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International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN: 2319-7064
ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2018): 7.426
Volume 8 Issue 7, July 2019
www.ijsr.net
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
The Integration of Community Radios in Achieving
the Goals of the“Big Results Now’’ in Tanzania
Mwidima Peter Charles
(PhD), Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, St Augustine University of Tanzania, Mwanza Tanzania
Abstract: The “Big Results Now” is a development model adopted from the Malaysian government. It focuses on new working methods
in specific timeframe for the effective and efficient delivering of required national development vision and mission (URT, 2013). The
initiative is also considered being a delivery approach focused on delivering some specific goals in the country within a stipulated
timeline. This paper aims at underscoring the significance of community radio stations as an avenue for the development of a country
with specific reference to Tanzania. This is because, despite many efforts by a wide variety of stakeholders, the actual impact on the
integration of community radio in Tanzania remains unclear. Thus, this paper attempts to provide some possible solutions of integrating
community radio stations in attaining some planned goals of a country with specific reference to the goals of the “Big Results Now” in
Tanzania. To explore this, diverse related literatures and documents were reviewed. The focus of the reviews was directed towards the
roles played by the community radio in selected countries and how such roles may be utilized and adapted by community radio in
Tanzania towards achieving the set goals of the “Big Results Now”. During the review, it was observed that community radio stations
have significant contributions towards the attainment of the goals of the “Big Results Now”. It was further evidenced and confirmed
that community radio stations had played significance contributions in implementing the goals of the “Big First Results Now” in
Malaysia as well as the industrialization priorities in Thailand (Tahir, 2016). Thus, there is a greater needy for Tanzania and perhaps
all developing countries to strongly integrate community radio in their projects and developmental goals.
Keywords: Integration, Community Radio, Big Results Now”, Tanzania
1. Introduction
Tanzania has undergone diverse strategies and initiatives in
order to eradicate poverty and improve the economy of the
country since her independence in 1961. One of the recent
initiatives was the adoption of ‘‘the big fast results’’
commonly known as “Big Results Now” from Malaysia.
The main purpose of adopting this development model was
to transform the country from being a low income to a high
or middle income economy by 2025 (Darul,&Balozi, (2014).
This paper aims at underscoring the significance of
community radio as an avenue for the development of a
country with specific reference to Tanzania. Despite many
efforts by a wide variety of stakeholders, the actual impact
on the integration of community radio in Tanzania remains
unclear. Tanzania has more than 130 radio stations in the
country, among them; 35 are community radios (TCRA,
2018) but the impacts or contribution in the developmental
matters appears to have not been visible at all. Likewise, it
appears that the role of the media, particularly community
radio seems to have been abandoned completely in
Tanzania, thus, this paper attempts to illuminate on how
Tanzania can utilize the community radio in achieving her
2025 vision through the “Big Results Now imitative.
2. Community Radios
According to the Guide for the Civil Society (2015), a
community radio has been defined as a radio for the people
in a community. It is a radio of the people because it is a
two-way process that is considered to empower people in the
community to have opportunities to identify various
problems around them and also create solutions to those
problems. It enables the most vulnerable to participate in
decisions for positive change in their lives.
Moreover, community radio allows people to collaborate in
producing programs on the radio which focuses on their
local concerns and priorities. Moreover, a vibrant
community radio is expected to help the remotest
communities to participate not only into the national and
global economies, but also to the development of
knowledge-based economies. It is known to sharpen and
improve governance by empowering people to hold both
local and governments leaders accountable.
One of the common components of community radio
stations is that they are people centered whereby they are
established to serve a specific community or area. Gray
(2002) argues that vibrant community radios are normally
established and operated by community members
themselves. They are sometimes established by Non-
Governmental Organizations, while others are started as
developmental projects, and some are started by community
radio activists and supporters for community discussion and
participation in their communities. Based on their nature,
community radio stations serve a very significant role in
providing various information in the areas they operate.
