The Community Media Project (CMP)

In Uganda 80% of the population is leaving in poverty because of poor service delivery. This has been worsened by the lack of media presence due to the unfeasible cost of producing and covering rural news, leaving communities disempowered and without a voice. That’s why it takes 6 months to repair a bridge while farmers’ produce is rotting in the garden; 5 pregnant women have to die in a health center before its stocked with Medicine… This shows that there is a Strong correlation between freedom of expression and higher incomes, lower infant mortality and increased adult literacy. Research shows that communities where newspapers closed saw government costs increase “as a result of the lack of scrutiny over local deals”

My innovation aims to build a cloud-based network of community reporters in remote parts of Uganda, who use their mobile phones to report on issues that affect their communities.

Freedom of expression is the oxygen on which other liberties depend. As state-bureaucracies grow into large, often opaque entities, the struggles and interests of particular sectors are often kept secret. Transparency allows for checks on conflicts of interest and ensures greater legitimacy in local-governance.

Uganda is the second youngest population in the world: almost 80% of the people are below thirty years. However, local decision-makers do not sufficiently involve young people in political and social processes. Lack of transparency means public funds do not reach intended beneficiaries. Climate change and dependence on agriculture has left the poor-communities vulnerable to poverty and hunger.

It then, becomes clear that the defense of one fundamental human right, the right to freedom of expression –may directly protect several others, that are key in the achievement of goals and efforts by developmental partners and organizations fighting to reduce poverty in the world.

My Innovation uses interactive voice response (IVR) systems to re-build/integrate existing media-platforms so that local FM-Radios can affordably cover Hyper-local stories, foster accountability in local governance and empowering newsrooms to accommodate diverse views.

The platform will also support young people's participation in decision-making the development of their communities. 

The solution aims to build a cloud-based network of community reporters in hard to reach grassroots communities, who use their mobile phones to report on issues that affect their communities. The stories specifically focus on public service delivery and include, for example, poorly done roads hindering transport of farmers’ produce, land-grabbing incidents, domestic-violence, child-marriages etc. Through the platform journalists access and embed community stories in news bulletins, talk shows and other programs. The reporters also organize Quarterly Community Interface Meetings, where local leaders come face to face with the communities they serve to discuss and jointly develop solutions to these local problems. The meetings are broadcast live on the radio and give leaders a platform to account and respond to issues raised by community-reporters.

Rural communities stand to benefit from the improvement regarding the state of public service delivery: We shall see more Wells built to provide clean water, less absentee Doctors in health centers, leaders are more keen on timely delivery because of the increased media scrutiny at the local level, Increase in the reporting of Domestic violence cases among others. Young people will be the watchdogs of their communities and people view them in high esteem.

Background

The need for my solution came as a result of the challenges that Africa faced after the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. The reduction in advertising in traditional media due to the financial meltdown left media organizations in Uganda and most of Africa in turmoil. The result was wide employ layoffs, which created a big impact on the quality and diverseness of local news stories especially in poor grassroots communities where publication of human interest stories was reduced or removed. While new technologies brought unprecedented access to populations, it did so unevenly, and a severe urban/rural split left the poorest people served only by radio, while citizens in urban centers had greater participation  (especially on social-Media) and access to diverse news sources.

Problem

Due that background, most radio stations couldn’t afford to cover rural audiences which further limited the coverage of local issues. Most reporters covered stories in town centers especially workshops, press conferences, and political rallies who have made it a custom to ‘facilitate Journalist’s transport costs’ and lunches. The stories from the villages take more time and involve high transport costs, yet the poorly paid reporters are pressured to meet  deadlines and majority are paid per story submitted with little or no transport support. Because of the high cost of covering village stories, majority of grassroots communities are left in a media blackout.

Solution

Having spent 7 years working in the same environment running a media house in Eastern Uganda, my experience fueled the enthusiasm to come up with a solution to the status-quo. The solution supports upcountry radios cover hyper-local stories at no cost using a modified open data tool called freedomfone. The IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology allows a computer to record DTMF (Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling) tones input via a mobile phone similar to an answering machine. This enables village-based reporters to record and report remotely to the radio 24hours a day without incurring transports cost. The reporters are trained in mobile-journalism and are given a smartphone connected to the platform with a toll-free line, which turns a mobile phone into a remote radio studio.

The solutions over comes 3 major challenges;

1. Language/Literacy Barrier: Multi-lingual 56 tribes, 46 languages.
2. Logistics: Costly transportation over large distances.
3.  Accessibility to Tools: Costly Electricity and Internet.

