edition-dw-akademie-in-the-service-of-the-public-functions-and-transformation-of-media-in-developing-countries-pdf

Part II Afghanistan: Reform Fear, Limited International Support, Failed TransformationAfghanistan: Reform Fear, Limited International Support, Failed TransformationIn Afghanistan, the transformation process of the state broadcaster RTA has failed. The station was reopened after the fall of theTaliban regime in 2001. After mainly technical assistance in the first years, an international consortium of BBC World Trust Service,DW Akademie and Canal France International started to implement a reform strategy financed by the EU from 2004 to 2007.However, the media development organizations were successful neither in changing the regulatory framework nor in engagingthe top and middle management in the reform.A lack of coordination and a lack of money for supplementary capacity building measures with RTA’s editorial and technicalstaff have led to a situation where, for example, high-end technology in new broadcasting studios could not be used by theemployees of the broadcaster due to a lack of technical expertise. As a result, RTA has great difficulties in creating a public spheretoday, even if it does offer certain forums for public information and discussions. The broadcaster still mainly functions as amouthpiece of the government.On the level of integration, RTA still offers the most potential for Afghanistan, although this is far from being fully realized.With most Afghan media focused on the capital Kabul, RTA is seen as a symbol for national unity since it respects minorities asthe only broadcaster that offers a platform for the smallest minority groups; these are generally ignored by the private mediabecause they do not form a profitable high-income group of consumers. So despite all difficulties and deficiencies, RTA does offera service to the public. It can be concluded that the transformation process of the state broadcaster did not succeed for a varietyof reasons: Most importantly, a lack of follow-through on the media development side coupled with reform fear, confusion, andlack of information on the Afghan side led to a stagnation of the reform. A renewed attempt would need fresh approaches onseveral levels and a well-coordinated long-term engagement from all actors.Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) 1 is the state broadcasterof Afghanistan. There have been attempts from internationalmedia development organizations to transform RTA into apublic service broadcaster which hitherto were not successful.The following analysis tries to assess these transformation attempts.This has to be put in an overall context; therefore Afghanistan’smain characteristics, its media landscape and thestatus of RTA shall be briefly outlined. Then we discuss to whatextent RTA is fulfilling two general functions of public servicemedia: creating a public sphere and supporting integration.As a last step the achievements and challenges as well as thetransformation approach itself are analyzed and recommendationsfor action are derived.Afghanistan – A Brief OverviewThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked countrylocated in Central Asia. It has a population of around 31 millioninhabiting an area of approximately 652,000 square kilometers.It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east,Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan inthe north, and China in the far northeast. Three decades ofwar made Afghanistan one of the world’s most dangerous andpoorest countries with a young population: Approximately 12million Afghan citizens are under the age of 15. Only 43 percentof the male and 12 percent of the female population is able toread and write. 2 Almost 78 percent of the population lives inrural areas. Afghanistan is characterized by a large urban-ruraldiscrepancy and a focus on the capital Kabul where over threemillion people live.1http://www.rta.org.af/It is a multi-ethnic, multilingual country with more than 30ethnic groups and a variety of languages and dialects. Pashtoand Dari are the official languages of Afghanistan. Bilingualismis quite common. The four largest ethnic groups are Pashtuns,Tajiks, Hazara, and Uzbeks. 3 The first and at the sametime last census of population in Afghanistan was held in 1979and was not finished due to the invasion of the Soviet troops. 4Therefore there is no valid data on the exact ethnic structureof the country. This was and still is one of the reasons for conflictand discussion amongst the different groups in terms ofdistribution of power. Afghanistan is still – after Taliban rulein 2001 and the efforts of the international community to democratizethe country – facing major problems of insecuritydue to weakness of the state authorities, badly functioningstate institutions, and poor infrastructure.The Afghans have experienced many shifts of power andnever had a strong central government serving the wholecountry and reaching the people in the remote areas. This isone of the factors that has led to strong tribal and clan affiliation.A nation-building process, which is crucial for a successfulstate-building process and thus a democratization of thecountry has yet not taken place. Despite this sobering conclusionthere is at least one success story that Afghanistan canoffer: The development of the media landscape and freedomof speech have experienced exceptional success.2CIA 2014.3Ibid.4In 2008 the Japanese governmenttried to finance and to launch acensus, which never took place dueto the fragile security situation.Edition DW Akademie In the Service of the Public 37