MEDIA DEVELOPMENT

Evaluation Report
Executive summary Tunisia
Rural voices: Professionalizing local radios andcivil society organizations in Tunisia

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Background
Tunisia is considered a rather liberal country from a media-politicalpoint of view. The population in disadvantaged rural areas, however, has limited access to information and few possibilities of voicing its concerns and contributing to the public debate. This is evenmore pronounced with women and youths. The existing local media– mainly local radio stations – are not able to fill this gap in demand.
They are lacking the necessary degree of professionalism, sufficientbudgets and qualified young journalists. Civil society organizations
do not answer these needs for information and participation of therural population either.
DW Akademie’s media development project pursues two objectives
that are only interlinked to a limited extent. Project objective 1 in thestrategy area of participation in society is: “Disadvantaged groups in
the rural areas of Tunisia, in particular women and youths, make useof the services of the local media and civil society organisations tomake their concerns public.” Project objective 2 in the strategy areaof qualifications is: “Disadvantaged groups in Tunisia’s rural areas
have access to high-quality information, which adequately trained
journalists contribute to.”The objectives are primarily to be achieved by means of training andadvisory services. The project partners for project line 1 are commercially-run or community-run local radio stations – initially there
were six, then seven, and since 2018 only two – as well as selected
media-related NGOs. The project partners for project line 2 are thestate run journalism institute IPSI and the state-run vocational training centre for journalism CAPJC. A project manager, who was initiallyliving in Tunisia and since 2016 is spending only half his work time inTunisia, is in charge of the implementation. The regional manager inBonn manages the country portfolio.
The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development(BMZ) is the project sponsor and the funding period is four years,
from 2015 to 2018.
An independent project evaluation took place between December
2017 and April 2018. It was carried out by an external evaluation
consultant. An external local co-evaluator participated during thedata collection phase in Tunisia. Since a follow-on project is planned,
learning and reflection were the focus of this evaluation. The fiveevaluation criteria of the OECD/DAC (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability) formed the basis of the evaluation.
At the request of the DW Akademie, the additional criteria “coherence, complementarity and coordination“ was added. For these 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 used a mix of methods, but primarily based itself
on standard qualitative methods, such as the study of documents,
and interviews with project managers, project partners, implementation partners and external experts. The data situation was good
and, by means of a triangulation of the results, permitted a differentiated view of the project. The recommendations were discussedwith the project team and, as far as they are applicable, will be taken
into account in future strategies.

Conclusions of the project evaluation
All interview partners confirmed that the key problem still persists.
Local radio stations have the greatest potential to give people indisadvantaged areas a voice. The relevance of qualifying journalists was also fully confirmed. The project operates in an extremely volatile institutional environment. One of the project’s mainstrengths was its ability to respond to the continuously changing
framework conditions and situations of the project partners, andto adapt its strategic orientation accordingly. The DW Akademie’s
approach is consistent with all political strategies and guidelines
relevant to the sector. The criterion relevance was evaluated ashaving been “comprehensively fulfilled”.
The project objectives, measured against the indicators, will not
be fully met by the end of the project. Based on an unfortunate
choice of indicators and lacking monitoring information, the exact
degree to which the objectives were achieved is difficult to gauge.
Also, the initial project planning was too optimistic and conductedwithout the project partners’ involvement. It could only be adaptedin the course of the project implementation through active searching and trying out in practice. A great willingness to learn coupledwith continuous critical self-reflection contributed greatly to theeffectiveness of the project. The decisions resulting from this arewell documented and comprehensible.
Most was achieved under project objective 1: the seven funded local radios are now technically, managerially and journalistically in abetter position and all of them are still on air. The project has contributed considerably to the success story of Radio Nefzawa, whichis regarded as a showcase for community radios. With the supportof the project, two major events organized by NGOs in Tozeur andKebili have given a voice to people in remote desert areas. Furthermore, the project built a pool of local trainers for local radios. Under project objective 2 little was achieved due to the limited capacity of the two governmental project partners. At the same time noalternative strategies were developed and implemented either. Allin all, the criterion of effectiveness is therefore evaluated as havebeen “partially fulfilled”.
In terms of the outflow of funds, the project is on target. The costbenefit ratio is reasonable measured against what was actuallyachieved. Considering the constantly changing political and institutional environment, this opportunistic approach was the best
possible one from an efficiency point of view. The staff architectureof a local project team in charge of the detailed implementation
and a coordinating regional team in Bonn was functional and decisive for the project’s success. The fact that the project primarily

