Countries: Burundi
Depuis les élections de 2010, les relations entre la presse privée et le pouvoir se sont détériorées. Les responsables de l’Union Burundaise des Journalistes (UBJ) et les journalistes des principales radios indépendantes font régulièrement objet de menaces. Ils sont régulièrement intimidés, bastonnés, convoqués intempestivement devant les tribunaux, principalement aux tribunaux de grande instance de Bujumbura, de Ngozi et Bubanza pour la simple raison d’avoir dénoncé certains abus des pouvoirs publics ou d’avoir donné la parole à un opposant. Des pratiques qui rappellent la période du...
Burundi is one of the smallest countries on the African continent, with a land mass of 27,830 km², only slightly larger than neighboring Rwanda with which it has much in common. Like twins, these two countries share the pain of a bloody decade marked by genocide and "hate media". In 1960, Burundi had only one National Radio, one daily newspaper (Le Renouveau) and only one private newspaper, “Ndongozi", of the Catholic church, published in Kirundi. The advent of multipartism in 1990 introduced different private radios, TV and newspapers. Burundi currently has 15 radio stations, 5 TV...
Like other Burundian media agencies, Radio Publique Africaine (RPA) is confronted with three major challenges: lack of funding, insufficient training and lack of equipment. Its transmitters are fast approaching the end of their service lives and mechanical failures are frequent. The radio's backup transmitters are no longer operational and the station has to cope with frequent power outages. This last challenge can be easily overcome, in part, with IPDC assistance. Concretely, the RPA needs 30,000 dollars for the purchase of four, 500-watt radio transmitters and a 10-KVA power generator....
With only one television station, more than a dozen radio stations and fewer than 5 regularly published newspapers, the Burundian media landscape presents quite an imbalanced picture. The crisis that plagued the country for more than 10 years resulted in an all but total collapse of the print media. Le Renouveau du Burundi is the only newspaper which has managed to withstand the multiple and diverse forms of social and political pressure. Recently, though, the Burundian media has witnessed a rapid development in the number of private radio stations. Many of these can claim solid financial...
Community radio is a new sector emerging in Burundi. It needs support from donors, the government and other stakeholders in order to acheive sustainability. The Dushirehamwe women's community media network has established a Peace Documentation Centre with seed funding from UNESCO. This project seeks to establish a community radio station at the documentation centre, with a view to increasing direct participation of community groups, particularly its women members, in dialogue and decision-making processes through a variety of braodcast programmes aimed at the promotion of peaceful co-...
Burundi is in a state of crisis' politically, economically, and socially. Since October 1993 the nation has suffered from massive ethnic-based violence, which has resulted in the death of more than 200,000 persons and the displacement of 800,000 others. It has been estimated that nearly 70 percent of Burundi's over 6 million citizens live below the poverty level and only 35 percent of the population over the age of 15 can read and write. Thus, to promote peace in this war-torn region and augment the free exchange of ideas, this project will create a Community Multimedia Centre (CMC) and...
The objective of this project was to improve the production capacities of the independent press in Burundi as well as the quality of services offered by the Press Club as a media support and promotion centre, via the strengthening of its technical computer resources.
Implemented over the period 1995-1998.
Implemented over the period 1983-1984.