According to AMARC Africa (1998), vibrant community
radios in an ideal world allow members of a community to
gain access to information, education and entertainment just
like what the mainstream media does. However, what
distinguishes community radios from mainstream radios is
that community radios have bottom-up approach, as they are
not profit oriented, while mainstream media are
characterized by profit needs and are mostly centrally called
– top-down. This means that though community radios may
inform, educate and entertain, the focus of such content must
be different from the mainstream media. This is a critical
point that many appear not to understand. Moreover, vibrant
community radios which are well utilized by the
Paper ID: ART20199953
10.21275/ART20199953
1842
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN: 2319-7064
ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2018): 7.426
Volume 8 Issue 7, July 2019
www.ijsr.net
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
communities can serve as a platform for debate, exchange of
ideas and reactions to plans and projects in a given
community. Apart from being used as platforms for debates,
community radios are also able to accommodate people's
ideas and satisfy their spiritual and psychological wellbeing
much better than any other form of broadcasting such as
main stream media (AMARC Africa, 1998).
2.1 Challenges Facing Community Radios in Africa
The challenges facing community radio stations in Africa
has quite a long history since the inception of the same in the
continent. Community radios in Africa can be traced back to
the 1950s when broadcasters across Africa begun designing
some agricultural programming focused on rural and
farming constituents commonly known as farm broadcasting
or “farm casting” through which agricultural radio programs
were produced and disseminated to the general public,
largely as part of agriculture extension strategies (SADC-
CCD, 2006). Moreover, the development of community
radios as such were focused and concentrated in rural
communities as practice of taking radio to the people in the
form of farm and rural broadcasting from public
broadcasters. Sourou, (2013) argues that community radio
stations concentrated in disseminating developmental
messages to the respective communities in Africa. However,
despite of their long history, community radios have
experienced various challenges as discussed below:
2.1.1 Financial Problems
Financial constraints and donor dependence has been one of
the major challenges facing community radio stations in
Africa. According to Manyozo (2007), the schemes and
implementation of community radio projects in Africa have
experienced some financial problems. This is due to the fact
that majority of the community radio in Africa are donor
funded. This has led to many of the community radio
stations not to be able to fully perform their indented roles of
informing community members about the various issues
found in their communities. Above all, this financial
challenge not only affects the respective communities in
which such radio stations are located but it also makes it
difficult for such community radios to source and purchase
broadcasting transmitters and other equipment. In this vein,
the financial problems facing community radios in Africa
have also led to majority of such radio stations to fail to
transport journalists to the communities to collect news
stories because they cannot afford to cater for their fare.
Salary delays to the staff and volunteers, constructions and
rehabilitations of buildings, payment of utility bills, staffs
training are just amongst the results of financial problems
facing community radios in Africa.
According to Ochichi and White (2013), the majority of the
community radio stations in East African countries have
experienced significance financial crisis and many of them
went off air from time to time because of financial crisis.
Moreover, most of the community radio stations were
reported to receive financial funding from national or
international sources for their initial set ups. It must be noted
(Ochichi and White, 2013), that some few community radios
had continued to get some help from time to time from
donors as a form of bail out in order to allow the radios to
stay on air.
Likewise, due to the fore mentioned financial challenges,
most of the community radios maintained only a very weak
broadcasting team and as such they had to take advantages
of the staff under volunteering working schemes. In addition
to that, some volunteering staff cannot tolerant or persist
working in such financial crisis, thus some of them often
leave working with the community radios and go for green
pastures elsewhere.
2.1.2 Inadequate Training Opportunities
According to the studies on development radio broadcasting
training in Africa (DCFRN, 2003), there are some key
elements that characterize the sector. They include;
insufficient human capacity for community broadcasting;
lack of understanding of the praxis of community
development; poor connectivity of radio for development to
new media and ICTs; formal training not based on learning
needs; and dependence on donor funding as previous
discussed. In the case of training opportunities in community
radios, the formal training institutions such as Universities
and colleges which training journalists in Africa appear to
lack the required capacities to offer specialized training for
community programs. As such, it is reported (Kamlongera,
2001) that most broadcasters in Africa have not undergone
any specific training in issues of development broadcasting.
