Strengthening Accountability through Media in Sierra Leone: Final Evaluation

"BBC Media Action's governance work aims to support more accountable, peaceful and inclusive states and societies."

This report presents the findings of an evaluation of a media project implemented by BBC Media Action in Sierra Leone. It reflects on the impact the project has had on the broader governance system and, in particular, on improving accountability. The project was implemented between 2012 and 2016, which falls within a time when Sierra Leone was hit by the Ebola crisis, leading to increased socioeconomic hardship in the country and an increased need for accountability. The project formed part of the Global Grant governance project, a five-year grant of the United Kingdom (UK) Government's Department for International Development (DFID) (see Related Summaries below for evaluations of other country programmes that were part of this grant).

As explained in the report, the Global Grant project in Sierra Leone was designed to address governance needs including poor government service delivery, lack of access to public information, lack of public awareness of governance issues, social exclusion of women and young people, and poor public participation in decision-making. The project was also designed to address identified media challenges, including poor editorial standards of governance reporting and the unwillingness or inability of government officials to work constructively with the media.

The report outlines the different activities of the project, which were designed to address the above needs by increasing Sierra Leoneans' participation in constructive dialogue and debate that supports greater demand for improved services and equitable decision-making from government. This in turn would contribute to more accountable, peaceful, and inclusive state–society relations in the country. In short, the activities included the production of a fortnightly radio debate programme Tok Bot Salone (Talk about Sierra Leone) and a weekly radio magazine show Fo Rod (Crossroads). It also delivered capacity-strengthening activities for media practitioners, which, through a mentoring approach, saw the organisation support six stations to produce local accountability programmes. BBC Media Action also created a dedicated Facebook page that, as access to the internet improved slightly, was revamped during the Ebola crisis in 2015 to further encourage participation and dialogue among younger people living in towns and cities.

The findings of this report are based on research conducted by BBC Media Action throughout the project to inform its development and evaluate its impact. This included two nationally representative quantitative surveys and a number of qualitative studies with audiences, governance and media experts, civil society organisations (CSOs), and Facebook users.

The findings from the research are discussed in the report according to five key impact areas: audience reach and profile, engagement with programmes, impact on audience-level governance outcomes, impact on the media sector, and overall impact: contributing to improved accountability. The following excerpt provides a summary of the key findings:

"The magazine programme Fo Rod and the debate show Tok Bot Salone built a loyal and engaged audience. The number of people who listened to either one or both programmes increased from 0.8 million in 2013 to 1.1 million in 2015, representing 29% of all adults. The proportion of regular listeners was very high, with practically all listeners tuning in to at least every other episode. In the year after the elections, almost half the audience (48%) was female. But, despite efforts to maintain this, the proportion dropped to 39% by 2015 - a decline also seen in other Global Grant countries following elections.

Research respondents were drawn to the radio programmes because they were informative and easy to understand, and listeners enjoyed the calm, audience-driven style of presentation. Tok Bot Salone's format of debates in different localities was considered particularly effective at providing a platform for citizens to ask their leaders questions.

By 2015, the BBC Media Action Sierra Leone Facebook page was the most popular (liked) in the country. It attracted mainly young, urban, politically engaged men and the diaspora, who wanted to keep up to date with current affairs. Research showed that Facebook made a distinct contribution to encouraging debate and discussion; not only did users share content with Facebook friends, but they also discussed it offline with others in the community.

Around three in four listeners to the two radio programmes reported discussing the shows’ content with family, friends or others, and 94% of endline (2015) respondents reported that the programmes had expanded their knowledge of key governance issues, individual rights, the roles and responsibilities of politicians, and the importance of accountability. Listeners to both programmes were also significantly more likely than non-listeners to feel they knew a lot about key issues (such as political party agendas, women's rights, water and electricity service delivery and corruption) and to report participating frequently in politics (e.g. by contacting a national or local official, taking part in an organised effort to solve a problem, and/or attending a local council meeting). This was true even after controlling for the effects of other social and demographic characteristics.

Fo Rod and Tok Bok Salone appear to have successfully supported bottom-up accountability: more than two in five listeners strongly agreed that they played a role in holding government to account. This is a higher proportion than seen in any of the other countries where BBC Media Action delivered Global Grant-funded governance projects. Accountability was particularly important in the context of the Ebola outbreak when people were reliant on decisive, lifesaving government action. However, the extent to which the programmes supported top-down responsiveness was less clear. There were calls to provide more follow-up programmes to examine leaders' commitment to making promised change.

Trainees at local partner stations reported improvement in programme-making skills, including newsgathering, packaging and reporting. They felt the training had helped them produce programmes that adhered to the editorial values of fairness, accuracy, balance and objectivity. Audiences of the local programmes produced by the stations under mentoring support appreciated their role in improving knowledge of rights and local issues and in providing a platform for discussion with local leaders.

However, the wider media sector, increasingly fragmented, continues to face challenges. As the country prepares itself for the next elections and a potential constitutional referendum, local media will need to continue being supported to play a central role in the process, providing accurate and balanced information, further engaging Sierra Leoneans and fostering constructive dialogue."