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Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa – Community Radio Programmes Shut Down, Access to Information in Jeopardy After Voice of America Suspension

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Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa – Community Radio Programmes Shut Down, Access to Information in Jeopardy After Voice of America Suspension


Disrupted programming, journalists sacked from their jobs: the US government’s suspension of Voice of America (VOA), whose programmes were broadcast in all sub-Saharan African countries via over a thousand local partners, undermines access to reliable and diverse information. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns this major setback for the right to reliable information on the African continent, and urges the international community to find alternative solutions to remedy the situation.

For more than four months, the loss of Voice of America (VOA) has deprived millions of vital news information. The US public broadcaster has suspended all its television and radio programmes dedicated to the African continent, putting an end to 62 years of activity.

From the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the Sahel countries, from Zimbabwe to South Africa, the suspension represents a major loss of access to reliable information for millions of people who relied primarily on local television or community radio stations that relayed VOA programmes in national languages.

“The Trump administration’s brutal dismantling of VOA has created a worrying information vacuum, particularly in rural areas of Africa. Community radio stations are now deprived of the programmes produced by VOA in local languages. Lacking resources, they have reduced the number of their broadcasts, losing more and more listeners every day and jeopardising their very existence in some countries where these radio stations have no institutional support. For this reason, RSF is suing the Trump administration in Washington to defend and reinstate VOA’s employees.

Sadibou Marong

Director, RSF Sub-Saharan Africa

More than 20 million Kiswahili listeners affected in the eastern DRC

In the DRC, the discontinuation of VOA‘s Kiswahili programmes is a considerable loss for the millions who speak the language. Community radio station managers, who rebroadcast VOA‘s content, say they are unable to fill the gap in their programming. “We don’t know how to fill the slots in our schedule,” said Kennedy Wema, director of Radio Soleil, which broadcasts from the eastern city of Butembo. In this area of the DRC, VOA was relayed by more than 50 community stations, reaching more than 20 million listeners, according to a journalist who is a member of a local collective and who requested anonymity for security reasons. “In areas under M23 [an armed rebel group] occupation, local radio stations are struggling to produce comprehensive content because of the insecurity,” he said. In this context, “VOA represented a source of balanced information for the population, giving a voice to all parties involved in the peace process,” he added.

In Niger, the last VOA news hour was broadcast in Hausa and French on 14 March. Since then, “listeners have been left confused, dependent on rumours circulating on social media and WhatsApp groups,” says an outraged community radio manager based in the north of the country. VOA‘s Hausa service could reach up to 80 million people in rural areas of West Africa and Cameroon.

Bringing news to a wide audience — even when suspended

VOA had listeners even in countries that had closed their doors to the US broadcaster. In Burundi, where the channel has been suspended since the 2015 political and security crisis, part of the population still managed to access it via smartphones to consult information censored by the local media. “There were WhatsApp groups for sharing certain programmes in Kirundi or Kinyarwanda. The suspension of VOA deprives part of the political class and other key players of a space for free expression,” a Burundian journalist, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RSF.

In Zimbabwe, VOA brought national and international news to marginalised communities. The suspension also ends 23 years of broadcasting by Studio 7, a programme dedicated to local news that was funded by VOA and produced with a vast network of local journalists and correspondents.

This sudden closure has left many correspondents out of work. For example, in Goma, four journalists who were “among the most brilliant,” according to a member of the community radio collective who wishes to remain anonymous, are now unemployed, depriving citizens of their expert reporting. The station also supported its partners through training and equipment, resources that have become inaccessible since it ceased operations on 15 March.