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Catalysing private capital: Financing the future of public interest media
Quick Overview

Heather Gilberds, Jakub Parusinski et al.

Copenhagen: International Media Support (IMS) (2025), 19 pp.

"This report responds to a rising demand from the media development field to understand how private capital can complement and strengthen traditional donor funding. It explores the potential of innovative financial instruments to support sustainable, independent journalism and build healthy informat ... more

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Are Donors Taking the Journalism Crisis Seriously? An Analysis of Official Aid to Media 2010–2019

Mary Myers, Heather Gilberds

Washington, DC: Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) (2024), 32 pp.

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Media Reform Amid Political Upheaval: Lessons from Burma, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tunisia, and Ukraine
Top Insights

Tarik Jusic, Heather Gilberds

Washington, DC: Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) (2022), 36 pp.

"This study points to several recommendations for how international donors can improve support for media sector reform in countries at critical political junctures, and how they can build upon and strengthen approaches that have been effective in the past. Donor support is more likely to be effectiv ... more

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Creating Evidence-Based Youth Mental Health Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Description of the Integrated Approach to Addressing the Issue of Youth Depression in Malawi and Tanzania

Stanley Kutcher, Kevin Perkins, Heather Gilberds, Michael Udedi, Omary Ubuguyu, Tasiana Njau, Rex Chapota, Mina Hashish

Frontiers in Psychiatry, volume 10, issue 542 (2019), 8 pp.

"Addressing depression in young people is a health-care policy need in sub-Saharan Africa. There exists poor mental health literacy, high levels of stigma, and weak capacity at the community level to address this health-care need. These challenges are significant barriers to accessing mental health ... care for depression, soon to be the largest single contributor to the global burden of disease. We here describe an innovative approach that addresses these issues simultaneously while concurrently strengthening key mental health components in existing education and health-care systems as successfully applied in Malawi and replicated in Tanzania. Improving the pathway to care for young people with depression requires the following: improving mental health literacy (MHL) of communities, youth, and teachers; enhancing case identification and linking schools to community health clinics; improving the capacity of community health-care providers to identify, diagnose, and effectively treat depression in youth. Funded by Grand Challenges Canada, we developed and applied a program called “An Integrated Approach to Addressing the Challenge of Depression Among the Youth in Malawi and Tanzania” (IACD). This was an example of, a horizontally integrated pathway to care model designed to be applied in low-resource settings. The model is designed to 1) improve awareness/knowledge of mental health and mental disorders (especially depression) in communities; 2) enhance mental health literacy among youth and teachers within schools; 3) enhance capacity for teachers to identify students with possible depression; 4) create linkages between schools and community health clinics for improved access to mental health care for youth identified with possible depression; and 5) enhance the capacity of community-based health-care providers to identify, diagnose, and effectively treat youth with depression. With the use of interactive, youth-informed weekly radio programs, mental health curriculum training for teachers and peer educators in secondary schools, and a clinical competency training program for community-based health workers, the innovation created a “hub and spoke” model for improving mental health care for young people. Positive results obtained in Malawi and replicated in Tanzania suggest that this approach may provide an effective and potentially sustainable framework for enhancing youth mental health care, thus providing a policy ready framework that can be considered for application in sub-Saharan Africa." (Abstract) more

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Building an Ecosystem Around Data: Using Interactive Radio for Accountability to Farmers in Tanzania

Francesca Feruglio, Heather Gilberds

Brighton: Institute of Development Studies (IDS); Farm Radio International (2017), 15 pp.

"In 2015, Farm Radio International applied to Making All Voices Count for a practitioner research and learning grant. Farm Radio International (FRI) is a Canadian-based not-for-profit organisation working in direct partnership with approximately 600 radio broadcasters in 38 African countries to figh ... more

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Search for Common Ground’s ‘Strengthening the Capacity of Civil Society to Contribute to Sustainable Governance in Liberia’: Final Evaluation Report

Heather Gilberds, Katherina Thomas

Search for Common Ground (2017), 58 pp.

"Overall, the program set out what it achieved to do—namely to strengthen the institutional capacity of civil society organizations to improve their credibility, visibility, effectiveness and sustainability. There is evidence that many partner CSOshave refined theirmission, developed a multi-year ... strategic plan, a communications plan, a gender policy and an HR policy. In addition, they are beginning to integrate new financial reporting and M&E structures. All of the partner CSOs have improved their sustainability byreceiving additional funds to continue their work, and many of them hav developed strategies to diversify their revenue generation, such as expanding their offices to rent out board rooms. A number of organizations are eager to pass their new knowledge onto others, with many training peer CSOs on what they learned through the Search program. Finally, the program was effective in improving their own confidence, with all of the partner CSOs expressing their appreciation of the program, and in particular the freedom they had to define their own priorities and objectives.A number of lessons emerged during the course of implementation that are relevant for Search’s future work in civil society strengthening, as well as for other organizations working in this sector: 1. The participatory benchmarking approach is useful to help organizations track improvments in their organziational capacity over time. However, there was a tendency for CSOs to overstate what was possible within a limited timeframe. As a result, benchmarks were not consistently met, and many of the capacity-related development were not fully institutionalized by the project end. 2. The integration of radio programs with other civil society organizing approaches—town hall meetings, workshops, and house to house outreach—is an effective way to improve awareness and engagement of citizens in governance reform issues on a mass scale. 3. Programs to improve the capacity and sustainability of CSOs, and to professionalize the sector, are crucial but often overlooked, in efforts to improve local governance in fragile and trasitional countries such as Liberia. 4. There is a need to continue efforts to link civil society actors together for cohesive action and to further improve the enabling environment for civil society in Liberia by providing opportunities for CSOs to develop strategic collaborations, improve organizational capacity development, and attract donor funds to support their work." (Conclusions) more

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Exploring the Potential for Interactive Radio to Improve Accountability and Responsiveness to Small-Scale Farmers in Tanzania

Heather Gilberds et al.

