Broadcasting Resilience

Countries: Swaziland

Partners: Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) and Workers World Media Production (WWMP) 

Allocated amount: DKK 563.696

Project start: 01/01/2021 Project end: 30/06/2022

With this intervention, the partners Global Aktion (GA), Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) and Workers World Media Production (WWMP) want to create a reliable source of information in Swaziland (Eswatini) in the shape of an audio media production to counter shrinking civic space and strengthen civil society’s ability to organise and mobilise. This will be referred to as Broadcasting Resilience media production (BR media production). The BR media production will address the biggest challenges of civil society in Swaziland during the COVID-19 pandemic, namely the inability of Swazi CSO’s to reach and communicate with their member base. This intervention therefore seeks to expand the capacity of SUDF and its affiliate organisations to spearhead civic education, political awareness, and information distribution

Development objective:

Civil society in Swaziland has the necessary infrastructure, capacity and resilience to uphold the struggle for democracy and freedom of speech. SUDF plays a central role as a reliable source of information and inspiration for democratic change in Swaziland. 

Immediate objectives:

The intervention builds on three immediate objectives: 

1: SUDF has built sound infrastructure and capacity to create journalistic content and to distribute it through the relevant channels with the help of WWMP.

2: 12 mobile journalists from SUDF have gained a practised approach to collecting and recording content for podcasts in local communities. SUDF and WWMP have obtained a steady partnership in producing and distributing BR media productions.  

3: SUDF is a reputable and accessible source of  reliable journalistic content that inspires and empowers social movements to strengthen civic space. In addition, SUDF is now capable of producing BR media productions independently from WWMP. 

Target groups:

1: 11 organisers who are trained to be mobile journalists and the part-time media officer coordinating the efforts. 2: The rest of SUDF and their affiliates’ member base are the recipients of the information services, making up a group of 130.000 people around Swaziland. 3:  Broader Swazi population.