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CONGO-MEDIA: Rural Radio Loses Its Credibility

by Beatrice Yoka
BRAZZAVILLE, Dec 27 (IPS) - Rural radio, once acclaimed by Congolese
peasants as their authentic voice, has been beaten back into the
studio by inadequate resources.

''The voice of the peasants'' has for nearly eight months been reduced
to using repeated transmissions of its programmes, according to
Etienne Epagna-Toua, the director of the rural radio programme.

The programme has been crippled mainly by inadequate rolling capital
and loans, lack of trained staff and the scarcity of cassettes and
tapes to produce programmes. The rural radio project last received
state subsidies in 1993, and it has seen its annual broadcasts fall
from 756 to 600.

As a result, Epagne-Toua confesses: ''Today, rural radio has lost its
credibility. One could say that transmissions are received with a lot
of reservations by rural populations because we have failed to shake
off the yoke of inadequate material and financial means. We haven't
been into the countryside since 1987.''

The rural radio director said that without the voices of the people
who experience the day-to-day life of the rural areas, programmes
taped from the urban studios are no more than ''theoretical courses''.

''It's not always easy to get a message across to peasants. To
persuade them, we always have to use other peasants because in rural
radio, we say that a peasant can learn best only from another
peasant,'' says Epagne-Toua.

Set up in 1976, rural radio became the pride of Congolese peasants who
saw it as their only means of expression throughout the Central
African country.

''With time, rural radio changed its image,'' Epagna-Toua says. ''We
realised that the problems facing peasants are not only agricultural
or pastoral. They are confronted from day to day with problems
(relating) to public health, potable water...

''We (also) broadcast to warn rural populations of what might befall
them, for example, the drawbacks of abusive deforestation which in the
long term might lead to desertification, which was inconceivable
twenty years ago,'' he continues.

This new approach saw the programme run campaigns to encourage
peasants to go to health centres for antenatal and postnatal
consultations, and it carried educational programmes on diseases such
as leprosy, tuberculosis and the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
(AIDS). It also devoted hundreds of broadcasts to the curative and
preventive qualities of plants as an alternative to modern medicine.

The broadcasts often led to positive results. For example, a creche
was set up in Lessia, a region in the country's north, and another
rural radio programme was a catalyst for the creation of about 20
village pilot agricultural co-operatives.

The decline in rural radio programmes produced in the fields, has been
a disappointment to the villagers.

Dominique Likibi of Mambouana village in Lekoumou region in the
country's south did not hide his dismay at the fact that there is,
''no longer anything to be gained from this radio station when
intellectuals everyday turn themselves into teachers from Brazzaville,
spouting theories without linking them to practice on the ground.''

And 50-year-old Odile Salabandzi, who has been involved in agriculture
for 20 years, says that the authorities should bale out the radio
programme which contributed to her success.

One of the ways to improve the rural radio's performance, according to
Epagna-Toua, would be to integrate its broadcasts into 45 to 60
minutes dedicated entirely to the rural areas and to farming
techniques.

At present, rural radio has no antenna and has to fit its
transmissions within the schedule of the only national station, Radio
Congo, which accords it hourly slots of just 10 to 15 minutes per day.

Plans are on the table to try and revise the rural radio project with
assistance from donor agencies to purchase the necessary equipment and
to set up stations that once again gather the views of the people in
the areas in which they live.

''Rural radio's new vision implies a new organisation, a new statute,
managerial autonomy and the existence of credit lines corresponding
strictly to real needs,'' says Martin Oyali, the secretary of state
for agriculture.

These new measures, Oyali believes, are the basis for improving the
performance of rural radio and might permit it in the medium- term to
get closer to target populations. (end/ips/by/jm/pm96)

___________________________________________________
Bruce Girard
Agencia Informativa Pulsar
Email: bgirard@pulsar.org.ec
http://www.web.net/amarc/pulsar.html
Tel: +593-2-525521  Fono/Fax: +593-2-542818 o 226648
Fax en Montreal, Canada: +1-514-221-2009
Av. America 3584, Casilla 17-08-8489, Quito, Ecuador