MEDIA DEVELOPMENT

Evaluation Report
Executive summary Kenya
Journalists and citizens: Dealing with social conflicts
in highly populated rural areas in Kenya

dw-akademie.com

Background
The population and media professionals of Kenya, especially in rural areas, are exposed to a high degree of violence, often fuelled byethnic conflict, poverty and disparity. Kenya ranked 100 of 180 countries with regards to freedom of the press in 2015, losing 28 placescompared to 2013. Since then, Kenya has moved up to place 95 outof 180 on the world press freedom index (2017). But the situation
for Kenya’s media professionals has not greatly improved. Freedomof expression and access to information remain difficult topics inKenya, with local and national government still exerting significant
influence on what is aired and printed.
The BMZ-funded project in Kenya “Empowering of media and citizens” has the following objective: “The rural population, especially women, of selected highly populated regions of Kenya (Nyanza,
Western, Rift Valley and Central) informs itself about social conflicts
and how they are processed and expresses their opinion thereofpublicly”. The project is being implemented by DW Akademie, working directly with 10 commercially oriented community radio stations
and in close collaboration with its main partners Article 19, the Kenya Correspondents Association (KCA), the Media Council of Kenya(MCK), the Association of Media Women in Kenya (AMWIK), and theDW Akademie Alumni-Kenya. The current phase started in 2015 andwill be concluded end 2018.
The evaluation focused on assessing the project against 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 included a mission to Kenya and used a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods (desk review, interviews, survey,focus groups). The results of the evaluation were discussed at achange workshop in DW Akademie’s headquarters in Bonn.

Conclusions of the project evaluation
DW Akademie’s intervention remains highly relevant in Kenya’s
current media landscape, which has been subject to increased restrictions and violence in recent years. DW Akademie has well positioned itself as a relevant actor in promoting access to informationand freedom of expression in Kenya. Through its close collaboration with key players in the Kenyan media sector, DW Akademie has
been able to participate in the national debate and train media sector professionals on highly relevant topics. The project targets thehigh population regions Nyanza, Western, Rift Valley and Central
through the strengthening of 10 local radio stations. The choice towork with county-level radio stations is particularly relevant withregards to reaching women. In the rural context, and mainly among
women - many of which cannot read - listening to the radio is themost popular way of accessing information. Furthermore, listenerclubs – an increasingly popular way of allowing listeners to participate in the radio stations’ commercial activities and program – aregiving marginalized women access to more knowledge thereby enabling the process of empowerment. A stronger engagement of
the project at national level through the further strengthening ofpartner organizations could increase the relevance and ultimately
the impact potential of the project. The project activities are considered to be coherent; in terms of complementarity and coordination there is significant room for improvement. The criterion relevance is rated to be “generally fulfilled”.
Despite the lack of a local DW Akademie office, the project management and trainers have shown commitment to maximising its
local and virtual presence. A great added value of DW Akademie’s
approach is secured through the continuous collaboration with anumber of local partners. Nonetheless, the project management
approach is regarded as being too centralized. A reviewed projectapproach, in which partners - perhaps increasingly - take on more
responsibility for the implementation, could have a positive impact
on ownership and long-term sustainability of project activities
and results. Similarly, trainers who have a long-term engagementwith the project should be a central part of the strategy-making
and planning process and be more included in the overall project
implementation and tracking. The project follows a flexible planning approach: regular consultation cycles ensure that the annual training programme is shaped based on the concrete needs
and interests of the radio stations, as well as changes in laws andregulations affecting the media sector. The quality of trainings
and advisory provided by the project is rated as very good. Gender aspects are demonstrably and systematically interwoven into
all activities. The performance of the radio stations was found tohave significantly increased: quantity and quality of programs, increased ratings, increased listenerships’ participation (especiallywomen), improved financial performance, increased collaboration
with listeners clubs. The location, number and duration of trainings
generate debate and the general feedback points towards a needto narrow down the number and increase the focus of DW Akademie’s interventions. In this context a more differentiated approachto delivering support to the 10 radio stations, putting a stronger
focus on organizational development rather than on skills development, would be more effective and could have a greater impact.
The criterion effectiveness is rated to be “generally fulfilled”.
The project has made an excellent use of budget, time and resources and has achieved very good results despite the difficult framework conditions in Kenya and the lack of a local presence. The criterion efficiency is rated to be “comprehensively fulfilled”.
DW Akademie’s work already shows some impact: media professionals targeted have significantly increased their knowledge andskills, radio stations’ programs and content have improved, and allradio stations are performing well financially. The stations havemore programs that encourage listener participation and women
have become more and more active, both within the stations’ programs as well as through the listener clubs. It can be concluded

that county-level listeners of the 10 radiosstations have better access to information
than they did before DW Akademie’s intervention and that more listeners are being
reached than in 2015. The commercial nature of the radio stations targeted, on theother hand, might somewhat dilute the impact potential of DW Akademie’s activities
in terms of freedom of expression and access to information. The financial viability
and sustainability of the radio station are
the priority while the link between quality of programming and success does notseem to be sufficiently recognised by the
top management/owners. At the nationallevel, the project has probably very little influence on the country’s enabling environment for freedom of expression and accessto information. By bringing DW Akademie’s
partners closer to the project DW Akademie
could expand its impact at this level. Project partners have to some extent improved
organizational and individual capacities
and new networks for collaboration and exchange have formed. The criterion impact
is rated to be “generally fulfilled”.

The project has invested considerable timeand resources in providing advisory andtraining on strategies to ensure the financial sustainability of the commercially oriented stations with great results. Five of theradio stations have formed a consortium tojointly acquire new clients and sponsors,
further strengthening the sustainability ofthe businesses. Radio stations do not yethave adequate knowledge management
processes in place, which would be an important element to ensure that knowledge
is institutionalized and sustainably retained
within these organizations. The project’s
partners can and must play a key role in ensuring the sustainability of the project beyond the project’s lifetime and to date there
is no clear strategy on how they will be prepared in this regard. The development of asustainability strategy is therefore strongly
recommended. The strategy should include
a roadmap on how the ownership by local
institutions is to be enhanced. Furthermore, collaboration with local universities
and training institutes could be a strategy
to institutionalize local trainers that havebeen trained by DW Akademie. The criterion sustainability is rated to be “partiallyfulfilled”.

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
facebook.com/DWAkademie
twitter@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
the development of future strategies.