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                      Highlights of AMARC 6
                         Dakar, Senegal
                       January 23-28, 1995


Consolidation of AMARC's International Network

More than 300 people from 45 countries took part in the Sixth
World Conference of Community Radio Broadcasters.  Thanks to the
many efforts made by participants, as well as by their radios and
associations, all the continents of the world were represented at
the Dakar meeting, the first of its kind to be held in Africa.

The conference dealt with three broad themes: community radio in
a changing world context; the technological environment in which
community radio is evolving and the development of networks; and
the challenges faced by community radio as this century comes to
an end.

At the end of the conference, AMARC's members adopted a
three-year action plan designed to support the development of
community radio and its role in the democratization of
communications and to strengthen AMARC as a tool intended to
serve the community radio movement.


The African Context

Africa was strongly represented at AMARC 6 by over 80
participants from 18 countries.  The only area of the continent
not to be represented was North Africa.

During his keynote speech, the President of the Fondation Paix et
Developpement (Foundation for Peace and Development) and former
Director-General of UNESCO, Amadou Mahtar Mbow, reminded his
audience of the following:

     In these countries the basic issue to be addressed is
     freedom of individuals or groups to establish media that are
     not controlled by government structures.  The blossoming of
     liberty and emergence of a democratic society are
     necessarily dependent on freedom of the airwaves ... The
     blossoming of the press and of independent local media can
     promote both cultural and economic creativity.

In another speech to participants in the opening session of AMARC 6,
the country's Communications Minister, Abdoulaye Elimane Kane,
announced that 80 new radio frequencies would be made available
in Senegal.  We hope that community radios will soon begin to
spring up in Senegal and the rest of Africa.

African participants decided to take a more active role in AMARC.
They also obtained an affirmative response from the Assembly of
Members to their request for two African seats on the Board of
Directors, which was elected for the coming three years.
Jean-Pierre Ilboudo and Lumko Mtimbe will represent West Africa
and Southern Africa, respectively.

It will be important for AMARC to achieve significant development
throughout Africa over the next three years.  The organization's
African representatives have already begun to map out an action
plan and different proposals for establishing a regional office
on the continent within the coming year.

Immediately prior to AMARC 6, African participants spent two days
examining the level of development attained by Africa's
independent radios and possibilities for cooperation amongst
them.  Close attention was given to rural radios and associative
independent radios in Mali and Burkina Faso, where these
phenomena are experiencing particularly rapid development.  There
were also presentations on projects being developed in Ghana,
Uganda, and Kenya and on the quickly evolving situation in South
Africa.


Community Radio Needs to Be a Full-Fledged Member of the
Broadcasting Spectrum

Judging from the discussions that took place during AMARC 6, we
can conclude that the international community radio movement has
yet to make its presence strongly felt and that it will have to
wage a struggle in order to be acknowledged as a full-fledged
sector in the radio broadcasting arena.  Moreover, the struggle
for legal recognition of community radios remains to be waged in
several countries of the world: many of the African countries,
including Senegal, the AMARC 6 host; different Central and
Eastern European nations; and several Latin American countries,
including Argentina and Uruguay, whose situations warranted
special resolutions.

Participants in the conference requested that AMARC draft an
international community radio charter for presentation to AMARC
members.  Such a charter would serve as a tool that could help to
unite radio broadcasters and facilitate recognition of the
community broadcasting sector by governmental agencies and
different organizations.

AMARC has thus been entrusted with an important mandate:
providing information on existing legislative and regulatory
models that recognize community radio (as is the case of
countries such as Canada, Australia, France, Colombia, Mali, and
South Africa); and the important task of helping groups to
conduct lobbying campaigns in their countries so that community
radio can develop in favourable conditions.  Therefore, as work
on legal recognition for community radio is a priority in Europe,
Latin America, and Africa, exchanges of information and expertise
will be included on our agenda.  Seminars on legislation will be
organized in Eastern Europe and Latin America over the next six
months.

