Investing in Business Information Services: Developing radio programming and journalism targeting small businesses in Uganda

The Small Enterprise Media in Africa (SEMA) Project is a development project using the media as a means to improve small enterprise development, stimulate business growth thus improve incomes, employment and working conditions for the rural people of Uganda. It focuses on building the capacity of the commercial rural radio industry in Africa to maximize its potential in order to provide business information, a platform for dialogue on business issues, a voice to influence policy processes and a channel for business advisory services. The SIDA-funded project which is being implemented by the International Labour Organization, is involved in supporting radio stations to develop programmes that address issues affecting the operations of micro and small businesses. ILO FIT-SEMA Project, which has been operating in Uganda since 1999, is premised on the fact that radio stations are not responding to the information needs of this business section of their audience. Instead, they are playing chart music, discussing politics, gossip and sports at the expense of providing livelihood-related information through a medium that is accessible to the majority of the rural poor audience. The SEMA Project realized the need to assist radio stations to cater for the audience that yearns for business information or information that can make a difference in their business approaches. Information that points to commodity prices, market opportunities, savings culture and programmes that provide a platform for the business community to voice their concerns (in the first voice) to those in positions of authority and vice versa. Initially, the Project advised radio producers to gradually integrate small business information into their programming but later realized that the skills required for them to source for information from the business people were lacking. Radio employs several tools to get information and package it effectively and not many radio journalists had the skills to conduct on location interviews, carry out investigations and mix script with elements of sound to create a good story. We therefore changed our intervention strategy and got involved in training radio journalists in programming. ILO FIT- SEMA has been involved in offering technical support to radio stations to step out of the studio environment and go to the small business districts that accommodate carpenters, mechanics, cooks, farmers, vegetable sellers, butchers, fishmongers, cobblers, pedal cyclists and herbalists to get information. The major achievement of the first phase of the Project has been to have small business programmes mainstreamed into the programme line-up of commercial radio stations. More than 50 radio stations in Uganda and four in Zambia have since aired such programmes, which have provided useful information to their audiences. According to a country-wide listenership survey conducted in early 2005, 50% of the respondents said they found the programmes very beneficial while 44% said they found them quite beneficial. Many of the respondents said that the radio programmes had given them information on prices and markets for their products and taught them how to run their businesses better. There are also specific testimonies of people whose businesses have improved after they learned better business management while listening to the radio programmes. For example, individual farmers in Rakai District formed a Listeners' Group of Nekolera Gyange (I run my own business) programme on Central Broadcasting Services after learning that organized farming is more profitable. As a result, they have established a three-acre cassava plantation as a group and an additional half an acre each, individually both for sale and food security. Similarly, Nalongo Ssemwogerere in Luwero District says she had been a regular listener of this programme since 2000 and, in 2003, she listened to an expert talking about how rearing local chicken using locally ava

Project symbol

UGA/03/01/SID

Admin unit

CO-Dar es Salaam

Start date

12/12/2003

End date

31/08/2009

Total allocation

2482632

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

2484247

Development Partners

Sweden, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

Country/Countries

Uganda

Outcomes

Sustainable Enterprises