Moreover Kamlongera (2001) adds that there is still no any
extra training arrangement being done by most of the
community radios in Africa due to lack of adequate training
equipment, qualified trainers, and appropriate training
infrastructure.
2.1.3 Problems of Evaluation Instruments
The problem of sustainable evaluation instruments in the
community radio stations in African is also one of the
challenges facing community radios in Africa. According to
Manyozo (2007), program evaluation in community radios is
very important as it improves project training, institutional
decision making, and quality programs. Manyozo adds that
programs evaluation is very significant and should be made
compulsory for community radios because it gives out a full
picture on areas which needs improvements or changes.
2.1.4 Lack of Systematic Local News
According to Ochichi and White (2013), most of the
community radio stations do not have proper policy or
strategies to cover local news in the surrounding
communities where such radios operate. Instead, the content
of their news is normally very brief and less focused on the
local news stories or events. Likewise, the present
community radios in most of the Eat African countries have
no persons competently prepared or assigned to report in any
systematic fashions on local events or news stories
especially news stories dealing with community
developments where actually most of the priorities of the
Big Results Now model are embedded in.
2.2 The Nature and Benefits of Community Radios
A community radio station is expected to run on a nonprofit
basis. This is because a community radio is established to
serve the interest of the communities and thus most of the
Paper ID: ART20199953
10.21275/ART20199953
1843
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN: 2319-7064
ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2018): 7.426
Volume 8 Issue 7, July 2019
www.ijsr.net
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
manpower is very low (Lawrence, 2010). Though they are
nonprofit making radios, they are neither restricted from
rising funds from other means sources of funds. Moreover, a
community radio station is that which is normally operates
in very specialized areas or communities to serve a specific
purpose in the respective communities.
Likewise, community radio stations per se generally have a
large staff of volunteers who work in those community
radios on a volunteering basis. In that case, such volunteers
may maintain the station, build the station, produce and host
programs, or manage the station. However, having paid staff
members does not usually conflict with being run by
volunteers (Lawrence, 2010). Additionally, most of the staff
in the community radios work on a voluntary basis though
there are no any restrictions on employing paid and
professional journalists to work there. Moreover, community
radios are established, operated, and or owned by the
community, which they serve (White, 2013).
Community radios have creditable powers in the
communities they operate in. They are the central to the
success of development and democracy. It is a particularly
effective means of communication in communities where
most people can neither read nor write, as those people can
speak and listen because the means of broadcasting in these
community radios is the local language or language which is
understood by the respective people in a given community.
Moreover, community radio stations have a very significant
role to play in the developmental aspect in a given
community because this enables community members to
share all developmental matters amongst themselves, this
can also help community members to voice their own
experiences and to critically examine issues, processes and
policies affecting their lives. Community radios have vibrant
influence in the education and mobilizing community
members in the developmental initiatives and strategies that
may result in a better life for listeners.
However, community radios perfectly serve as the means to
promote democracy, sustainable development, and peace in
communities they operate in (Gustafsson, 2013). It allows
community members to share various information
surrounding their communities. For example, citizens and
non-citizens can develop their political understanding and
work to take their problems to the attention of the bigger
public. Moreover, Gustafsson, (2013) reports that the
presence of community radio in respective communities
have great chance to create and sustain political stability.
Maiva further says that community radios are very
significant in the communities due to the fact that they act as
platforms for discussion of various issues found in such
communities. Since most of these radios are concentrated in
rural areas and in needy localities of cities where almost
members from those communities are always excluded from
decisions, simply because they lack awareness, therefore
community radios are very vital in such communities as they
fill that vacuum of such uninformed communities (Sarr,
2014).