Some of the enormous challenges facing community radio will be
to: occupy a significant position in the radio broadcasting world
and provide a voice for communities and groups outside the areas
of globalization; intervene in debates whose outcomes may
condition the future of our sector, such as on the development of
digital audio broadcasting; and explore possibilities for
networking through certain new and easily accessible technologies
(modems, computers, etc.).


Women in Community Radio

Women working in community radio also held a meeting just prior
to the opening day of the conference, and they played active
roles in the discussions that took place during the conference.
Women's stations in Moscow and Santiago de Chile, production
groups in several countries North and South, women's training
experiences, and networks such as Fempress in Latin America are a
few examples of the inspiring work carried out by women to ensure
that they will play a foremost in the development of new
communications practices. AMARC's action program for the coming
three years has reserved a prominent position for women's
training activities and the dissemination of information on women
in radio.

As the world conference in Beijing draws closer, women active in
AMARC have requested that special courses of action be taken so
as to present community radio as a valid alternative for
advancing the cause of women during the discussions leading up to
and in Beijing.


Discussions Regarding the Indigenous Issue

At AMARC 5, held in Mexico in 1992, the very year of the 500th
anniversary of the arrival of European colonizers in the
Americas, indigenous broadcasters demanded their due in AMARC.
Though fewer of their representatives were able to attend the
meeting in Dakar, those from Australia and Bolivia asked that
AMARC continue to pay special attention to indigenous radios and
make room for them in its activities and representative
structures.  AMARC's Board of Directors will study this issue.


An Experience for Young People

The Radio du monde (Radio of the World), a training and radio
broadcasting experience conducted throughout the duration of
AMARC 6, lent a youthful touch to the conference.  Under the
skilful guidance of trainers from Senegal and Quebec, 18
Senegalese men and women under the age of 25 were introduced to
different aspects of radio production: journalism, musical
selections, etc.  The young people, almost all of whom are
members of the Forum Jeunesse Senegal (Senegal Youth Forum),
continued their apprenticeship in the week following AMARC 6 by
learning how to use the mobile studio that the Danish
organization, DANICOM, had given them free of charge.  They hope
that this training will help them to make progress toward their
goal of setting up a community radio station run by and for young
people in Pikine, on the outskirts of Dakar.


AMARC's Solidarity Prize Goes to South Africa

This year's Solidarity Prize, awarded by AMARC to a radio or
group that has distinguished itself in its milieu for advancing
freedom of expression in a special way, went to the National
Community Radio Forum (NCRF) of South Africa.

This was AMARC's way of emphasizing the significant role played
by the groups belonging to the NCRF in the struggle against
apartheid and in their equally important current role in building
democracy.  The award ceremony was held on the Ile-de-Gore in a
reverently emotional atmosphere permeated by the history of the
island, from which millions of African slaves were shipped toward
the Americas.

The NCRF is comprised of 33 groups currently in the process of
establishing radio stations.  Its objectives are to promote
community radio as an integral part of South Africa's
broadcasting system and to encourage social sectors that have
traditionally been excluded from the media to participate in
community radio. Twelve representatives from South African radios
were present in Dakar.

In accepting the Solidarity Prize, NCRF spokesperson Lumko Mtimbe
stressed the following:

     Without international support, we would not have achieved
     our liberation ... The function of the Solidarity Prize
     Award reminded South Africans present at the conference of
     incidents such as the closure of Bush Radio and the
     confiscation of their equipment when they went on the air in
     1993; the defiance of Radio Zibonele for a period of over a
     year; the struggle against the piracy of Radio Pretoria; the
     unfair issuing of licenses by the then Minister of Home
     Affairs, Danie Schutte; the struggle for the transformation
     of the SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) in
     order to establish an independent public broadcaster;
     negotiations and petitions at Codesa, and the many other
     instances of hard work, of lobbying, and sleepless nights.
     It has all been worth the effort. Throughout this period,
     the AMARC solidarity network has given us support ... Radio
     has an extremely important role to play in the development
     of our countries, and this should be the message to be
     carried back to our communities, the world over.

