MEDIA DEVELOPMENT

Evaluation Report
Executive summary Guatemala
Freedom of expression and quality of journalism:
Empowering indigenous people and urban youth via
local radio stations in Guatemala

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Background
Guatemala suffers from a high crime rate. Large populationgroups, especially indigenous people, live in poverty and are excluded from social participation. The media landscape is dominated by a few commercial and politically influential providers. Municipal radio stations often do not have a broadcasting license andsuffer from economic problems. In addition, journalists must expect intimidation and threats—not only from organized crime, butalso from political officials and security forces. The country’s cultural and linguistic diversity is barely reflected in the media, whichmeans that particularly disadvantaged groups are denied accessto relevant information. The situation in the Petén region (projectregion) is problematic. The lack of media diversity there prevents
the possibility of a differentiated formation of opinion. In the city,
too, the lack of information diversity in the media information system has led many young people to indifference. Their confidence
in state institutions is alarmingly low. Guatemala has not yet dealt
with its armed conflict of the recent past. In the violent conflict of1960–1996, an estimated 200,000 people died and 45,000 are considered missing. Even today, the transparent handling of humanrights is still not guaranteed.
The BMZ has been supporting the project since 2016. It ends inDecember 2019. As the primary target group, the project addresses
disadvantaged population groups, primarily of indigenous origin. InGuatemala City, the focus is also on young people and young adults.
Two project objectives have been defined: 1. Disadvantaged population groups—young people and young adults from marginalized
urban peripheries and the rural population, especially those with an
indigenous background—make use of diverse opportunities for participation and dialogue. 2. Media workers from rural areas are able
to work professionally and in a journalistic manner, taking security
risks into account.
There are three project partners with a total of four project strands:
The Guatemalan Institute for Radio Education (IGER) maintains thetwo radio stations Radio Sónica (Guatemala City and PeripheralAreas) and the bilingual Radio Sayaxché in Petén. Radio Sónica addresses young people with their themes and concerns and involves
them in the design of programs. Radio Sónica’s work was expanded
in 2018 to include a MIL component through an amendment and anincrease in funding. This is essentially implemented in close cooperation with schools in socially deprived areas of Guatemala City. Radio
Sayaxché broadcasts in the Petén region in Spanish and in Kekchí.
Representatives of 15 organizations were empowered to design theradio program with their own themes. This covers almost 20 hours
a week.
IGER’s “Maestro en Casa” self-study program for students is broadcast by both radio stations. According to the project proposal, theUniversidad Rafael Landívar (URL) was to establish a study course
for the training of journalists in rural areas, but this was not possible due to the lack of enrolments and difficult internal universityprocesses. Despite intensive efforts to achieve closer cooperation,
the university-affiliated digital newspaper Plaza Pública could only
be sporadically integrated into the project. One success of the coop-eration, however, is the publication “Así investigamos (Y así nos cuidamos)” for which the project is responsible, and which is successfully
used at the URL.
The project now concentrates increasingly on the constructive confrontation with human rights violations of the past and is working
on an interactive map (Mapeo) that depicts human rights violations
with the help of stories. The Memorial Para La Concordia (a memorialto all victims of armed conflict in Guatemala) is a close cooperation
partner in the sponsorship sense. Students of the Faculty of Politicaland Social Science were involved in the work on Mapeo in special
seminars, just as workshops with journalists also served to strengthen collaboration on the interactive map. Via the Munis Abiertas initiative, Congreso Transparente (now known as Guatecambia) supports
municipal representatives and civil society groups in their demands
for their right to information from state institutions. A specially programmed digital tool serves as support for this; civil society groups
are given an understanding of how to deal with it in workshops. The
work with political representatives has been discontinued due tolack of interest.
The aim of the evaluation was to verify the achievement of the objectives and the impact of the project, taking particular account of
its particular working structure, and to formulate recommendations
as a basis for collaborative learning. The results will be used for thedesign of follow-up projects and the further development of the organization. The evaluation took place from November 2018 to April
2019 and was based on the OECD/DAC criteria. The initial workshop,
a secondary data analysis and interviews with DW Akademie staff
were followed by a written survey data collection among the country
managers and an 11-day field phase in Guatemala.

