Radio for Peacebuilding Africa

The founders of RFPA believed that radio broadcasters can affect some of the conflict and civil unrest that have affected African countries. However, they found that radio broadcasters exaggerated the violence facing African societies on a daily basis instead of working to temper strife.

By promoting a discussion of the "middle ground" in debates, as well as tempering extreme outlying opinions played on their air, RFPA hoped to show that common ground is possible and that conflicts do not have to be solved by violence.

To support its mission, Radio for Peacebuilding Africa aimed to broaden the skills of broadcasters working in Africa. RFPA supported youth radio broadcasters and encouraged the diversifying of viewpoints on the air.[2]

RFPA worked with politicians to increase the flow of communications between governments and the civil society, as well as encouraging the SFCG mission of acting on the commonalities between different societies and ethnicities.[3] Specifically, RFPA targeted broadcasters, governmental officials and members of the civil society in each state.

To address their mission, RFPA developed a multilingual training guide and module for broadcasters and journalists. They also organized fora and regional conferences to discuss challenges and issues facing projects. They organized two competitions to reward the top programs structured around the themes in the training guides.[3]

The founders of RFPA believed that news reporting isn't the only way to promote common ground. Forms of communication such as "soap-opera" style programming, music, theater, and talkshows were designed to promote open discussion of issues and foster ties between communities.

As a part of its mission, RFPA worked to develop a series of guidebooks about peace building techniques through radio. These books were the foundation for the RFPA annual awards.[4] These guidebooks can be applied to all forms of communication worldwide, not just for radio in Africa.

These techniques included inviting all sides of an issue into dialogue, identifying and examining assumptions, challenging stereotypes, sharing hopes, dreams and future visions, giving ordinary people a chance to tell their story, using precise words, clarifying opinions and finding and presenting alternative solutions, among other techniques.[5]

As of the summer of 2010, RFPA had more than 3,000 members representing 100 countries, across Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. The organization produced seven guidebooks that have been downloaded over 4,800 times. They carried out over 90 workshops and trained local radio station personnel.[6]

RFPA claimed that it had reached new levels of cooperation between the government, media and civil society, increased the ability of radio stations to identify the underlying causes of war and conflict, increased the public's access to policy information, and used media to foster communication between policy makers and the civil society within that state, among other achievements.[6]

Of the countries in which RFPA had programs or participating stations, eleven (Burundi, Central African Republic, Kenya, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda) had "partially free" status under Freedom House's 2010 Freedom in the World annual report, which ranked the degree of democracy and political freedom in each country in the world; levels of political freedom and civil rights were ranked on a scale of 1 through 7, and each country was assigned a status of "free", "partially free" or "not free".[7] Nine countries in which RFPA had programs or participating stations (Cameroon, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, DR Congo, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe) had "not free" status under the same ranking systems.[7]

• Official website