Report of the seminar for officials of rural radio of the countries participating in the onchocerciasis control programme: Ouagadougou, 4-6 May 1977, Benin radio and television service: the role of rural radio in the people’s Republic of Benin

seminar for officials of &ra1 Rad.ios of the cor-mtri.es partS.cipatjng ix the onchocerciasls control lrograune Ouagador.rgou 4-6 l{ay 1977 BB{IN BA-DIO Al'fD IEIEVISIO$ SERVICE Doc/l.L Orlginal: trbench E\eB].i-sh Yersion fhe role of Rr,r.ra.l- Badlo in the Peoplers Republic of Benln Mr M. Dossourri , the Peoplers ilepublic of 36nin has a population of 3.OOO.OOO inhabitants(three "Li1l-ions) of whlch go',., live in a rural environment, fhis same geiL of thepopulation of il6nin also creates almost aI1 the wea.lth of the country for, as thefirst source of empIo;'tnent and the second source of i-nput for the gross natlonal-product, lt is the zural sector which assures the independance of our country with regard to food which is presently pror'lding the industry with rarv materials and isthe exclusive producer of exports. But the colonial- system and al-so, it must be said, the neo-co1onia1 system which succeecled it have been such that it is precisely this rtral population, creator of national wealth, rnhich has a very sma11 share of this wealth and r,rhich receives the l_east attention from the Governnent. fn the field of information, the rural population has thus for a long tj-nebeen neglected.. It was therefore under-informed ii,n all- matters affecting.n:ra1 life. Ati-'rare of this chronic status of und.er-infozuration and of the repercussions on production which could. result therefrom, the Goverrurent decided- to direct i.ladiotowards the rural population, having und.erstood that broadcasting nay constitute a channel for transmlssion of deirelopment polieies. This is how, around 1966, an Educational l?,adio servlce was created, with the assistance of the fo:mer French nroadcasting Corporation Office, lvhlch would be used later on as a basis for the cument Ruial- Radio of Benin. daining experience,B6niJe called on the assistance of IAO which elaborated, after a study mission, anagricultural Radio service and i'b is upon the embryo of this agricultural Radiotherefore, that iJ) 1968, the Ruraf -lladio was born within the National Broadcastj:rgService " Ihis change was initially djrected by the desire to broaden the agriculturalthemes to include notlons concerning lmp,rovement of nutrition and then soclo_economlc notions related to the rural population. P.ural Broadcasts fn the Peoplets Republic of.B6nin, since the historical date of October 26,1972, 7Oi" of the programmes of the rrVojx de la R6volution' are transmitted in natio- na1 languages, lJit of which are clevoted specifically to rural broad.casts. 'ltrhen we say ?'rural_ broad.castsii, webroadcasts in national languages, to thoseproduced by the Rural P.adio seryice: they 1-/ fhe---stqndardtr n-rral broadcast v,rhlch is a kincl of review ofrura]-popu1ationsii;i"g"i""itu'u,1ivestock, fishing, water and forest....etc... ) -feminine topics, and of home instruetors as(Center of Ouando)r advice family, are ljmlting ourselves, in this range offalling under the responslbility of and. are quite varied, iaclr:ding with the help of the services of health, nutrition wel-l as the National School for llural_ ,'Animatrices,i enabling y/omen to raise the standard of living of the - health topics elaborated with the health services, they are aimed primarilyat preventing illnesses according to our option of }Tovember JO, a9T2 in the field ofhealth, an option which grants priority to preventive medecine over curative meclecine,These broadcasts al-so reach, whenever there is an epidemic, the village listener an6usefully assist the few Flealth services agents, Fifteen per cent (ff") of the themesbroadcast in 1975 eoncerned Hea1th, -2- ' -""onomic topics elaborated with the asslstance of the office of the directorof economic affairs, the directors of ag5riculture and of plann:-ng and all otherservices concerried with the countryrs development, they tend to explain simply the ajmspursued by the Party and the llation to reach, with everyoners participationl L u"tt"r economic yield and 'improvement of living conditions; -headings devoted to functional- literacy and cooperatlve tra.ining. Theseheadings recei'red i:nportance in the broadcasts transnitted- in 1976 (ru" or all trans-mitted' themes). It could not be otherr.,,,ise when one larows that cooperative village Sroups are being generalized across the