worked with local trainers and consultants
is a positive feature. The rigid internal administration of DW Akademie contributed
to bureaucratic burdens and caused considerable obstacles to efficiency. In orderto bundle strengths, it would be better toestablish one joint project objective, ratherthan two. The criterion of efficiency is regarded as having been “generally fulfilled”.
Due to the fact that the project has not beenrunning for a very long time, statements on
the impact and sustainability of the project can only be based on the likelihood ofachieving these. The project’s results logic
is generally convincing and the impact hypotheses are plausible. However, there are
hardly any ties between the project lines –neither conceptually nor factually. The activities conducted under project objective
1 have most probably made a contribution– even if it is not quantifiable – to improving the realization of the freedom of information and opinion of people in the ruraltransmission areas of the supported local
radios. The activities performed under
project objective 2 have so far contributed
little to improving the quality of journalism,in general, nor to that in the rural areas, inparticular. The networking between local
stakeholders has an impact potential thatwas only partly exploited. There is little indication that the advisory services offered
are being replicated at scale, transferred
to other contexts or embedded at a higher,
more structural level.
The project’s monitoring system is results-oriented. However, as elucidated above,
the formulation of the indicators is not particularly suited to capturing the impact at
the outcome level. So far, there is a lot ofmonitoring data missing at the outcome
and target group level. No non-intended
negative effects were identified. Overall,the criterion of impact can be seen as having been “generally fulfilled”.
The interviewed radio stations appear tohave adopted the advice received. Thiswas even more the case with Radio Nefza-wa. In the experts’ opinion, not all funded
local radio stations will survive. Here, too,Radio Nefzawa appears in a better positionin terms of having cost-covering revenues
and a secure market niche. It was therefore
important that the project placed a strong
focus in its advisory work on the economic viability of the radio stations. As long as
the NGO Rayhana remains a volunteering
initiative without secured funding for thecore staff, it will be difficult to consolidate
the structural improvements. With IPSI andCAPJC, no institutionally rooted changes
could be observed, which also had to dowith the high staff turn-over at the executive level. Although the local trainers remain onsite, they are not tied to any institutional structure. An explicit exit strategy
is not apparent, though this can still be excused, since this is the first project phase.
The criterion of sustainability is evaluatedoverall as having been “partially fulfilled”.
The project is in close exchange with otheractors in the media development sector in
Tunisia, via the donor coordination forum inthe media sector, Groupe Médias, and also
via personal contacts. The project actively
and systematically identified and realized
synergies and complementarity with otherdevelopment organisations. Among otherthings, it was actively involved in setting
the course of the EU programme for media
development in Tunisia. Together with theinternational NGOs Reporters without Borders and Article 19 the project implemented joint training programmes. There is an
ongoing exchange between the GIZ and
the German political foundations on site.
The criterion coherence, complementarity and coordination is regarded overall as
having been “comprehensively fulfilled”.
Digital issues: The Internet based monitoring system WebMo of the DW Akademie isa useful platform, although some elements
are not very user-friendly. The internal administration processes that concern theproject could be improved through electronic solutions. According to the statements of all experts interviewed, the digitaltransformation is the most important future topic in the media sector, particularly
because young Tunisians are very tech-savvy and the Internet coverage in Tunisia ishigh. The project addressed some issues
in connection with this (e.g. training programmes in mobile reporting, improving
the quality of web news, advising on social
media strategies, etc.), yet so far the digitaltransformation has not really been a central focus of the project. The local interview
partners showed little awareness of the issue of digital security. One challenge in thiscontext is that the local project partners
are making less and less use of email andprimarily using Facebook Messenger as acommunication platform.

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.

ContactDr. 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.