Accountability and Transparency through

Citizen Engagement: the role of media

James Deane

Bellagio, June 2008

• Some examples of how working with media can address accountability problems;

• Clarifying the problem we are trying to solve by working with media and governance;

• Clarifying why development actors should be engaged;

• Some broader questions on development support and engagement with media.

Presentation Outline

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Media and Governance: the “Accidental” Approach - Breeze FM and Mr Go Go

• Bangladesh Sanglap (Dialogue): – “Question Time” style programmes launched by the BBC

World Service Trust in 2005. – Designed following detailed public opinion research (5,000

people) highlighting low levels of trust in the political process, and lack of contact between politicians and the people;

– Reaches a weekly audience of more than 7 million people in the country broadcast on the private television station, Channel I and by BBC Bengali Radio.

– Video vans broadcast the programme in remote and rural areas.

– Provisional agreement reached now to broadcast on BTV (national public b’caster) reaching audience of 15 million plus.

The Deliberate Approach: Political Accountability

Sanglap – The Movie

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/whatwedo/where/asia/bangladesh/2008/04/080412_bangladesh_sanglap_video.shtml

• Broadcasts programmes that encourage participation in securing better governance, services and livelihoods.

• Award-winning radio drama Story Story produced in Nigerian English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba and currently on over 50 stations across Nigeria and BBC World Service across Africa.

• Nearly one third of Nigerians have listened to Story Story, and in some states over 50% of youth have listened to the drama.

• Drama complemented by the discussion programmeTalk Talk, produced in partnership with 26 stations across Nigeria, and featuring discussions centred on issues explored in the drama.

• Listeners participate in the discussions designed to hold public officials to account for poor service delivery and connect with civil society organisations that are working to improve conditions in their communities.

• Project includes large-scale capacity building element for Nigerian b’casters. • Trust also runs How public money is spent project with Nigerian NGO, Integrity, to

train journalists to better report on how their government spends public money, and mobilise public opinion around government accountability.

• Working with Nigerian Budget Monitoring Project e.g publication of news & cartoons about public finance issues. Competitions for 100 news reporters and 14 cartoonists. Each week winners published on budgetmonitoringng.org.

Coalitions for Change: Voices Project, Nigeria

Voices Project, Nigeria

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The Problems the Development System expects Media to Help Solve

Building Public Support for

Development Action

(Advocay)

Informing citizens of issues that shape

their lives

(Democratic Citizenship)

Changing behaviours

(e.g. Health)

Fostering dialogue, preventing conflict

(Conflict)

Holding Authority to Account

(Governance)

Market transparency and

checks and balances

(Economic Development)

Amplifying Voices of Marginalised

Groups

(Empowerment)

Avoiding Famines

(Amartya Sen)

Investigative Journalism

Shining a light on government and client/patron relationships (“Sunlight is the

best disinfectant”)

Creating local accountability (community level media)

Acting as watchdog, agenda setter, gate keeper and public forum

• A group of increasingly private actors expected to address increasingly urgent public interest problems

• Why should the media play these public interest roles;– An exploding, liberalised, competitive media market;– New technologies - new models of journalism and erosion of existing

models.• New opportunities for solving these problems (e.g citizen journalism)

but.. • Market failures becoming more intense

– Intense competition focusing media on advertising income;– Incentives to hold authorities to account e.g. through investigative

journalism) declining, disincentives (attacks on journalists, political cooption) increasing.

– Questionable market incentives in focusing on development issues.– Urban/rural and rich/poor gaps widening

• A paucity of research in this area:– We know little about the incentives and disincentives at work– Or about consequent effects of rapidly changing media and communication

dynamics on state-citizen relationships or on lives of people living in poverty.

The problems media has in solving problems of Accountability

Some broader challenges for increasing development engagement/support for media

• A growing agenda in context of accountability and ownership (Paris Declaration);

• Better and more coherent (southern) frameworks for support, and a more organised and professional media support sector;

• Poor and often marginal needs assessment mechanisms on media and communication; limited research agenda; terrible data on information and communication needs of poor;

• Lack of coordination and coherence in country level planning within development system;

• Funding mechanisms (aid instruments) limited and sometimes inappropriate (generally need to be outside government)

• Few donor/development loci of expertise or leadership

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