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Pakistan Press Foundation’s rural community radio strategy takes hold

When a powerful earthquake struck Pakistan in October 2005, killing 73,000 people, state-owned radio and television transmitters in parts of North West Frontier Province and Pakistan-administered regions of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) were obliterated. There was a communication blackout. The Pakistani government, worried that the AJK region was politically volatile, had previously forbidden cell phone technology and private radio. This compounded an already disastrous situation: citizens in the region could not communicate effectively with each other or the outside world.

In the wake of this tragedy, the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF), an IFEX member, mobilised the resources and advocacy efforts of many press organisations to ensure the free flow of information in the crisis zone. But this was just the beginning. The earthquake was a catalyst for a major shift in the media environment, which has led to greater freedom of expression in Pakistan.

Days after the earthquake struck, PPF went on two missions to the crisis region to determine how press clubs and journalists’ unions were affected. Based on these missions, PPF found that small, remote communities cannot be fully covered by the transmission of FM stations from urban centres. And the news bulletins on state-owned Radio Pakistan offer distortions of reality with false good news stories.

As follow-up, PPF met with political and government leaders and lobbied for permission to set up independent FM radio stations to be used to pass on vital humanitarian information. "That was a period of great flux where authorities were willing to listen because the tragedy was so great," says Owais Aslam Ali, secretary general of PPF. The state agreed to issue two-year licenses for private FM radio and many organisations, including a university, came together and set up studios.

This was a great achievement since the region had been previously barred from private radio access. In 2002, PPF and other civil society organisations had successfully lobbied for private radio in other regions of Pakistan, but the AJK region was excluded since it was seen as too volatile.

On the heels of the earthquake, PPF launched a multi-pronged strategy to improve free expression and access to information across Pakistan. This strategy is focused on creating a strong community radio network, targeting rural communities, through comprehensive capacity-building, training and advocacy. As a consequence, local radio is gaining momentum and providing greater access to information in rural areas, which is having ripple effects in combating poverty, violence against women and extremist voices.

Developing media capacity

Based in Karachi, PPF has been carrying out media-building activities for 41 years. At the time of the 2005 earthquake, men and women with very little or no journalism background were brought together by PPF and trained by members of press clubs and other media outlets to write and report for radio.

Internews Pakistan and Intermedia donated and distributed radio sets. In the midst of the rubble, radio studios were constructed inside shipping containers. A whole new sector was up and running in a very short time. This new infrastructure was used to share information between non-governmental organisations, to pass on information about health and safety precautions, where to go for help, safe travel routes, to read out the names of missing people, and to help reunite families. "The radio stations played a key role in managing the disaster," says Ali.

Later, during a pilot phase of the project, which started in 2007, PPF coordinated information sharing between radio stations and press clubs for elections held in February 2008. It was the first time radio stations in small towns were able to air live coverage of a national event. Press clubs have been key to developing rural media as they are the only place journalists have to meet and talk.

Also, since the media environment in Pakistan is mostly urban and does not meet the needs of rural audiences, PPF has been working to fill this gap. They reached an agreement with Pakistan Press International (PPI), the country’s independent news agency, to produce 10 news bulletins every day. These bulletins are broadcast by 29 radio stations throughout the country, providing quality news programmes for small, independent radio stations that cannot produce their own stories. Having PPI on board means the radio project has access to a wire service and correspondents in all parts of the country.

Setting up the network and stepping up advocacy

As part of its community radio network strategy, PPF has launched a project to establish radio studios in 12 press clubs. PPF is organising training workshops and producing handbooks for community radio professionals so they can go to work for radio stations in their own communities. It is hoped that these 12 studios will be converted into community radio studios once the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) licenses are granted.

Also integral to the strategy is lobbying PEMRA to issue community radio licenses and allow antennae to be installed. PPF anticipates that the increasing professionalism and capacity demonstrated by emerging stations will convince the authority to allow them to operate.

To advocate effectively, PPF aims to join forces with press clubs and FM radio stations to engage with PEMRA and develop a policy to promote the rapid growth of community radio throughout Pakistan. PPF intends to include meetings with regulators and policy makers as part of the training in the rural radio initiative, in order to initiate reform in PEMRA.

Change is happening

The media rehabilitation efforts that followed the 2005 earthquake sparked changes in the country's social and cultural landscape. Although the earthquake region was a conservative part of the country where media is male-dominated (as it is throughout Pakistan), the situation was so dire that many women got involved and worked in the radio studios. Following the crisis, some women continue to work in radio, while others have had to stop because of threats from extremists. But a few studios are optimistic about bringing women back on air, once the extremist response fades.

The decision to not have non-state radio in AJK had arisen from government perception that community radio could not be controlled and is vulnerable to extremist influence. However, even without licensing, the Taliban and other militants have set up pirate radio stations in Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas to spread their message.

PPF argues that community radio would bring in a diversity of voices and diminish the influence of the extremists. “It's about giving different communities a right to voice their concerns,” says Ali. The post-earthquake radio success showed the government that more radio does not give the insurgency greater control.

In fact, the opposite happens. “There is more stability when more voices are heard,” says Ali.

The immediacy of private radio and television in Kashmir has had a tremendous impact on freedom of expression, says Ali. The number of voices that are coming out in the public sphere is "staggering." Members of different political and community groups are being interviewed; their ideas are being heard directly by audiences. "People who were depicted as villains come out and present their cases to the people, you find out they are not as extremist as we once thought," says Ali.

In its contact with dozens of radio stations in rural areas and small towns, PPF has found that the studios are “deeply interested in protecting the concerns of the people” by providing more news programmes. "Much to our delight, we found that these programmes are the most heard," says Ali. "There is a great hunger for news and current affairs in those areas."