Conclusions of the project evaluation
Relevance: The project addresses and activates disadvantaged
population groups who generally have little access to reliable information and who have only limited reflection skills in media consumption. This is achieved very well through cooperation with thetwo radio stations. Off-air activities such as forums, seminars andMIL seminars (Radio Sónica/Cabina Móvil) enable young people todeal critically with information. Collaboration with 15 civil society
organizations enables the rural population in Petén to criticallyprocess topics relevant to them and prepare programs for broadcast on Radio Sayaxché. The de facto bilingualism is target-oriented, and the active involvement of women has been successful.
The work on Mapeo involves URL students who will later act as multipliers and possibly also as decision-makers. Journalists and representatives of human rights organizations were also involved in
the research of content. At relevant events, Mapeo attracts a great
deal of attention and interest from important stakeholders, such asteachers, foundations and NGOs. Munis Abiertas primarily trains
civil society groups and journalists to use the online tool to obtain
information. However, the actual need is not evident.
The approach of focusing primarily on non-traditional media development actors in all four project strands has proven its worth andcontributes to a broader use of and, above
all, contribution to radio and digital media,
which also includes a critical examination ofinformation offerings and their reliability. In
all four strands, digital instruments in termsof MIL are used. Radio Sónica’s inclusion ofincreased MIL activities in numerous schools
gave the project an additional innovation
boost with regard to MIL and digital media.
These measures are transferable and can beextended in the long term to other areas of
the country and probably also in Petén. The
project shows a high degree of networking
without creating redundancies. All four project strands meet the development policy objectives of the BMZ in Guatemala. Based onthese findings, the criterion Relevance has
been rated as “ overall fulfilled”.
Effectiveness: The working structure of theproject in Guatemala is target-oriented andcost-effective. The intensive monitoring of
the country manager is seen as a valuable
contribution to project partners’ capacity
development. The mainly digitally-managed
communication among the decentralized
team corresponds to the project’s own media focus. The digital principles, “design withthe user” and “release and improve”, areimplemented in all work strands, at least in
their initial stages. At Radio Sayaxché, for example, the listeners, i.e. people from the region, produce a large proportion of the programming themselves, and at Radio Sónica
young people also contribute to radio broadcasts. The social media channels are used in
the four project strands to actively involve
the population.
Increasingly, MIL activities are taking place.
Both Mapeo and the online tool of Munis Abiertas meet the demand for a “data driven”
style of work. The work on Mapeo involves
research and the generation of reliable information; Munis Abiertas’ digital tool also
supports research work. The seminar participants and journalists can be seen as important multipliers. Several workshops wereorganized, particularly throughout 2018.
The presentation of the tool at important
events such as the Book Fair and Gobierno
Abierto attracted a lot of attention. Based onthese findings, the criterion Effectivenesshas been rated as “ overall fulfilled”.
Efficiency: The flexible remuneration of
the project managers and project input
through a local lawyer (management of theescrow account) are efficient. The lean administration saves resources. The alreadyexisting synergies between the four project
strands can be expanded, and networking
with other cooperation partners has beensuccessful. The project work has led to amore targeted orientation at Radio Sónica towards the needs and lifestyle of theyoung people being addressed. The Guatecambia team has made great progress, especially with regard to working with digital
tools, and applies modern work structures.
Based on these findings, the criterion Efficiency has been rated as “ comprehensivelyfulfilled”.
Impact: The two radio stations have contributed in each of their catchment areas toa critical approach to information and theability on the part of listeners to actively
research and disseminate content themselves. Radio Sayaxché’s work activates thetargeted indigenous population of the Petén
region, and a relatively high participation ofwomen as moderators has a positive effecton women’s self-image. The project thus
makes a decisive contribution to social inclusion. The radio station also makes an important contribution to strengthening Kekchí’s
image in terms of language policy.
The project strand Munis Abiertas is moredifficult to measure in terms of impact. With
the digital tool for information requests,
however, a potential step has been taken
towards active citizenship. Mapeo is an innovative, digital instrument that launches
an honest way of coming to terms with thepast. Overall, the project contributes to thecapacity development of the project partners with regard to media and information
literacy as well as their professional and target group-oriented work. Based on thesefindings, the criterion Impact has been rated
as “overall fulfilled”.

Sustainability: In the case of IGER, the project is working with a resilient organization,
and Guatecambia also has a promising
future. The two radio stations as well as
Munis Abiertas can be regarded as stableplayers. Mapeo as an online tool is functional and could possibly survive without theDW Akademie project. All in all, the project
has proven itself to be structure enhancing,
not only in terms of stabilizing the individual project partners and their work, but alsowith regard to a broad thematic networkingof various initiatives in the field of information retrieval and verification. The internal
linking of the individual strands of the project contributes significantly to this. Basedon these findings, the criterion Sustainability has been rated as “ overall fulfilled”.

DW Akademie

is Deutsche Welle’s center forinternational media development.
As a strategic partner of the Federal
Ministry for Economic Cooperation
and Development (BMZ), DW Akademie
carries out media development projects that strengthen the human rightto freedom of opinion and promote
free access to information.
DW Akademie also works on projects
funded by the German Foreign Oﬃce
and the European Union — in approximately 50 developing and emerging
countries.

Contact

Dr. Jan Lublinski
Head Research and Evaluation
jan.lublinski@dw.com
53113 Bonn
Germany
DWAkademie@dw_akademie
youtube.com/DWAkademie
dw-akademie.com

The objective of the external evaluation is to provide a constructive assessment of the project results. It does not necessarily align with theperspective and planning of DW Akademie. Nevertheless, all ﬁndings were discussed in order to allow lessons learned to be incorporated into thedevelopment of future strategies.