Why World Radio Day?

“In a world changing quickly, we must make the most of radio’s ability to connect people and societies, to share knowledge and information and to strengthen understanding. This World Radio Day is a moment to recognize the marvel of radio and to harness its power for the benefit of all,” said UNESCO Director General, Irina Bokova in her message on the occasion of the first World Radio Day.

On November 3, 2011, during its 36^th General Conference, UNESCO recognized the “transformational power of radio” by establishing World Radio Day on 13 February, which marks the day when the United Nations Radio was launched in 1946. The initial idea came from the Spanish Academy of Radio and was formally presented by the Permanent Delegation of Spain to UNESCO at the 187 session of the Executive Board in September 2011.

Since the first broadcast over 100 years ago, radio has proven to be a powerful information source for mobilizing social change and a central point for community life. It is the mass media that reaches the widest audience in the world. In an era of new technologies, it remains the world’s most accessible platform, a powerful communication tool and a low cost medium.

Radio technology, which began as "wireless telegraphy," owes its development to two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. Since the end of the 19th century, when the first successful radio transmissions were achieved and to this day, radio remains as important means of communications as ever. With the advent of new technologies and media convergence, radio is being transformed and is moving onto new delivery platforms, such as broadband internet, mobiles and tablets. In the digital era, radio continues to be relevant, as people digitally tune in via computers, satellite radio and mobile devices.

Radio is especially suited to reach remote and marginalized communities, while simultaneously offering a platform for information sharing and promoting public debate. Radio plays an important role in emergency communication and disaster relief. It is also one of the most important ways to widen access to knowledge, promote the freedom of expression as well as encourage mutual respect and multicultural understanding.

World Radio Day aims to raise awareness about the importance of radio, to encourage decision makers to provide access to information through radio and improve networking and international cooperation among broadcasters.

The resolution is being submitted to the United Nations’ General Assembly, at its 67th session in September 2012, for endorsement.

Quotes on radio

“Radio affects most intimately, person-to-person, offering a world of unspoken communication between writer-speaker and the listener”.
By Marshall McLuhan

"Since the use of African languages on FM radio seriously emerged over the past decade and a half, because of news broadcast and discussions, illiterates who were in the past cut-off from any knowledge of what is going on round the world are beginning to follow events around the globe".
By Kwesi Kwaa Prah

"TV gives everyone an image, but radio gives birth to a million images in a million brains."
By Peggy Nooman

"The radio only has one side when it should have two. It is now a mere distribution device so I would make a suggestion: turn this device into a media distribution where the listener not only hear but also speak and where the listener is not an isolated subject but is interconnected. From this perspective, the radio should go from being a supplier entity to be organized by subject networks sending and receiving”.
By Bertolt Brecht

“One has only to consider the number of languages used in some countries to realize that TV cannot compete with radio in servicing multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic audiences”.
By Gareth Price

"That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station."
By Johnny Cash

“Radio, newspapers, they were normal parts of my life. In those days, you had to go somewhere to watch television and leave something to see it."
By Robert Redford

“Radio will remain necessary to cover news in each region of the world and each country in real time and enable young people to find the "musical color" of their choice".
By Hervé Bourges

"Radio pluralism is an essential component in the deepening of the democratic process now under way: it allows people greater access to a diversity of information, and guarantees increased popular participation for sustainable human development… African states must speed up the ending of the monopoly over of the airwaves and give priority to national proponents of independent radio when allocating broadcasting frequencies…”.
From the Bamako Declaration on Radio Pluralism

15 ideas on how to celebrate the Day

Help broadcast the message of UNESCO’s Director-General on World Radio Day in all public, private and community radio.

Select a theme on radio and produce a radio programme or a small public service message to be repeatedly diffused on 13 February 2012.

Organise a small radio/television debates/discussions involving stakeholders (broadcasters, policy-makers, academics, legal fraternity) on the relevance of radio in citizens’ lives.

Organize phone-in radio shows so that the audience or the community can say why radio is important to them or which were the great radio moments they remember.

Interview radio personalities in your country as well as diffuse UNESCO’s interview to one of them.

Diffuse our collection of sound bites on famous UNESCO moments.