Furthermore, community radios are so useful amongst
community members. They act as voice of the voiceless by
allowing community members to participate and use the
radio stations to give out their views on issues affecting their
communities. For example, they may discuss on how they
can manage their natural resources, raw materials,
community affairs and many other issues. Moreover,
community radios are tools for social justice because they
effectively respond to a real need to be informed, which is a
fundamental right of all members in such communities (Sarr,
2014).
The establishment and existence of community radio
stations have also been very vital in the communities where
such radio stations operate because members in those
communities have a greater chance to increases the partisan
and social power, knowledge, and experience of those who
participate (Sourou, 2013). According to Sourou (2013),
community radios have a significance role to play especially
in the rural areas. This is because they have power to reach
out to people in rural settings, people who may not meet or
converge in any other places. This is a very vital role played
by the community radios bearing in minds that much of the
population of Africa is rural, and this has been pointed out as
a challenge for developmental projects.
Likewise, communities which have community radio
stations have very significant benefits as community radios
also have the influence to inform listeners and participants to
focus on local issues especially those which affects their
communities, they can as well mobilize listeners and
participants to fully engage in their community
developmental issues (Sourou, 2013). In addition,
community radios have a greater chance to empower
marginalized groups by giving them skills in political
communication, helping them develop support networks,
and programming for their basics needs or priorities in the
community.
Moreover, community radios play significant roles in
providing civic education during election periods to the
prospective voters. According to Gustafscon (20013), the
community radios fully engage in civic education.
Gustafscon gives an example of the 2013 general election in
Kenya where community radios played a major role. During
the election period the community radio stations in Kenya
informed citizens about their civic rights and responsibilities
and provided them with the knowledge and information
necessary for them to make an informed and sober decision
making during the voting process.
Apart from provision of civic education, community radios
do also engage in peace building during election periods.
Since most of the elections in African countries have been
characterized by conflicts and instability, community radios
have been fully being engaged in airing out peace messages,
and sometimes they do invite and give airtime to any peace
building agent on institution as a mechanism to restore peace
and tranquility during the entire election process. In Kenya
for example, during the 2013 general election, most of the
community radios invited religious leaders and NGO
representatives as an initiative to preach for a peaceful
election in the country.
Paper ID: ART20199953
10.21275/ART20199953
1844
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN: 2319-7064
ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2018): 7.426
Volume 8 Issue 7, July 2019
www.ijsr.net
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
In the same line, community radios play a remarkable role in
preventing or minimizing hate speeches during election
periods especially in countries where ethnicity is a major
problem. Hate speeches are so dangerous and illegal in any
democratic countries as they can cause destruction in
society. A visible example resulting from hate speeches
based on ethnicity was in Rwanda whereby because of hate
speeches anchored by the media, thousands of civilians lost
their lives in the 1994 genocide. As a result, many
community radio stations have devoted themselves in
fighting hateful speeches during elections. For example in
Kenya, during the 2013 general election, all media,
including community radio stations were compelled and
sensitized by the government about the use of hate speech.
This move played an accredited and credible role throughout
the election because the country witnessed a peaceful
election compared to the 2007 election.
2.3 Community Radio in Tanzania
Tanzania has got about 35 community radio stations across
the country. However, based on the various definitions of
what a community radio is, Tanzania Communication
Regulatory Authority (TCRA, 2018) has categorized
community radios into two: (i) community radio commercial
and (ii) is community radio non-commercial.