Ottawa: Farm Radio International (2016), 36 pp.

"The research examines the possibilities of new digital technologies along with radio to facilitate adaptive management processes through rapid feedback to help ensure that agricultural development projects are farmer-centered, and meet the needs of those they intend to serve. Grounded in assessing ... Farm Radio International’s Listening Post—a methodology for collecting real-time, unfiltered feedback from farmers through a multi-channel platform linked to radio—the research highlights barriers to success and articulates lessons learned during the process of designing and implementing the model [...] The research demonstrates that linking a mobile-based crowd-sourcing tool with radio is effective at ensuring engagement from a large number of farmers. The radio stations offer a simple way to recruit participants from among the regular listeners of farmer radio programs. Also, the radio stations tend to be trusted sources of agricultural information among farmers, increasing motivation to participate. Further, the radio programs offer an easy way to close feedback loops by disseminating information about actions that stakeholders are taking in response to feedback. The Listening Post faced many of the same challenges documented by organizations utilizing similar tools—it was difficult to incentivize stakeholders to adequately respond to farmers, and competing motivations between extension officers, farmers, funders and partner organizations made it difficult to collect high-quality information that was usable and actionable. Moreover, an overarching focus on developing and implementing the technology and engaging a large number of farmers at the exclusion of other factors meant that many of the processes and mechanisms for effectively using the data collected and for responding to what farmers were saying weren’t fully developed. Despite these issues, there is significant evidence that the Listening Post model holds potential to act as a conduit for civic action if the correct stakeholders are engaged from the outset, if mechanisms for analyzing and disseminating relevant data from the platform to partners, local stakeholders and farmers is further refined, and if stakeholders ensure farmers can effectively use the technology." (Executive summary) more

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Interactive Radio Program Report: An Integrated Approach to Addressing the Issue of Youth Depression in Malawi and Tanzania

Heather Gilberds, Adena Brown, Mark Leclair

Ottawa: Farm Radio International (2016), 23 pp.

"Here we discuss a unique and innovative radio-based approach to improving mental health literacy and creating a demand for mental health services—part of a larger project called 'An Integrated Approach to Addressing the Issue of Youth Depression in Malawi and Tanzania'. Grounded in theories of so ... cial and behavior change communication and edutainment, and leveraging participatory methodologies, Farm Radio International and partners Teen Mental Health and Farm Radio Trust in Malawi worked with local radio broadcasters in Malawi and Tanzania to design and deliver weekly, interactive youth radio shows about mental health. Ongoing engagement with the content, and deliberation over the messages, was facilitated through SMS feedback mechanisms, and mobile polls and quizzes delivered through the radio stations, along with school-based radio listening clubs that met weekly to listen to the programs and discuss the themes in a group. Over the course of the 45-month project, the radio shows gained immense popularity, in large part because they talked about issues that are important to youth, and incorporated the language youth use and music they prefer. The programs attracted an average of 500,000 listeners each week, and received tens of thousands of text messages and Facebook posts by young people giving feedback, telling the radio hosts about what topics they would like to hear about, and asking questions about mental health or requesting to be connected with a mental health expert. The impact of the radio was measured according to whether and to what extent the interactive media programs play a role in triggering or facilitating drivers of the process of change. These drivers include bringing about improvements in knowledge and attitudes, mobilizing a social movement, and facilitating greater social and public support to put mental health on the agenda as a topic of conversation, grounded in new understandings and new knowledge. Our findings demonstrate that an interactive radio campaign can have a marked effect on improving knowledge, decreasing stigma, and increasing demand for mental health services among youth in sub-Saharan Africa. Youth who listened to the radio programs fare better than their peers in understanding the signs and symptoms of mental health disorders and in knowing where to go if they or someone they know needs help. Further, interactive radio programs can have a direct impact on reducing stigmatizing attitudes, frequently recognized as a crucial element in promoting improved access to care." (Executive summary) more

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The Media Map Project: Mali. Case Study on Donor Support to Independent Media, 1990-2010

Heather Gilberds

Washington, DC: Internews; World Bank Institute (2012), 46 pp.

"Mali’s media remain significantly underdeveloped in terms of business management, audience research and long-term sustainability. Many media organizations remain dependent on donor funding and have done little to develop business models to attract other sources of revenue. There are more than 50 ... more

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Radio, ICT Convergence and Knowledge Brokerage: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa

Heather Gilberds, Mary Myers

IDS Bulletin , volume 43, issue 5 (2012), pp. 76-83

"This article examines the changing role of radio for development in sub-Saharan Africa as ‘new’ Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) increasingly enter the information landscape. Grounded in the empirical findings of a research programme – Radio, Convergence and Development in Af ... more

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Grassroots Radio and the Episteme of Development: The NGO-ization of Community Radio in Nepal

Heather Gilberds

Ottawa: Master Thesis School of Journalism and Communication Carleton University (2009), iv, 146 pp.

"Nepal's community radio sector has flourished since it liberalized the airwaves for the first time in 1997. Drawing on an established tradition in other areas of the developing world, Nepal embraced community radio for its potential to overcome propagandistic and exclusive national media systems, t ... more

Catalysing private capital: Financing the future of public interest media Quick Overview

Media Reform Amid Political Upheaval: Lessons from Burma, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tunisia, and Ukraine Top Insights

Catalysing private capital: Financing the future of public interest media
Quick Overview

Media Reform Amid Political Upheaval: Lessons from Burma, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tunisia, and Ukraine
Top Insights