Removing Barriers, Increasing Effectiveness - amarc

An exploratory analysis of the role that Radio Ada plays in fishers’ livelihoods and livesin Anyakpor, a fishing village in southeast Ghana. The study's findings reveal that fishersrely on Radio Ada alongside other media for livelihood information. Radio Ada is alsoenabling fishers to learn about their livelihoods from each other, providing them withuseful information for their work; promoting culture, identity, and community; providingaccess to news; creating opportunities for voice/dialogue; and establishing a level oftrust. Fishers indicated that in the future they would like to further integrate Radio Adainto their community.The researcher conducted in-depth interviews, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)activities, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis17. Tacchi, Jo, Slater, Don & hearn, Greg. (2003). Ethnographic Action Research:A user’s handbook developed to innovate and research ICT applications forpoverty eradication. UNESCO. [Electronic Version]http://unescodelhi.nic.in/publications/ear.pdfEthnographic action research is considered to be one of the innovative researchapproaches to study the impact of information and communication technologies. Thishandbook explains the approach and the methods employed particularly for projectsusing information and communication technologies related to poverty alleviation.The book contains detailed methodology (participant observation, field notes, in-depthinterviews, group interviews, diaries, questionnaires, etc.) and analysis on the proposedresearch process. Though not dealing directly with community radio, the approach toICTs is also valid for any other communication tool.18. Douglas Horton, Anastasia Alexaki, Samuel Bennett-Lartey, Kim Noele Brice,Dindo Campilan, Fred Carden, Jose de Souza Silva, Le Thanh Duong, IbrahimKhadar, Albina Maestrey Boza, Imrul Kayes Muniruzzaman, Jocelyn Perez, MatildeSomarriba Chang, Ronnie Vernooy and Jamie Watts. (2003). Evaluation CapacityDevelopment – Experiences from Research and Development Organizationsaround the World. ICRC. [Electronic Version] Website:http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/111-6/The perspective that informs this important book is that every evaluation of a capacitydevelopment effort shoulditself contribute to the capacity development effort and ultimately to the organization’sperformance. This book has been written for managers and evaluators in research anddevelopment organizations as well as in the agencies that support them—internationaldevelopment agencies, management development institutes, and educationalinstitutions.Chapter 6 outlines approaches and methods for evaluating organizational capacitydevelopment. It discusses the importance of evaluation principles as well as issuesrelated to the preparation and the carrying out of evaluations. Chapter 7 discusses howto utilize evaluation processes and results to advance capacity development andperformance in an organization. Potential users and uses of evaluation are identified andsome strategies for enhancing use are provided. The ideas and information presented inthese chapters are based on six evaluation studies carried out by participants in theECD Project.19. Creech, Heather et al. (2005) Evaluation of UNESCO’s Community MultimediaCentres Final Report. UNESCO International Institute for SustainableDevelopment.AMARC Community Radio Social Impact Assessment 2007 Page 108 of 128