on gender mainstreaming
*	The should be continuous education on gender issues to dispel the myths associated with gender
*	Rural women should be supported to participate in June gender conference


Social impact of community radio

The need to establish the changes caused by community radio on people's lives was discussed at length and the following key issues came up:
*	The community radio stations need to establish clear strategies of getting community feedbacks.
*	The stations should develop clear indicators for impact assessment.

Networking

In recognizing the fact that networking is an important aspect of community radio movement in Africa, it was resolved that more efforts need to be in place to improve networking.  The following were deliberated as key issues that need to be addressed:
*	Sustainability of networks, it was resolved that AMARC to recognize existing national, regional networks and support them by implementing programs through the existing networks.
*	That the networks leaders are free of corruption and should evict the vice from their network organizations.  For this to happen it was recommended that regular network audits should be encouraged.
*	The networks should strive to document good practices in community radios work in Africa for sharing.

Community Radio and Conflict resolution

It was recognized that community radio is a powerful tool in conflict resolutions as has been witnessed in the case of Ivory Coast and Kenya. 
The participants felt the following should be observed while promoting the development of community radio and broadcasting initiatives:

*	That community radio should not be for profit making as this can expose the stations to engage in some unethical practices.  Sustainability was realized as a key challenge but the conference resolved that other innovative revenue generating activities be run to support the radio. 
*	That the community radios be established and run with tight adherence to community radio principals and guidelines.  Efforts by some donor agencies to push for hybrid radio stations should not be accepted.
*	That it is important for the community radio stations to be owned by community members and participation of politicians and their influence in radio activities be guarded against.

Election of AMARC Africa new board

On the last conference day, elections were conducted to fill the following positions for the next four years:
*	Chairman
*	Vice - chair
*	Treasurer
*	Women representative
*	Institutional development
*	Training
*	ICT

The position of ICT representative in the board was won by Jimmy Okello of radio Apach Uganda.

This is just a quick summary of resolutions as was captured by me and a detailed report will be available in the AMARC website as soon as it is compiled.

Best regards,

Charles ogada

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