Diffuse UNESCO’s recordings on the proclamation of the World Radio Day.

Download, exhibit and distribution UNESCO’s recent publication “Good practices on community media”.

Display and distribute Free and Open software for radio programming and scheduling through UNESCO’s Open and Free Source software portal.

Display and distribute radio training courseware from UNESCO’s Open Training Platform
- Radio Production on Open Training Platform

Display and distribute free materials from UNESCO regarding broadcasting
- Publications on Community Media
- How to get started and keep going: a guide to Community Multimedia Centres
- Publications related to Broadcasting
- Publications produced or sponsored by UNESCO’s Communication and and Information Sector

Join UNESCO in launching the publication “Community Media: A Good Practice Handbook”

Join the National Commission for UNESCO in your country to facilitate celebrating national events
- About National Commissions for UNESCO

Encourage all newspapers/radio/television website editors to place a banner on World Radio Day on 13 February.

Celebrate the Day together with the World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC) or local associations of community radios

AT AV Radio, we say what we mean and we mean what we say. Find out why at African Views. We are serious about expanding the African middle.

Africa Center for Strategic Studies

Media Review for February 3, 2012

Ensuring Success: Four Steps Beyond U.S. Troops to End the War with the LRA
This report argues that the U.S. mission to end the Lord's Resistance Army needs more capable troops, more robust transport and intelligence capabilities, and a two-tiered strategy to encourage defections. The report also calls for an agreement that allows regional troops to deploy in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Enough Project

Congo-Kinshasa: U.S State Department., USAID Testify On Troubled Post-Election Aftermath in the Congo
Violence, potential humanitarian crisis and the post-2011 election aftermath in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were the topics at a congressional hearing Thursday held before the House panel that oversees international human rights and African issues that is chaired by Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04). Chairman Smith's statement, Deputy Assistant Secretary Donald Yamamoto statement. allAfrica

Kabila's party loses 45% of its seats in the Congo

President Joseph Kabila's party has lost 45 percent of the legislative seats it held before November elections that were denounced as fraudulent and chaotic, according to belated results announced Thursday by Congo's electoral commission. Times Live

Column: Sudan and Congo savaged as world shrugs
2011 was a year of unprecedented action on behalf of freedom and human rights. When citizens flooded streets throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S. and other countries dropped their long-standing presidential allies and demanded new leadership. When massive human rights abuses loomed in Libya and Ivory Coast, the international community acted decisively. That backdrop makes it all the more puzzling why the two countries where human rights abuses are worst in the world - Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo- have received such comparatively tepid international responses. USA Today

North Africa: Terrorism on the rise
The International Center for Terrorism Studies is out with a new report that should catch the attention of policymakers in the United States and elsewhere. The critical finding is this: Tragically, the Maghreb - Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia - as well as adjacent parts of the Sahel - Chad, Mali, and Niger - have emerged as one of the most worrying strategic challenges to the international community, and yet for decades these regions have mostly been overlooked by policy-makers in the West. Consider, for example, the empirical data generated since September 11, 2001. The Washington Post

Tuareg rebels take Mali town after army pullout
Mali's Tuareg rebels took over the northern town of Menaka Wednesday after the government forces stationed there pulled out overnight, officials and witnesses said. "The Malian army contingent that was in Menaka left the town overnight. Around 40 armed rebels entered it in the afternoon," a local official said on condition of anonymity. AFP

Kenya: US Intelligence Praises Raid on Al-Shabaab
Kenya's military operation has helped erode Al-Shabaab's control of southern Somalia, the chief US intelligence officer said on Tuesday. The Islamist insurgents have been weakened by "internal divisions and diminished local support" due in part from military pressure from Kenya, Ethiopia, African Union forces and Somali government troops, director of national intelligence James Clapper said in an assessment of threats to US security. Daily Nation

Long Haul for U.S. to Secure Weapons Stockpiles in Libya
[...] Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of State for political-military affairs, laid out what promises to be a long haul for the effort to secure these so-called man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS, in the department's most comprehensive public assessment to date of its ongoing weapons-removal operations in Libya. National Journal