The solution therefore leveraging citizen-led monitoring of public service delivery and citizen-led demand for accountability from their local leaders.

After Niger, Uganda is the second youngest population in the world: almost 80 percent of the people are below thirty years. However, local decision-makers do not sufficiently involve young people in political and social processes. Lack of transparency means public funds do not reach the intended beneficiaries. Climate change and dependence on agriculture has also left the poor vulnerable to poverty.

Yet participation, inclusivity and local-ownership are currently key concepts encouraged by majority of development partners supporting poverty eradication efforts, without the empowerment and understanding of locals, even the best-supported development plans tend to produce negligible or unsustainable results.

Most efforts by donors to change the status quo have been focused on investing in training journalists and advocating for liberal policies leading to an increase in the number of media houses in Uganda from about 20 Radio and TV stations to over 200 in the last 18 years. However, this has not made most newsrooms more inclusive or even accommodative of diverse views. While new technologies brought unprecedented access to populations, it did so unevenly, and a severe urban/rural split left the poorest people served only by radio, while citizens in urban centers had greater participation  (especially on social-Media) and access to diverse news sources. This problem is usually unseen to those surrounded by abundant media sources and platforms.

What makes my solution innovative is because it combines the use of Technology, Media approaches, Civic participation and a special focus on Service delivery to give grassroots communities a voice.

My solution is based on a modified version of Freedomfone. Freedom Fone is an open source priority voice-based communications platform used to interact with offline audiences in any language. Audio clips populate an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu which callers can navigate through for information. Individuals can contribute questions, content and feedback by leaving voice messages via the IVR interface. In my solution, IVR systems are accessed by reporters via a basic mobile phone. IVR technology allows a computer to interact with humans through the use of voice and DTMF tones input via a keypad or mobile phone (for this case).

The Modified version of Freedomfone is installed on a computer server at a partner radio station and networked with a GOIP that provides a direct connection between a GSM network and VoIP. A toll free line is put into the GOIP in order to register it with the GSM network, and at the same time the gateway is also connected with VoIP through a program switch.  

With the technology installed at the radio station, village based reporters are given access to the platform and trained in mobile reporting using a mobile phone. The community Reporters(CRs) after the training thus became the watchdogs of their Communities, reporting trough partner FM-radios during radio talk-shows, news bulletins or live interviews on issues affecting their communities. With this approach, reporters by pass the expensive routine of travel between the radio and had to reach villages while covering news.

My Solution supports upcountry news organizations to affordably cover local news while at the same time giving communities and their leaders in had to reach areas an opportunity to participate in their own development.

My solution leverages citizen-led monitoring and accountability of public service delivery from their local leaders through media. This is made possible because freedom of expression is the oxygen on which other liberties depend. Transparency and accountability ensure that public participation can be based on real information. As state bureaucracies grow into large, often opaque entities, the struggles and interests of particular sectors are often kept secret. Transparency allows for checks on conflicts of interest and ensures greater legitimacy for the government.

Professor Paul Gao’s recent research has shown that communities where newspapers closed saw government costs increase “as a result of the lack of scrutiny over local deals”. The same is true in the current era of resurgent authoritarianism, especially among the least-developed nations, making the role of an independent and participatory media ever more important. As research by the Center for International Media Assistance – CIMA and others have shown, the health of independent media is linked to the health of democracy, with each powering the other

My solution hence, serves as a platform for sharing information in order to facilitate good governance, generate opportunities to gain access to essential services, promote accountability and counteract corruption, and develop the relationship between an informed, critical and participatory citizenry and responsive elected officials.

The village (Back Ground)

A village is the lowest political administrative unit. A village usually consists of between 50 and 70 households and may be home to anywhere between 250 and 1,000 people. Each village will be run by a local council – local council I (LCI) - and is governed by a chairman (LCI chairman) and nine other executive committee members. There are 57,842 villages in Uganda. In the community reporting project, each village is monitored by one community reporter. The project currently monitors 100 villages with 102 Reporters.

Current Reach

The Community Media Platform currently serves 102 Village based community reporters in 6 Districts in Uganda reporting fo 6 Fm Radio Stations targeting 100 had to reach villages directly impacting about 500,000 people.

In One Year - Reach

By the end of 2019, the platform will be supporting 152 Village based reporters in 8 Districts reporting to 16 FM Radios targeting 150 hard to reach Villages and directly impacting about 750,000 people.

