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In Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic & Social Council
Associated with the UN Department of Global Communications

Creating Awareness on E-Right to Information (E-RTI) through Community Radio

Action Line C3: Access to information and knowledge

Creating Awareness on Right to Information (RTI) Act. for Community Empowerment

Organization: Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)

Country: Bangladesh

Executive Summery

Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio & Communication (BNNRC), has implemented the project “Creating Awareness on RTI Law for Community Empowerment [Promoting RTI Act 2009 among the Rural Grassroots Community of Bangladesh] in Bangladesh with support of Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF).

Community Radio’s 147 hours programs contribute to provide understanding of RTI and its concrete implications on the daily life of citizens and the application of SDGs in line with 16.10. It also aims to inform stakeholders on various experiences developed in this field and the means at their disposal to exercise this right and advocate for its effective and measurable realization.

The objective of the project is to sensitize the CR Broadcasters on RTI Act 2009 and its implementation process so that CR Broadcasters can take initiative radio programs for creating awareness of the public and private organizations as well as the community for sharing the required information.

Besides, organizing community dialogue on RTI Act. 2009 for creating an enabling environment for the targeted rural grassroots people in CRS coverage areas too. This initiative aims to promote and popularize the RTI Act 2009, among the rural poor communities, living in 18 Community Radio Stations covering 6.8 million listeners.

Project description (activity’s description)

This initiative of the program to mobilize and motivate CR Broadcasters in 18 CRSs to provide access of information using RTI Act. 2009 for sensitizing grassroots people of the rural communities in Bangladesh. These services through ICT Applications: Right to Information. Now a days this activities are disseminating through online- Facebook, Facebook live, YouTube, Cell Phone SMS; and offline- community dialogue, courtyard meeting, house visit etc. Again, to create awareness among the public service providers and civil society organizations, several community level dialogues are organized to meet the objectives. To achieve the goal, two activities are mainly implementing by BNNRC as-

  1. Aware the grass-root community on the benefit of RTI Act. 2009 to get their information from the respective agencies.
  2. Organize Community Dialogues on RTI Act 2009 for sensitizing the public, private and local communities for common understanding.
  3. Awarding CR Broadcasters for their best radio programs in line with RTI Act. 2009.

Apart from this BNNRC has organized a training workshop on ‘Role of Community Radio to Implement Right To Information (RTI) Act. 2009, among the Community Radio (CR) Broadcasters in 2011. In continuation, BNNRC also published a RTI booklet for CR Broadcasters as a resource material for developing their radio content since 2015.

Objectives:

  • Motivate CR Broadcasters and engage them to produce and broadcast interactive radio program on various issues related to RTI Act. 2009.
  • Aware the community people about the procedure of submitting request to get information from the related points.
  • Encourage and convince the service providers both in public and private sectors to take more initiatives for sharing more information willingly

 

The project activities were completed through organizing a series of community dialogue ensuring the participation of government officials, journalist, academia, cultural activists, development activists, public representatives and general mass. Besides, trained up community radio broadcasters are developing and broadcasting radio programs on RTI Act. 2009 to aware the community so that they can raise their voice to get the information for upgrading their life and livelihood.

To motivate and mobilize the government officials Chief Information Commissioner along with other high officials have participated in the dialogues and thus the government officials were followed them. They have committed to share the information to the community people and other stakeholders. Open space was given to the participants to ask their question related to RTI Act. 2009 and its limitation. Chief Information Commissioner have taken notes of the suggestions and recommendations that were made by the participants.

Print and other electronic media have published and broadcasted the news with top priority as the lead news. Community radios were also broadcasting drama, talk show and magazine programs on the benefits of RTI Act. 2009 and the impacts of RTI Act for changing their life and livelihood. Community people have access to make phone call during the live radio programs and the talkers have attend them.

 

Examples of Linkages between the WSIS Action Line and the SDGs

The project has addressed the Action Line C3 (Access to information and knowledge). Though the RTI Act. 2009 was approved by the parliament in 2009 but still most of the people were not aware about the benefit of the Act. On the other hand, public service providers were also not ready to share the information to the community people. Situation are changing rapidly after completion of the community dialogues.

It is indeed a new content that BNNRC introduced in the community media in Bangladesh. The dialogues have been mobilizing the community people and aware them about RTI as their basic right.

The program is facilitating SDG 16: Ensuring Right to Information to the marginalized communities towards sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. Providing access to information and knowledge to people is also important to fostering tolerance between people and contributes to more peaceful societies.

Highlights of the project’s partnership Activities:

 

  • All stake holders to be involved: Government officials, Academia, lawyer, public representatives, development and cultural activists, religious leaders, law and order enforcement authority, youth representatives, representatives from Dalit and transgender community, media practitioners, etc.
  • Media Engagement: Campaign on RTI is now one of the top prior program content in Community Radio. During developing any radio program RTI is given priority and include information in the design. Print and electronic media are also inspired and giving special focus on this issue. News, article and features are publishing with top priority.

 

Challenges and future perspectives for the project

The issue is very important but challenging to reach the people of this vast country. Continuous campaign, lobby advocacy and dialogues are essential and needed for the venture. It is also a big challenge to keep the initiative continue to motivate the whole community when the journalists along with other stakeholders are not well aware of the subject.

Reporters can play a vital role to motivate both the government counterpart as well as the community. Community dialogue and radio programs can also play an effective role to mobilize the community. The dialogues are organizing outside the capital city and in the community radio broadcasting areas.

At present, community radios are reaching only 12% population of the country so especial focus is needed to cover the whole nation immediately.

The dialogues have generated a tremendous enthusiasm among the communities as well as the government officials which is encouraging for us to organization dialogues in the further.

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