Football match to raise awareness on environmental issues in Watamu, Kenya jointly organized by UNESCO, UN Environment and UN Information Center. Credit: @UNESCO

By Ann Therese Ndong Jatta and Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 24 2017 (IPS)

24 October has been celebrated as United Nations Day since 1948.

In his message to the world the UN Secretary General, Mr Antonio Guterres remarked, “When we achieve human rights and human dignity for all people – they will build a peaceful, sustainable and just world”.

Sport has proven to be a cost-effective and flexible tool in promoting peace and development objectives

Consider this. On assuming the presidency, one political masterstroke by the late Nelson Mandela was his use of sports to foster the country’s healing process. As hosts of the 2010 World Cup, white and black fans stood and cheered the country’s team together, forgetting past antagonisms.

Mandela said, “Sport can create hope where there was once only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. Sport has power to change the world.”

Sport eliminates barriers and stereotypes in a way few other human endeavors do, rendering innocuous differences in gender, religion, and cultures, and uplifting the importance of team work, discipline and rules of the game for a team to score and win. It is the ideal opportunity to teach team-building, peace and appreciation of the other person’s qualities and abilities.

A team implies a group of people linked to a common purpose. Though human beings learn and work together various professional and personal settings, sports and games strengthen human ties most, endearing most effectively the pain or joy of losing or winning.

That team spirit and a belief in promoting peace, justice, happiness for the whole of humanity are what define us at the United Nations. That is what drives what we do to attain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The values of sports are universal. Olympism is a philosophy that combines the qualities of body, mind and spirit. Blending sports with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational values of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

This is especially relevant today in a world where values are increasingly under threat, with wars, violent extremism, especially gender-based violence and civil conflicts becoming the order of the day.

Research has provided evidence of the benefits and outcomes of physical education and sports in schools, for both children and for educational systems, which include children’s physical, lifestyle, affective, social and cognitive development.

According to data from the Education for all Global Monitoring Report 2015, the number of children enrolled in primary schools in Sub-Saharan Africa rose by 75 % to 144 million between 1999 and 2012, and this is attributed partly to the abolition of school fees in countries like Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya, as well as to an increase in the number of teachers.

This is a population that is a potentially powerful force for cohesion if all these schools have compulsory physical education class.

At UNESCO, Values Education contributes to the development of self-confidence, healthy lifestyle choices, life skills, and an understanding of rules and rights. Values-based education is at the heart of the Kenya Curriculum Reform, supported jointly by UNESCO and UNICEF.

Sport is often seen as of secondary importance to the traditional or ‘legacy’ subjects. However, sensitizing young people to the universal values of sport, such as fairness, inclusion, equality and respect, can equip them with the knowledge and skills needed for the SDG 4 on ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

In East Africa, UNESCO together with members of the UN family is working tirelessly to build a culture of peace, human rights, gender equality and to tackle the social and human dimensions of climate change among other initiatives seeking social transformations for human dignity. Towards these values, we work with youth through sports and cultural activities to unleash their potential and make their dreams possible to achieve.

As enablers of youth growth and development, sport and social actions can lead to raising of awareness of other topics, like gender, domestic violence, drug abuse, breaking stereotypes, religion, race and identity.

Our imagination is the only limit to what sports can achieve for humanity. In a remarkable feat, during the 2016 Rio Olympics Games, a team of Refugees, comprising of 10 members from Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Syria, used sports to break the cycle of poverty, hopelessness and to give courage to millions of people around the world about the power of will, discipline, excellence, solidarity and hard work. Through Sport, the team became the heroes, powerful and inspirational stories of triumph over adversity.

As we celebrate UN day today, our shoulders are squared for the task of giving our youth the tools they need to live happy, fulfilled lives, thus cascade their inner and outer healthy state of beings to a greater human and global cause.

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A group of women in Africa listen to their favorite radio program. Photo courtesy UNESCO.

By Ann Therese Ndong Jatta and Haron Mwangi
NAIROBI, Feb 13 2017 (IPS)

Over the last few decades, radio has played an important role in the realm of development. It has enabled the distribution of information on new policies, technology, products, and ideas with the potential of stimulating growth and development, largely in rural Africa.

Radio acquired the capacity to reach a mass audience in the period following World War I and grew steadily to become a powerful medium of communication. In just a couple of decades, it would equal, and eventually overtake the newspaper in popularity. In the long term, radio also grew from being a mere source of war propaganda and entertainment to being a credible source of news for all sectors of society.

With the coming of the information age however, reference to radio with regards to communication has dropped drastically with few people today appreciating the impact the advent of radio had in the twentieth century. The World Wide Web a much bigger technological breakthrough dwarfs the historical positioning enjoyed by radio in the last century. Many have even argued that the internet has swallowed much of radio’s territory and will soon preside over its farewell party.

In the contrary, Kenya’s case depicts a fruitful collaboration between radio broadcasting and one of the fastest growing information and communication technology sectors in Africa.  The capacity for radio to disseminate programmes to audiences beyond its attributed frequencies has been enhanced.

Kenya continues to experience growth in the ICT sector and has a growing number of broadcasting stations. According to the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) mobile penetration stands at  88 percent while its internet penetration is the highest in Africa at 68 percent.The increase in internet bandwidth capacity has bolstered the growth in internet connection and of mobile subscriptions.  There exists an upward trend with mobile handsets not only becoming the medium for communication but also for accessing other value added services like data and internet, entertainment, mobile money transfer as well as radio.

As Kenya joins the world in celebrating World Radio Day on 13th February 2017, stakeholders in the media industry have so far viewed ICT not as a threat but as an opportunity. An agent that will propel radio to the next level.
Considering that the combination of the mobile phones and the internet have the potential to disrupt the traditional role of radio, it is interesting to note that radio is still popular in Kenya. Out of 372 radio frequencies allocated by CAK, 233 are being utilized covering all major towns and rural audiences.

As Kenya joins the world in celebrating World Radio Day on 13th February 2017, stakeholders in the media industry have so far viewed ICT not as a threat but as an opportunity. An agent that will propel radio to the next level.

The Media Council of Kenya stands for a vibrant, dynamic and responsible media space and has thus continued to engage with radio stations on how ICT can be harnessed to achieve some of effectiveness in the context of sustainability.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO) is currently running a program “Empowering Local Radios with ICT” which aims to bridge the gap between the poor – especially women and girls – and the community to debate on issues of public concern. The program not only trains community radio station staff on the use of ICT but also runs a series of capacity-building activities in local radio stations to improve station programming quality and help increase the geographical range of news coverage with a network of correspondents.

Many stations currently run popular and highly interactive social media platforms which complement their messages on the airwaves. A robust ICT regime has given way to citizen journalism and enhanced the participation of the audience in content generation.

Even as ICT reverses radio’s century-old sender-receiver rules, adapting to the new environment requires facilitation and close monitoring so that no one is left behind. Indicators seem to be pointing at future growth, urbanization and a large generation of tech-savvy youth is already driving up the internet’s contribution to Africa’s GDP. The current estimates show that by 2025 this contribution to GDP could grow to at least 5 to 6 per cent, matching that of leading economies such as those of Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. With radio tagging on ICT’s coat tail the boomerang effect is already underway.

Ann Therese Ndong Jatta is the UNESCO Representative and Regional Director of the UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa

Dr. Haron Mwangi is the CEO, The Media Council of Kenya.

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