"Following decades of civil war, South Sudan still lacks a functioning healthcare system and has some of the worst maternal and child health indicators in the world. To help address this, between 2012 and 2017 BBC Media Action produced and broadcast a range of national radio programmes seeking to in ... fluence knowledge, attitudes, discussion and the social norms most likely to drive improvements in the RMNCH-related behaviours of women and their families. It also worked to strengthen the capacity of local radio stations to produce similar high-quality, audience-driven health programming. This report presents a synthesis of all research and analysis completed under this project. In brief, it finds that the challenging country context (e.g. the limited availability of quality healthcare nationally and the ongoing humanitarian crisis) limited the extent to which the project was able to contribute to improved health outcomes. Despite this, audiences were generally optimistic about the shows’ influence and value, and reported gaining knowledge and making some behavioural changes as a result of tuning in. Likewise, local radio station partners reported that the capacity-strengthening support had improved their technical skills, editorial confidence and engagement with audiences." (BBC Media Action website) more

"The magazine programme Fo Rod and the debate show Tok Bot Salone built a loyal and engaged audience. The number of people who listened to either one or both programmes increased from 0.8 million in 2013 to 1.1 million in 2015, representing 29% of all adults. The proportion of regular listeners was ... very high, with practically all listeners tuning in to at least every other episode. In the year after the elections, almost half the audience (48%) was female. But, despite efforts to maintain this, the proportion dropped to 39% by 2015 – a decline also seen in other Global Grant countries following elections. Research respondents were drawn to the radio programmes because they were informative and easy to understand, and listeners enjoyed the calm, audience-driven style of presentation. Tok Bot Salone’s format of debates in different localities was considered particularly effective at providing a platform for citizens to ask their leaders questions. By 2015, the BBC Media Action Sierra Leone Facebook page was the most popular (liked) in the country [...] Fo Rod and Tok Bok Salone appear to have successfully supported bottom-up accountability: more than two in five listeners strongly agreed that they played a role in holding government to account. This is a higher proportion than seen in any of the other countries where BBC Media Action delivered Global Grant-funded governance projects. Accountability was particularly important in the context of the Ebola outbreak when people were reliant on decisive, lifesaving government action. However, the extent to which the programmes supported top-down responsiveness was less clear. There were calls to provide more followup programmes to examine leaders’ commitment to making promised change." (Key findings, pages 6-7) more