What Does Radio Sound Like in Sudan?

What does radio sound like in Sudan? A cacophony, in the best possible way. The many competing stations on the Juba FM dial are a sort of cacophony of democracy, where everyone has a voice and an opinion and wants to share it with the world.

It seems promising that my first trip with NDI would be to Sudan, one of the Institute’s larger country programs and one of the world’s more opaque nations. I went to Sudan to understand the opportunities for radio in Africa’s largest country, characterized by vast distances and miles of impassable terrain.

Conversation about Sudan generally starts with a direction – the South or the North? While the two parts of the country have their commonalities (a discussion best left to far more fluent commentators) they are often known through their differences, made manifest in the semi-autonomous region known simply as Southern Sudan.

Southern Sudan has its own capital, Juba, government (the Government of Southern Sudan, or GOSS) and militia-cum-military, the SPLM. Southern Sudan speaks English as an official language, in addition to the Arabic used by the North. A person can even travel in and out of Southern Sudan without a Sudanese visa on an invitation issued by the GOSS. 

All this is to say that, when talking about Sudan, it’s important to be clear on which Sudan you are talking about. I was emphatically visiting the South.

We landed in Juba off the early flight from Nairobi, into a rainy, overcast morning. A recent Kenya Airways flight had been forced to return to Nairobi because of excessive low cloud cover, so it was a relief to make it in front of customs and immigration officials. Our driver was waiting outside, wearing sensible galoshes, to take us back to NDI’s all-in-one office and residence compound. Because of infrastructure and security challenges, living and working in Southern Sudan is often a package deal.

NDI in Southern Sudan has three major areas of focus in its civic education programming, centered around voter education – work with SuNDE, a domestic election observation network; work with Catholic Relief Services; and Let’s Talk, a radio drama aired on shortwave and FM stations across the country. I was there to work with NDI staff and partners to understand the state of the radio program's content, partners, and distribution.

When NDI first started the Let’s Talk project, the state of radio in Southern Sudan was fragile – limited capacity for production and broadcast, and concern about the extent of press freedoms. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the civil war between the North and the South, had only been signed two years previously in 2005. Based on these factors, a decision was made to work with a production and short wave broadcast partner based out of Nairobi.

Nearly three years later, the situation has changed remarkably. The South feels awash with radio. There are at least 22 independent FM stations, in addition to broadcast repeaters in many secondary cities. Some stations have evolved into networks, such as the Sudan Catholic Ratio Network, creating and distributing content across the southern states. Juba is home to at least two independent production houses, and there are the beginnings of media associations supporting the right to an independent free press.

With all these open airwaves to fill, Southern Sudan has never been a more fertile place for creative radio programming. In addition to standard news program fare, the dial is filled with dramatic series, interviews, and call-in shows reflecting the needs and interests of local communities. There are shows about farming, about education, about women’s rights, and of course – about politics. And as stations have become fixtures of the community, they have also become regarded by listeners as a two way medium for sharing information and opinions of average citizens. The increasing ubiquity of the mobile phone that has accelerated and enabled this trend, allowing people to call and SMS their opinions, concerns, and questions to presenters and experts on-air.

In this environment, there is opportunity for NDI to rethink the way we use radio in engaging citizens in democratic processes – how to become more dynamic, more responsive, more effective.  Is there a role for mobile phones? How can we evaluate the impact of programs? What are the relative advantages of live programs versus drama? That’s why I was there – a week of meetings with broadcasters, civil society groups, ministry officials, and NDI staff – to assess the current program and provide recommendations on what might come next. 

(Hint: it has something to do with a more interactive approach…)

As a new staff member, it’s exciting to see that NDI programs are capable of dynamic response to changing ground truth. The NDI Southern Sudan office is proactive and open to ways of better serving their listeners and to responding to the ways that people consume and use information. They seek input from local partners, and more importantly, from listeners themselves. They are thinking about how to circumvent the challenges of distance and language, of wirelines and staff capacity.

It may be that old-time radio, but it’s definitely still innovation.