country. Some tirrie a.go, some of these groupsstarted to undertake cotton nr,arketing operations and alreacly make economic and socialcollective investments thanks to refunds (schooIs, village pLrrnacies, si1os, testshops...r€tc.,.); -slogans- or micro prograllmes aimed at sensitizing rural opinion to a numberof priority problems (vaccines, epi-demics, savings, nutrition ...1t"...; -sound elements, v'rhich are either intervievrs with the farmer, extension agent,anj:nator of Rural Baoio or explanations given by technicians in the field on varioussubjectsr are i:ncorporated into broadcasts to nake them more lively and above a1l- to malre them llore authentic and convilcing. In l9T4 a total of 126 sound elements were transmitted, -in addition, these broadcasts include sections devoted to the r,l-istener corres-ponicncerr, in which a,nswers are given to farrnersl questioirs raised in listening reports aimed at establ-ishing a link between the Rural Badio and Iiadio crubs 2-/ The young farmers broadcast. Through this broadcast we rant toprovide our young militants vrith tcaowteage pertai:ri:rg to all aspects of the 1ife inour country, the ?eoplers Repuolic of B6nin, as follows; - civil_ education - health, hygiene and nutritlon * functional 1j_teracy and cooperative action - sport 3-/ lhe ex'EgnsionfqglEerts review, [his broadcast is conceived morespecifica11yforex"uo"t-;;;i;;ve}opment,information on what is happening in the country in the fielcl of agricultural production and.provides an opportunity for rural extension v.rorkers to cormrunicate their professionalactivi-ties and. their concerns r/e should arso mention, in reration to our broadcasts, -Bl""a"""ti+g ""pp"r for national priority projects, this isthecaseforthenatj-ona]-proo@nitiatec1on3l.l2.lg75uponthe Partyrs instructions; this ls al-so the case for the 6nchocerciasis control programme. We }:ave indeed had to support the action of the B6nin National Committeefor the natiorral onchocerciasis inforna bion week held from tr,brch lst to 7, lg|7. - broadcasting competitions with an educative purpose such as i,1top6-ratlon Radio frogrbsri rvhose goal is; -to arouse enthusi-asm r,vithin thevillagers to undertake a certain number of measures aimed economic status of thelr vil1age, radio-clubs to encourage at promoting the socio- - to a1low officials of the Rirral- Radio to control the impactof the message delivereci every week to -bhe villagers, by urban and village Peoplers ilepublic of -3- - to prove that broadcastino 1s able to have id.eas accepted comrnunitj-es in a country lrith-an oral tradition such as the 86ni-n. ORGAITIZATION 0Ir IIS'mlfIltG POSTS : The Radio Clubs. fo allow farmers and rural populations in general to recei-ve, through broad.casts, rr.ldiments of cul-ture and elementary notions of hygiene and nutriti-on in order that they improve their living conditions to enable them to receive the message given by the Rural Radio, iiadio elubs were established right from the start of the Prura1 Iladio in a certain m.ua'oer of selected villages - to open the mi-nds of the inhabitants to the in'croduction of nevvs tectrniques- villages.sefected because they possesed a rural development agent (the extenslon worker, tirat is) ana selected. because thejr inhabitants wished to possess a l-istenlng post and accept the basic rules of coll-ective listening(regular presence, listening reports, etc... ) Thanks to P,adio cIubs, created accorcliirg to the follovuing criteria, composed. of 5L persons chosen from aff strata of the popurlation b;' the village authorities, presicled by the village chiefs, func-bionning thanks to aninptors elected among the most ^xemplary chil-dren of the community (respected by the old and. young, possessj-ng the artf tallcing and above all preaching through exampfe) it is because ofRadio clubs, which numbered 700 over all the terrj-tory in 1974 that broad.casts ',vere effectively received by those to uihom they lrere adressed, namely the vil-Iagers. Experience has proved. that Radio-clubs were effective stimulation elements wlthin the villages vrhere they were established and that the extension personnel felt they were supported- in their work through collective lis-bening sessions after lvhich a debate $/as generated leading to decision making favouring village progress. In some cases, the Radio even plays a determinant roIe, in so far as the villagex r before executing the instructions of his extension agents, altaited confirmation from the rural broad cast. Irtassive installation of these R'adio clubs was