GFAR webinar Farm Radio, Community Radio and Participatory Radio

13 June 2017. This webinar was a collaborative effort: the panel of professional communicators worked together to share their experiences and approaches, their trials and errors.

• Karen Hampson is Regional Programs Manager with Farm Radio International (FRI), a Canadian NGO. She has over 20 years experience in international development, working with farming communities on three continents in various guises.
• Lucky A. Komba a.k.a Allan Lucky – is a media personality, media consultant, education activist and a digital expert who’s been in the communication industry for 12 years. He started with experiential marketing campaigns in 2005 and eventually made an entry to TV & radio career with East Africa Television Ltd (EATV) in 2008. He was among the founders of the most famous high school TV show in Tanzania in 2009 – Skonga, which still airs on East Africa Television (EATV).
• Rainbow Wilcox is Africa’s Voices Foundation‘s Impact, Learning and Communications Manager.
• Riccardo del Castello is a Communication for Development (ComDev) Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). He has more than 30 years of experience in participatory communication processes in agricultural and rural development, with a focus on food security and nutrition.

Some resources and links:

• a free guide for radio hosts to promote inclusive interactive discussions: 
• a recent blog on bridging the digital divide
• how to calculate reach of radio programmes
• The gender digital devide
• Why India has only 179 community radio stations instead of the promised 4,000
• Challenges for Community Radio in India's Rural Development
• Challenges for Community Radio in India
• INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE: ITS GROWING ROLE IN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES, a USAID discussion on IVR in agricultural extension: 31 pages

Pantnagar Janvani is a Community Radio Service in which Mobile Phones have been strategically and prominently utilized in the project to create a platform of sharing and interaction among stakeholders to utilize Community radio strength upto its fullest.

• The outcomes have been surprisingly outstanding due to mobile phone interface in Community radio service at three layers. 
• The CRS works as platform provider, the community avails it for information seeking as well as sharing and the stakeholders get it for providing instant solution, connectivity with community for inter-personal communication, answering grievances as well as in updating the community for forthcoming plans and programmes. 
• Mobile phones are the only communication tools in this interface.