In 1992, the Solidarity Prize was awarded to Radio Enriquillo, of
the Dominican Republic, for its solidarity with the Haitian
people in the aftermath of the 1991 military coup, which had led
to massive repression against the country's media.


A New Board of Directors

AMARC's Assembly of Members chose the Peruvian, Rafael
Roncagliolo, to replace our outgoing President, Eugnie Aw.
Roncagliolo is a journalist, and for the last few years he has
directed IPAL - Instituto para America Latina (Institute for
Latin America), a research organization that is based in Peru and
brings together Latin Americans involved in popular radio and
video.  Rafael is well known in both Latin American and
international communications circles.  He is a member of several
international organizations, including Vidazimut, the MacBride
Round Table on Communications, and the World Council of Radio and
Television.

Seven regional vice-presidents were elected: Jean-Pierre Ilboudo,
for West and Central Africa; Lumko Mtimbe, for Southern and East
Africa; Arturo Bregaglio, for Latin America and the Caribbean;
Barbara Losier, for her second term as the North American
representative; Tatiana Pelipeiko, for a second term as the
representative of Eastern and Central Europe; Steve Buckley, for
his second term as the Western European representative; and Tiga
Bayles, for a second term as the representative from Oceania.
Tiga will also represent indigenous radios. Finally, Mar!a
Victoria Polanco will continue with a second term as Women's
Vice- President.


Support from Many Sources

The Sixth World Conference of Community Radio Broadcasters
benefited from the support of many agencies and organizations,
primarily: the Canadian International Development Agency, the
Swedish International Development Agency, the International
Development Research Centre (IDRC), OXFAM America, the
Rockefeller Foundation, Development and Peace (Canada),
Partnership Africa-Canada, the Cultural and Technical Cooperation
Agency (ACCT), DANICOM, UNIFEM Dakar, the American Cultural
Center of Dakar, CIERRO - Centre interafricain d'etude en radio
rurale de Ouagadougou (Ouagadougou Inter-African Centre for the
Study of Rural Radio), the Union of National Radio and Television
Organizations of Africa (URTNA), UNESCO, FAO, Senegal's Union
Solidarite Entraide (Union for Solidarity and Mutual Aid), and
the Presidency of the Republic and Communications Ministry of
Senegal.

The AMARC 6 local organizing committee was comprised of
representatives from the following organizations: FAVDO (Forum of
African Voluntary Development Organizations), ASRADEC, CORACOM,
Union Solidarite Entraide, Fondation Paix et Developpement (Peace
and Development Foundation), and the Office de la radio et de la
television du Senegal (Senegalese Radio and Television Board).


See you in Australia next time!

At the end of the assembly, a discussion took place regarding the
location for the upcoming 1998 conference, with Australia being
chosen to host AMARC 7. Community radio is well developed in
Australia, where approximately 100 stations exist, including
those serving aboriginal communities.  Moreover, satellite radio
broadcasting reaches even the most remote areas of the country.
Holding AMARC 7 in Australia will make it possible to bring other
Pacific and Oceanic countries closer together and to establish
new ties with Asia, a region whose presence in AMARC's structures
needs to be strengthened.


Notes by Evelyne Foy, AMARC General Secretary

_______________________________________________________________
AMARC - association mondiale des radiodiffuseurs communautaires
          world association of community radio broadcasters
             asociacion mundial de radios comunitarias
3575 boul. St. Laurent, Suite 704        Tel: +(1-514) 982-0351
Montreal, Quebec                         Fax: +(1-514) 849-7129
Canada  H2X 2T7                        Email: amarc@web.apc.org
_______________________________________________________________