justified first .' because of the rare number of receptors jn the mral envirorulent. fhen, thanks to thejoint assistance of development organizations supported by broaclcasts of the l?ural Radio, a s1:ectacul-ar clevelopment was witnessed in the prod.uction of cotton from the years of 1969 and. 1970. Ihe ittroduction of an J-mportant su:n of noney in the rural environment th:"ough this industrial- cul-ture has crea-bed new needs for the B6nin villagers uch as motor-cyc1es, metal sheets, cement and of course, radios lvhich had, up to then, een considered a ]uxury rruhich a vj-I]ager could not afford. .'Ie have therefore assisted since 1971, i-n the multiplication of individual receivers in the rura1 environment, Thus, even thou8h the transistor radlo is not yet a common consumer artlcler it has since that year penetrated deep into the rural environment of B6nin. At the same time, the iiadio club has lost part of its original meaning. At tI:is stage we initiated a policy of directing the Radj-o-clubs tovrard.s the socio-economic stmctures already existing in the field, a policy lvhich had been supported by a recormrendation from the seconci ]Iational Seminar on the Rural Radio, This integration of the ltadio clubs into vil-Lage groups was aimed on the one hand at providing the groups lvi-th a nucleus of active uembers ready to play a dlmamlc role and on the other ha"nd to give Itadic clubs adequate economj-c base to cover the costs of post main-benance. -+- Besides the young farmers clubs where there is still group listening . . sessions and besicles a feur village groups where these sesslons occur at the officeleveI non-organized indivj-cIual listening took the lead over collective Radio-clublistening. flte P,adio. club formrrla r',ril-l sooner or later, be obsol-ete in a countrylike the Peoplers Republic of B6nin. The organ:rzatj:on, at the national_ Ieve1, of a Radio club netlrork rray be sultable in a country where one y,iisires to sensitize the rtral- oopulations to radio listening, tirat is 'to say where the radj-o receiver ispractically unlcrourn or, in any case, very rare, whi-ch is no longer the case inB6nin slnce recent sLlrveys have revealed that each village of the Borgou Province possesses an average of 14 radios, 11 for the Atla.i:tique vi1lage, 11 for the viIlage ofAtacora, 11 tn the Mono and 14 in the Ou6m6, that is to say an avera.ge of 12 recej-vers per village for the entire country. These f.igures rryil-I assuredly contlnueto increase for, accorcling to these same surveJ.rs, JO,c of the vil-lagers lvho do not already possess a radio recej-ver have the intentlon of buying one sooner or l-ater. But it shoul-d be stressed that the continual increase of individual rad.j-os and the cessatj-on of collective listening are not synonJrnous with a decreasein rtrral broadcast listening; a surve,v conducted. on this matter revealed thefollowing: I,istenins habits 8525'n of villagers Ii-sten to rural- broadcasts 83157, of villagers listen to the l_isteners concert 67r1% of villagers listen to i-rrformation 53167" of villagers }lsten to stories ancl legends. Rural broadcasting appreciation 851; o.f the villagers who listen to ,adio also listen to rural broadeasts. 4816/, of listeners prefer ru.ral broadcasts over others Of broad.cast urders';ancling 26r5lto of the rural broadcast l-isteners with an opinion sometimes have ctifficulties und..erstand ing the broad casts. 72% fi:nd that they are easy to understand. and 1e5,., alwa.ys have difficul_ties und.erstanding them. tsroadcast content 45r4i-; of ihe rural broadcast l-i-steners 'vrlth an opinion prefer the interviews withthe farmers. 33r5,e". prefer the listenersr eorresponclf:ce and 2grl% prefer direct advice glven from the studio. The last three figrrres have forced us to centre, fr.om l974t arl our actions on the field1194 villages have thus been visited j:nl.9T6, durlng which visits a great part of our broadcasts have been made as souncl elements, This represents a big effort for us as altho'r,gh the usefulness ancl the necessity of thesetrips inthe field are undisputable, vre must admj-t that they are rather ex1:ensive since the vehicfes and the recorders usecl are submitted to strong wear ancl tear. In brief, v/e can say that the ilural l?adio has played a very i.:npor-bant role irr Bcnin in promoting, in particular, listening to rur.-,.f broad.cas Ls and i:njlcreasing discipline ancl intensity of listening to i,adio i-n general, P,adio being amongst other media, the most infl-uen-bial in the Peoplets llepub1ic of B6nin.