2.3.1 Community Radio Commercial
The community radio commercial in Tanzania are those
radio stations which have some features of community
radios but in nature they are commercially oriented. Most of
their programs appear not to target the needs of their
listeners or communities. Their major concentration is to
maximize profit and not to serve the people in their
localities, in other words, they are less to people
participation like the purely community radios. Most of the
community radio commercial in Tanzania are established at
district level and thus they serve very few people in the
country. Thus, there is a need for the government and or any
other stakeholders in the country to invest more in
community radios in order to allow majority of community
members in other district participate to the developmental
goals of the country through the various programs aired by
community radios. Currently, Tanzania has about 20 (15%)
community radios in operation which are commercially
oriented as displayed in table 1.1
Table 1.1: Current Operating Community Radio –
Commercial in Tanzania
Name of Radio Location Operating
areas
1 Entertainment FM Dar es Salaam District
2 Kings Brodcasting Services Ltd Njombe District
3 Rasi FM Radio Dodoma District
4 Ndingala FM Sumbawanga District
5 Arusha One Radio Arusha District
6 Standard FM Radio Singida District
7 Tanga Kunani FM Radio Tanga District
8 Storm FM Radio Geita District
9 Tanga Kunani FM Radio Tanga District
10 Big Star FM Mbeya District
11 Mpanda Radio FM Mpanda District
12 Dream FM Mbeya District
13 Radio Ihsaan FM Tanga District
14 Alternative FM Radio Station Dodoma District
15 Ice FM Radio Makambako District
16 Idea Radio Arusha District
17 Big Star FM Mbeya District
18 Mpanda Radio FM Mpanda District
19 Dream FM Mbeya District
20 Mazingira FM Radio Bunda District
2.3.2 Community Radio Non-commercial
Apart from the presence of about 20 community radio
stations in the country, Tanzania also has about 14 (11%)
community radio stations in operations which appear to
purely accommodate characteristics of a community radio
per se. Table 1.2 below displays some of the community
radio stations in Tanzania.
Table 1.2: Current Operating Community Radios Non-
commercial in Tanzania
Name of Radio Location Operating areas
1 Radio Wananchi Newala Newala District
2 Maarifa Radio Dar es Salaam District
3 Radio Wananchi Newala Newala District
4 Radio Hope Iringa District
5 Nkasi FM Nkasi District
6 Pangani FM Radio Pangani District
7 Kyela FM Radio Kyela District
8 Ukombozi FM Mwanza District
9 Uvinza FM Radio Uvinza District
10 Radio Karagwe Karagwe District
11 Radio Karagwe Uvinza District
12 Radio Sengerema Sengerema District
13 Orkonerei FM Radio, Manyara District
14 Fadeco Community Radio Karagwe
The difference between these two categories of community
radios is that community radio commercial are those
community radios which do engage in some advertisements
and other strategies to make profit whereas the latter only
focuses at serving the community with less attention on
maximizing profit. However, there are other categories of
radio stations listed by TCRA as commercial radios 53
(41%), non-commercial radios 40 (31%), and 2 public radio
stations (2%) and commercial radio stations.
Having pointed out the power and influence of the
community radio stations amongst community members and
surrounding communities, it is imperative to state that the
current community radio stations available in Tanzania
seem not to be representative for them to have any
significant contributions in achieving the “Big Results
Now” initiative. Likewise, the available community radio
stations in the country appear to miss some components to
qualify them in the vibrant community radio stations as
explained in the previous sections.
It is thus ironical that Tanzania with about a population of
55 million and 150 districts to rely on only 15 percent of
community radio-commercial and 11 percent community
radio-noncommercial is neither health for the developmental
issues nor the millennium goals. This is because of the
expected vacuum of the flow of information from the
community radio stations which have been reported to be
more close and participatory to the majority of community
members compared to the commercial radio station
Paper ID: ART20199953
10.21275/ART20199953
1845
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN: 2319-7064
ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2018): 7.426
Volume 8 Issue 7, July 2019
www.ijsr.net
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
available (41%) in the country which mostly focus at
maximizing profits. All these forms of community radios
are considered very vital in the development process of the
country.
The current state of radio stations in Tanzania appears to be
dominated by the commercial radio stations (41%),
followed by the noncommercial radio stations (31%),
community radio-commercial (15%), community radio-
noncommercial (11%), and public radio stations (2%).
Based on the main characteristics and prime focus of
commercial radio stations of making profit, it is likely that
these radio stations have very little or no contributions in
achieving the sustainable development goals.