In five Years - Reach

In five years, its projected that the platform will be supporting over 250 village based reporters in over 20 Districts in Uganda reporting to over 50 FM Radios targeting over 250 hard to reach Villages and Directly impacting more than 2 million people.

In order to improve the iteration of the current communication platform so that in can accommodate the demands and growing needs of the Community Media Project, their is a plan to develop a cloud based dashboard solution which can provide for a rapid scale up within and across countries. This will include integration with web-based messaging services to create a fully fledged solution for users with and without internet access. Also under discussions is the development of a web portal with a Traffic lights system for tracking community issues, enabling external audiences to access well curated stories by the community reporters, through Data visualization and Analysis.

With the expected growth of 250reporters in the next 5years, the platform will receive an average of 150 well curated stories per day achieved in a knowledge management system which can be manipulated to produced reports and charts on the status of public service delivery in Uganda. This data can be used by different actors a baseline information for their community interventions and policy advocacy.

Today, majority of communities in the world are polarized and suspicious of the media. There is an urgent need to re-establish trust in the media. “Bottom-up media” approaches like ours will lead the way in re-building this trust in the next five years. “Bottom-up media” means relying on accurate data and the unfiltered experiences. It means giving people the skills and technologies to choose what to report and ensuring their journalism creates action.

Technical Barriers.

The core technology our solution is based on, Freedomfone is no-longer supported by the original coders of the program, and so without firm updates it becomes a had to fix bugs in the program as you now rely on volunteer coders which sometimes takes time.  Also with the growing numbers of reporters on the platform, there is a need to improve the iteration of the platform  to offer rapid scale up and that means moving away of from the decentralized servers at the radio stations, to more robust and easy to upgrade cloud based servers.

Policy/Political As a journalist who has been working in this environment for the last 10 years, have seen and experienced the challenge of Uganda’s newly enacted repressive laws and policies suffocating civic-spaces where communities can freely express their views and hold their leaders accountable. Restrictive laws such as the Public order management Bill limiting assembly, the Interception of Communications Act and the recent unwarranted taxing and blocking of social-media platforms counter people’s freedoms. 

Technical Barriers.

There is a plan to improve in the next 5 years to redesign and come up with a more robust and iterative cloud based solution capable of accommodating the growing needs of the project 

6 work full time

2 work partime

Name                           

Position

 Expertise

Contacts

Core Team

Tusubira Jonathan                                              

Project Lead

Systems Analyst/ Data Journalist  (8 Years Experience)                               

tusubira@gmail.com

Shamim Nakiryowa 

Asst. Project Lead         

Project Management (3Years Experience) 

shaminakiryowa@gmail.com

Martha Lukabwe 

Consultant

Developer / Data Engineer (5 Years Experience)

marthalukabwe@gmail.com

Support Team

Carolina Porto Frodl

Innovation and Modeling

carolinafrodl@gmail.com

Sonika Manandhar

Software Engineer

 sonika@aeloi.com,

Tiffiny Tong

tiffany@aeloi.com

DW Akademie - Partner and Donor

Civil Society  Academy/Welthungerwelt - Partner & Donor

This has not been though through yet.

The core technology our solution is based on, Freedomfone is no-longer supported by the original coders of the program, and so without firm updates it becomes a had to fix bugs in the program as you now rely on volunteer coders which sometimes takes time.  Also with the growing numbers of reporters on the platform, there is a need to improve the iteration of the platform  to offer rapid scale up and that means moving away of from the decentralized servers at the radio stations, to more robust and easy to upgrade cloud based servers. Am hoping that through solve's network i can be able to connect, learn,  and  get support from thought leaders and innovators who can  help to support  the improving of this process.

1. The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA). CIMA has done a lot of research in the area of Media literacy, Media Funding, and Media Viability. Their research, experience and knowledge in this area would be a very a big resource for me, especially in terms of lessons learnt, innovation and current trends.
2. The international Center for Journalists: ICFJ builds the expertise and storytelling skills of reporters worldwide in the areas of news innovation, build strong networks of investigative reporters, and running exchange programs to deepen understanding. I would be able to benefit from ICFJ's wide network to develop expertise in areas such as business journalism and sustainability, and promoting a diversity of voices in news coverage.
3. The Night Foundation: The Night foundation through grants and research has built a network of successful community media initiatives to show what it takes to produce successful grassroots news sites and is one of the few organization that has purposed to innovate around community media. Collaborating with the foundation and its wide network of experts will enrich my prototype and also enable me to access some of the based practices  on how to elevate Voices of Marginalized Communities through Community Reporting.

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