MEDIA DEVELOPMENT

Evaluation Report
Executive summary Ghana
Quality of journalism and access to information:
Supporting higher education, community radios andcivil society initiatives in Ghana

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Background
The Ghanaian media landscape is characterized by a high level ofmedia freedom and an intensive growth of private media (and a few
community media) after the liberalization of the airwaves in 1992.
Nevertheless, there are major challenges in media development according to our literature review and insights from interviews withstakeholders: As Ghana has large cross-media networks, only a few
big media houses dominate the public sphere, and persons with political interests own a large portion of media. Additionally, the quality ofreporting is perceived as low, which is due to factors like low capacityof working journalists in professionalism, and a very challenging economic environment for media, which hinders many to invest in journalistic quality. Financial sustainability and low level of professionalism were quoted by most stakeholders in our interviews when asked
about the top priorities in media needs, jointly with lack of equipment,
especially by smaller media houses.
DW Akademie’s project works on three project lines. Despite theselines being conceptually interconnected by the overall objective, they
only minimally overlap in operational terms.
Within its first project line, DW Akademie supports a network ofcommunity radio stations in building competencies in financial andmanagerial sustainability and in increasing the journalistic capacity ofreporters in those radio stations, especially for moderating dialogue
programs between citizens and authorities and in reporting local topics. Furthermore, the capacity of Accra-based radio stations with a nationwide coverage in reporting local stories is strengthened. Within
the second project line, DW Akademie strengthens an alliance of civilsociety activists in advocating a Freedom of Information Law. Operationally, it mainly supports the practical implementation of better
access to information within four pilot districts, even before a Rightto Information Bill (which has been at various levels of legislative ascent since 2002) is passed into law. This second project line therefore
works with local radio stations, civil society organizations and the local administration, i.e., the “District Assembly” (DA) which is the local
arm of the central government. In its third project line, the projectworks on improving the level of higher education in journalism. Itsupports efforts at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) and the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) to improve the quality ofpractical training within those institutions and to incorporate moreelements that are practical (at GIJ) or incorporate them earlier within

the curriculum (at NAFTI), and to introduce multimedia elements inorder to adapt to new challenges in the digital age.
Methodologically, this evaluation followed the six standard evaluation criteria of DW Akademie, which were derived from the OECD/
DAC criteria. For the DAC criteria a rating system with a 5-point scale
is used: 1) comprehensively fulfilled, 2) generally fulfilled, 3) partially
fulfilled, 4) minimally fulfilled and 5) not fulfilled at all.
In addition, for the first time in the Africa evaluations key questions
were asked, which explicitly focus on digital aspects of the projects:
D1) Digital collaboration, D2) Digital relevance and D3) Digital security. For these digital questions, no assessment was required, but only
a section in the report with an inventory and, if appropriate, recommendations.
The evaluation worked with desk research and semi-structured interviews with a large diversity of stakeholders, complemented by focus
groups with listeners of radio stations.

Conclusions of the project evaluation
The main result of the evaluation is that the project consists of threevery different project lines with different levels of achievements inthe main evaluation criteria, i.e. relevance, effectiveness and impact. Therefore, the “overall” achievement is often “mixed”, but it isworth exploring the project lines separately, as the learning in termsof “What works and why?” should start from there in our opinion.
In addition, the efficiency level of the project is low due to many operational difficulties with project partners that are not Ghanaspecific, but mainly due to requirements set by the central DW Akademie
administration in Bonn. Those need to be overcome in order for DW
Akademie to continue to work in Ghana with good partners.
Due to low relevance to supporting higher education and limitedrelevance to support mostly community radio stations, the criteria
relevance has overall been rated “partially fulfilled”.
Due to good achievements in project lines 1 and 2, but limited
achievements in supporting higher education (project line 3) the criteria effectiveness has overall been rated “generally fulfilled”.

Due to operational difficulties in handling all
three project lines and in handling financial
issues with project partners, the criteria efficiency has been rated “minimally fulfilled”.
In project lines 1 and 2 impact was generally achieved, at least the potential for impact
looks good. However, some project activities
are not yet assessable with regard to impact(due to delays in activities, or measuring, notrelated to the project), the criteria impact
was overall rated as “partially fulfilled”.
Similar diversity in achievements was observed under sustainability. The criteria sustainability was overall rated as “generallyfulfilled”.
Coherence of activities with those of theGhanaian government and other development partners was generally or even comprehensively achieved in project lines 1 and2. For project line 3, it did not make senseto rate this criterion, so overall coherence,complementarity and coordination was assessed as “generally fulfilled”.

Digital Questions: The project has alreadyintegrated digital tools in project management, works with digital devices in partsof the project (Penplusbytes) and the teamhas already compiled a first report on digital questions. Digital safety is known by few
stakeholders as a challenge for media development. The project partner Penplusbytes
has installed internally a system to ensure
its safety.

DW Akademie

is Germany’s leading organization
for media development and Deutsche
Welle’s center of excellence foreducation and knowledge transfer.
As a strategic partner of Germany’s
Federal Ministry for Economic
Cooperation and Development westrengthen the universal humanrights of free expression, education,and access to information.

Contact

Dr. Jan Lublinski
Head Research and Evaluation
jan.lublinski@dw.com
53113 BonnGermany
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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
the development of future strategies.