The project has developed a participative approach using radio which is designed to respond to villagers' information needs and to produce solution-oriented educational broadcasts in the local language.

The project collaborates with 49 local partners, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and service providers who deliver development initiatives in Tulear and Fianarantsoa Provinces, associated as the Partners for Communication and Information for Development (PCID). The PCID is involved in all aspects of the production of radio programmes, ensuring relevant technical content is in synergy with regional development initiatives. They also help to distribute radios to village listening groups.

Programmes cover a range of topics including cattle rearing, animal husbandry, food security, farming, natural resource management, environment, healthcare, HIV/AIDS awareness, mother and child health, family welfare, education, and culture. Since the project’s further expansion in 2006, an average of 33 new programmes are produced each month in local language and distributed to 22 local FM radio stations in Tulear and Fianarantsoa Provinces, which broadcast the programmes in exchange for radio equipment.

Villagers are able to listen to the programmes via Freeplay clockwork and solar-powered radios which the project places with village ‘responsables’. Listening groups are formed around these radios and are requested to participate in programme research, production and monitoring.

The project has assisted local FM community radio stations to increase their signal strength and professional capacity through training and provision of equipment in an effort to ensure a wider reach to the intended audience (approximately 500,000 listeners).

Economic Development, Food Security, Natural Resource Management, Environment, Health, HIV/AIDS.

According to organisers, over three-quarters of the rural population are illiterate, and villagers have few means to learn how to improve their situation and reduce their economic and social vulnerability. However, Project Radio claims, aural learning traditions in Madagascar mean that the local people have a far greater capacity than Western audiences to listen to radio and remember details of key messages.

Since Projet Radio’s inception in 1990, the project - in association with the PCID - has:

• produced and broadcast 1,540 programmes;
• distributed solar/clockwork radios to 2,322 village listening groups;
• created two regional libraries (in Tulear and Fianarantsoa Provinces);
• launched 6 production studios;
• provided more than 75 external trainings in communication for development to over 857 partners and field agents;
• connected 49 local NGOs and service providers as PCID associates;
• joined with 22 FM radio stations; and
• launched 2 new FM radio stations, upgraded 3, and worked to improve the technical capacity of 18 rural FM stations (5 more pending equipment arrivals in 2007).

The radio programmes reach approximately 500,000 people directly at a cost of less than one euro per head per year.

The project commenced in 1999 with a pilot study to assess the information needs of isolated rural communities in the south of Madagascar and to identify methodologies for creating access to education and information using radio with the aim of helping local people improve their standards of living. In 2002, drawing on lessons learned to date, Projet Radio scaled up to create a rural radio network for regional development. In 2006, the project began consolidating the rural radio network in the Tulear Province and then worked to replicate the network model in the Fianarantsoa Province.

In 2007, ALT - in collaboration with Media Support Solutions (MSS) and with funding from the Department for International Development (DFID) - published an evaluation study called "The Contribution of Radio Broadcasting to the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals: Research Findings and Conclusions of a Study of the Andrew Lees Trust Projet Radio." (For more information please click here.) The overall conclusion of the research was that the project is achieving some notable success in changing and enhancing knowledge and attitudes on topics such as HIV/AIDS, family planning, mother and child health, environmental issues, social and administrative issues, and gender inequality. Radio is also reportedly having a positive impact on uptake of health services, enrolment in literacy classes, construction of environmentally-friendly woodstoves, tree-planting, agricultural yields, and awareness of strategies for poverty reduction through income generation and community associations. Data show considerable differences between village communities who have access to information via radio and those who are information-poor due to lack of media access.