Wade dismisses protests as 'light breeze'
Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade mocked protests against his bid for a third term as a "light breeze" as the opposition mulled its next move Thursday and the West distanced itself from its erstwhile ally. News 24

Controversies and Fear of Election-Related Violence Ahead of the Presidential poll in Senegal
[...] In their opposition to Wade's candidature, opposition figures have put forth two main arguments, both of which have been rejected by the Constitutional Court. The first and the most prominent one is that Wade, having been elected for the first time in March 2000, and re-elected in 2007, would be violating the spirit of the 2001 constitutional amendment and the text of Article 27 of the constitution, which limits the presidential terms to two.. ISS

Senegal president spends $200K to lobby US
Several months before a Senegalese court was due to rule on one of the most divisive issues facing the nation, the country's aging president took extra care to ensure that his interpretation of the law would prevail not only in Senegal, but also in Washington. The Boston Globe

SA and the AU: It's complicated
When the African Union's (AU's) election rules forced South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to end her bid to become chairperson of the AU in Addis Ababa this week, local media claimed it was because South Africa's Africa policy was weak and directionless. Mail and Guardian

How Qaqa, Boko Haram Spokesman, Was Arrested
In a joint operation involving the military and officials of the Department of State Security (DSS), the spokes-man of Boko Haram, Abu Qaqa, was arrested at about 4 O'clock Wednesday morning at Kaduna, Kaduna State. This Day

Nigeria: Never so divided, never so united
A month after an angry public launched protests across Nigeria over skyrocketing fuel prices due to the removal of a government subsidy, a measure of calm has returned and people seem to have settled into accepting a compromise. The removal of the subsidy on 1 January raised petrol prices from 65 naira to 141 naira (40 to 90 US cents) per litre, and led to sharp increases in food and transport costs. IRIN

US speaks on Nigeria's break-up
United States of America (US) yesterday spoke about the possibility of Nigeria breaking up in 2015, saying the US did not make any such predictions. Ambassador of the United States of America to Nigeria, Mr. Terence McCulley has said his country never predicted that Nigeria would break up by 2015 as earlier reported. The Champion

Kagame: China's donation to AU HQ symptom of Africa's bigger problems
Rwanda president Paul Kagame has said China's donation to Africa - the new headquarters worth $200 million unveiled last week is a reflection of Africa's bigger problems. He was speaking at his monthly press conference in Kigali on Thursday. The East African

Egypt's tragedy: This is not just soccer violence
It doesn't add up. Port Said's Masry soccer team won 3-1 against its long-time rival Ahly. In Port Said. It was a tough victory, one that Masry won with the support of its fans. The logical question would be, then, "Why would the Masry fans attack the minority of Ahly fans among them?" Foreign Policy

Britain Vows to Step Up Fight Against Somali Terrorism, Piracy
In a visit to Somalia's capital of Mogadishu Thursday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague promised to step up the fight against terrorism and piracy. Hague is the first British foreign secretary to visit the war-ravaged city in two decades. VOA

China's Africa Problem
In various attacks, including this week's kidnapping of 29 workers in Sudan, China has failed to flex its military muscle to rescue its own people. Is this how a superpower acts? The Daily Beast

Diamonds and dust: Why Angola's capital Luanda is one of the world's most expensive cities
When you think of the world's most expensive cities, the dusty Angolan capital of Luanda seems an unlikely contender. Potholed, chaotic and still scarred by decades of civil war, the city has little of the glitz and glamour of Tokyo, New York or Moscow, and an estimated half of Angolans live on less than $2 a day. In Depth Africa

Africa: Fast internet is coming!
Construction of two new submarine cables will mark an important step in the development of internet infrastructure in West Africa. But all the barriers to its general distribution are far from being removed. The Africa Report

Disclaimer

Please note: The following news items are presented here for informational purposes. The views expressed within them are those of the authors and/or individuals quoted, not those of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the National Defense University, or the Department of Defense.

The Africa Center is the pre-eminent Department of Defense institution for strategic security studies, research, and outreach in Africa. The Africa Center engages African partner states and institutions through rigorous academic and outreach programs that build strategic capacity and foster long-term, collaborative relationships.