Likewise, the nature and majority of the noncommercial
radio stations (31%) in the country are religious radio
stations which are mostly bombarded with religious
programs and content. This also is an indicator that there is
very little contribution of radio stations in Tanzania towards
the achievement of the millennium goals and other social
problems or opportunities. Surprisingly, there are only two
public radio stations in the country which represents about
2% of all radio stations available in Tanzania.
Therefore, in this regard the focus and interest of this paper
is to highlight the need for the Tanzanian government and
other media stakeholders on the need for expanding or
establishing more community radio stations and if possible
public radio stations across the country in order to allow
diverse community members across the country use the
community radio stations for their developmental, political,
economic, and or social issues, hence, meeting the
objectives of the Big Results Now.
3. The Big Results Now
The “Big Results Now” is an initiative introduced in 2013
by the government of Tanzania as a mechanism to
accelerate the realization of the country’s vision 2025 which
among other things focuses on a multi-sectorial
development programs intended to drive the country to
achieve a middle income country status by the year 2025. It
is a development model adopted from the Malaysian
government. The model is focused on new working methods
in specific timeframe for the effective and efficient
delivering of required national development vision and
mission (URT, 2013). The initiative is also considered being
a delivery approach focused on delivering some specific
goals in the country within a stipulated timeline.
After the adoption of the “Big Results Now” in Tanzania,
every ministry was compelled to align its budget and
priorities to the high-level initiatives of the government as
defined within each five year development goals, which in
turn are targeted at moving the country from being a low
income country to a middle level economy by 2025. To
achieve this, six key areas (priorities) of the economy were
set by the Tanzania government to be implemented by 2025.
The six key areas are: agriculture, water, education,
transportation, resource mobilization, natural gas and
energy. In Malaysia, the Big Result Model was established
in 2009 so as to enhance the country to become a high
income economy by 2020. Since then, the model has shown
significant transformation in Malaysia since its
establishment.
Amongst the transformation it has made includes the
industrialization process which has made Malaysia to be
labeled as one of the leading country in economic
development amongst the Asian countries. However, the
execution of the “Big Results Now” in Tanzania has
experienced some stumbling blocks, amongst which include
budget deficits in the ministries, individual resistance, lack
of enough knowledgeable workers and unskilled labor
which are hardly witnessed in Malaysia and other developed
countries (White, 2013). In order to implement the six
priorities set in the big fast results strategies, there is high
requirement for knowledge dissemination and absorption to
the citizens whereby the community radio stations have a
very potential role to play.
3.1 Integration of Community Radio in the “Big Results
Now”
There are quite a number of reasons as to why Tanzania and
perhaps other developing countries need to integrate vibrant
community radio stations in all developmental matters.
Most of the community radio stations are located in specific
geographical localities or communities in order to boost the
development of such communities. It is unfortunate that the
present community radio stations in Tanzania do not cover
nor exists in many of districts in the country.
The current average of the coverage or operations of the
vibrant community radio stations in Tanzania covers about
eight percent (8%) of all districts and municipalities in the
country whereas the average operations of the community
radio stations which are commercial oriented is about
twelve percent (12%) only. Thus, the implication of this is
that there is a significant vacuum on the contributions of
community radio stations in Tanzania.
One of the reasons why Tanzania needs to integrate
community radio stations for the purpose of achieving the
objectives of the Big Results Now is based on the existence
of a few number of community radio stations across the
country. The current number (8%) of vibrant community
radio stations, and which are commercial (12%) in Tanzania
seem not to be sufficient enough to boost the attainment of
the objectives of the Big Results Now due to the fact that
they do not reach a big number of communities in the
country.
The current community radio stations (both commercial and
noncommercial) in Tanzania only cover about 23 districts
(14%)out of about 168 districts and municipalities in the
country (including Zanzibar); this is not a good number for
a developing country like Tanzania. For example, in
countries like Thailand, India, and Indonesia, the presence
of good number of community radio stations accelerated the
development in these countries. According to Tahir (2016),
until 2016 there were about 3000 community radio stations
across Thailand and more than 100 across Indonesia and
India.
