Early Development Focused On Radio Broadcasting

Michael Hedges August 8, 2022 Follow on Twitter

After Taliban extremists were expelled from Afghanistan in late 2001, international aid agencies planned ambitious infrastructure projects. Effective communication with the population was given priority. Due to high illiteracy rates, particularly in rural areas, radio broadcasting was deemed the "dominant medium of mass information." Plans for radio development quickly took form, intended as short-term compliments to democratic "transition," a politically popular notion but contentious in practice.

Radio broadcasting infrastructures had been left fallow during the early Taliban rule with only one national radio channel operating. Communications and electrical infrastructures were largely destroyed during the military action. From a GB£1 million grant from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in 2002 the BBC World Service Trust shipped “two and a half tons of equipment” to upgrade the facilities of state broadcaster Radio Afghanistan, renamed from Taliban-controlled Voice of Sharia and operating on five AM/MW frequencies. In June BBC World Service began operating on FM in Kabul. BBC World Service Trust was renamed BBC Media Action in 2011. DFID was merged into the UK Foreign Office as the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in 2020.

Nearly US$30 million was committed in 2002 by donor governments and NGOs to support the country’s media reconstruction, noted a report cited by RFE/RL (July 3, 2004). Of that amount, only US$4.7 million was disbursed that year. Just under half – US$2.2 million – was spent on facility reconstruction and informational broadcasts on relief operations. 
Building or rebuilding these radio stations was one part of the project, sustaining them quite another. The UK DFID/BBC World Service Trust projects focused on their familiar public broadcasting model, financially sustained by donors including the European Union (EU). In keeping with that model, BBC World Service Trust produced “Afghan Woman’s Hour” program for Radio Afghanistan from 2005.

The United States Agency for International Development Office of Transitional Initiatives (USAID/OTI), primarily, awarded grants through Internews for media development projects, often to establish independently owned radio broadcasters often with local distribution. The intention was to loosely model the new Afghan radio broadcasters on Western commercial radio, seen as succeeding in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. Both the UK and US media development models were ambitious.

The fifteen original stations organized through Internews were a mix of commercial and community radio. Another 17 local FM stations were added by the end of 2003. As radio advertising, strictly defined, was unknown in Afghanistan paid public service announcements (PSAs) appeared, become the mainstay of support for these broadcasters. Implementing and supporting elections being a foundational thrust for international donors and NGOs, an Afghan organization set up to promote election participation – the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) – sponsored PSAs on several radio stations. Internews negotiated a grant to fund this effort from the Asia Foundation and USAID. A similar PSA sponsorship from US NGO Population Services International (PSI) for US$25,000 supported a safe water campaign in conjunction with the Afghan Health Ministry’s Diarrhea Prevention Week.

The development specialists suggested classified advertising and personal announcements, from lost-and-found to wedding notices, as revenue sources for local stations. Commercial advertising also appeared. According to Internews, Radio Azad Afghan in Kandahar produced a commercial ad for a local motorcycle shop – featuring the appropriate engine sounds - and gained other ad business. AIR was established by Internews in 2002 and privately owned.

Radio listening, by convention at the time, had men gathering around a “community” receiver in the evenings. AM/MW and shortwave receivers, mostly left over from the Soviet era and before, could be found. Several international broadcasters had been using shortwave for Afghanistan for several years. The US Army distributed 200,000 personal battery-powered radio receivers in 2003 and the International Office for Migration (IOM) provided 30,000. Solar and wind-up receivers were distributed where electric power was more fragile.

By the end of 2002 international organizations from the UN on down, development NGOs, donors, media and press freedom advocates and governments were in a tangle with the newly formed Afghan government of Hamid Karzai, not to forget the important “provincial” leaders. Intentions of many were lofty. Each stakeholder sought power dynamic advantage.

Updates previously published “Hard Times In Conflict Zones” (October 1, 2005)

See also...

• Hot Topics - Media in Afghanistan

• Hot Topics - Conflict Zones

• Hot Topics - Media Support

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