Nelly Bassily | July 28, 2014
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, has been operating an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) project in seven African countries. The project’s goal is to improve the lives of the poor, especially women and girls, by improving the quality of local radio stations’ programming.
Empowering Local Radio with ICTs aims to help local radio stations acquire ICT skills and develop wider coverage of local news. The project focuses on gender equality and financial sustainability, providing better social services, and engaging the community on issues of local concern.
The UNESCO website features several ICT applications of interest to local radio stations. These free and open source programs are designed to allow radio stations to send and receive large information files through the Internet, gather information about their listeners’ locations, design websites, manage their accounts, create documents and surveys, record and edit interviews, and improve interactions with their listeners.
To access the ICTs through the UNESCO website, go to: http://en.unesco.org/radioict/icts