This Interactive Radio Toolkit is adapted from and expands on Interactive Radio for Agricultural Development Projects: A Toolkit for Practitioners in December 2012 under USAID’s FACET project. Though many examples used here highlight agriculture, this adaptation is for development projects more broadly and draws on the wisdom and experience of colleagues in many fields who believe in the power of radio, particularly in the developing world, to engage, teach, advocate, and inform.
The original version was developed by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Fostering Agriculture Competitiveness Employing Information Communication Technologies (FACET) project, implemented by FHI 360 from 2009 to 2013 under award number EPP-A-00-09-00007, an associate award under the FIELD-Support LWA (EEM-A-00-06-00001-00).The concept for the original version was proposed and supported by Judy Payne, e-Business Advisor and ICT Advisor for Agriculture at USAID.
This toolkit is designed to help development practitioners use interactive radio to create compelling radio programming. The toolkit does not assume that radio is always the most appropriate solution for disseminating information. Rather, given the presence of radio in much of the world, this toolkit aims to help practitioners develop a systematic approach to using interactive radio as one effective way of sharing information with their target audience.
The toolkit is divided into the following six components:
- Component 1: How is interactive radio being used for development?
- This component provides an overview of how interactive radio is being used in development projects. It includes illustrative examples from organizations that use interactive radio, along with contact information, websites, or other resources that you can use to follow up directly to learn more about a given approach.
- Component 2: Is interactive radio an appropriate way to achieve our objectives?
- Before you begin using interactive radio, it is important to assess whether it is the best way to achieve your objectives or overcome specific challenges..It is also important to assess whether you have the capacity to work with interactive radio, and if not, what steps you can take to develop that capacity. This component will guide you through a process of assessing the appropriateness of a variety of ICT and traditional solutions to determine whether interactive radio is indeed a good fit based on your organizational, technical, and financial capacity.
- Component 3: How can we create own radio programming?
- This component will help you create your own radio programming, including developing compelling scripts for original content and adapting other types of content for radio that meet a baseline quality standard. In addition, it includes technical tips for effectively recording and editing your radio segments. Finally, it suggests techniques for lowering barriers to entry so that your team is more likely to produce its own content for radio, including simple ways to provide incentives for them to do so.
- Component 4: What different approaches can be used to make our radio programming interactive?
- This component highlights the most promising approaches for building interactivity into your radio programming, what is needed to integrate them into your programming, and how to effectively implement them. In addition, it suggests other ways you can disseminate your radio programming without relying on radio airwaves.
- Component 5: How can we track the impact of our radio programming?
- This component highlights various ways that you can track listenership and measure impact. It also suggests how you can capture listener feedback to better inform the creation of new content.
- Component 6: What are the technical considerations we need to keep in mind?
- A number of technical choices need to be made before you can actually begin creating your own radio programming. This component provides overviews of different types of low-cost audio recording devices, their strengths, weaknesses, and examples of situations for which they may be most appropriate. It also covers devices that support interactivity, peripheral devices, audio editing software and other important technical choices. This section does not make recommendations for the best devices. Instead, it aims to inform you of likely technical considerations, so you can assess what is most appropriate for your situation.
You can download this toolkit for free here.