Paper ID: ART20199953
10.21275/ART20199953
1846
International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)
ISSN: 2319-7064
ResearchGate Impact Factor (2018): 0.28 | SJIF (2018): 7.426
Volume 8 Issue 7, July 2019
www.ijsr.net
Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY
Moreover, in order for Tanzania to achieve the objectives of
the “Big Results Now” there is a need to invest more in
community radio stations because of their ability and
influence in the respective communities. Community radio
stations are seen (Tahir, 2016) as a collective enterprise
devoted to developmental matters in their respective
communities, they are considered as communication
amongst the members of marginalized communities in the
remote areas, away from main urban centers. Thus, having
such a number of community radio stations in Tanzania
would enable majority of the rural-based citizenry to fully
participate in achieving the third objective (agriculture) of
the Big Results Now by fully using the community radio
stations as their platforms to obtain, discuss and share
various educative information concerning their agriculture.
Tahir (2016) notes that in Malaysia and Thailand
community radio stations have been considered as agents
for change in the agricultural sector because they play a
significant role in providing new agriculture skills and other
essential information to the peasants. Radio in this regard
provides a set of participatory communication techniques
that support agricultural extension efforts by using local
languages to communicate directly with farmers and
listeners’ groups.
Malawi is amongst the few countries which has somewhat
utilized community radio stations for the developmental
matters of which Tanzania also needs to learn from in order
to fully achieve the Big Result Now objectives. According
to Mhagama (2015), some community radio stations in
Malawi focus on agriculture known as Farm Radio stations
with the aim of disseminating agricultural news to farmers
especially in rural areas. In other words, Farm Radios are
those community radios which focus on the agricultural
development in the rural areas. According to Banda (2003)
as quoted by Mhagama (2015), community radio stations
are also referred to as “a communicative tool that is used to
mobilize communities to support development initiatives,
either those started by the government, the international aid
agencies, or the local Non-Governmental Organizations
(NGO’s). In this regard, Tanzania could tap such strategies
and take immediate steps to establish vibrant radio stations
if she really wants to achieve the objectives of the Big
Results Now.
Generally, Tanzania needs vibrant radio stations because of
their ability and power to mobilize community members to
fully participate in all developmental matters in their
communities. Evidence from countries which have
succeeded shows that community radio stations have had
significant contributions of which Tanzania should not
overlook. A country with vibrant community radio
especially those scattered across the country is more
advantaged than a country dominated by commercial radio
stations. With the availability of community radio, it is easy
to reach every member of community, including those at the
grass roots level for rural development. Likewise,
community radio stations help in providing diverse
community issues such as water management, poverty,
education, social problems amongst others which could be
the focus for programming.
4. Conclusion and Recommendations
In view of the foregoing, it is observed that the role and
contributions of community radio is inevitably important in
any community. However, the state of community radio in
Tanzania appears to be somewhat weak to play any
significant contribution in achieving the objectives of the
“Big Results Now”. Amongst the weaknesses of the
community radio available in Tanzania is that they are very
few, and only concentrated in few geographic areas. In other
words there are more commercial radios (41%) and non-
commercial radio (31%) in the country compared to public
radio (2%), community radio (11%), and community
commercial (15%). Nevertheless, if Tanzania really wants to
easily achieve the objectives of the “Big Results Now”, it is
paramount for the Tanzanian government to fully integrate
and involve community radios available in the country
because of their devotion and concentration to the
community affairs and concerns compared to the
commercial radios which are normally profit oriented.
Overall, community radio allow community members to
dialogue, debate, contribute, critique, educate, and to bring
together community members in all developmental matters.
Thus, it is very vital for Tanzania to integrate such
community radios not only in achieving the objectives of the
big results now but also in all developmental matters.
Therefore, there is a need for the Tanzania government and
other stakeholders to put more priorities on the
establishment of more community radio stations in the
country which would at least the majority of media
audiences who are mostly in the rural areas.
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