Early results show more women participating community radios in Asia Pacific

The Women’s International Network of AMARC Asia-Pacific (AMARC-WIN AP) is conducting a survey on women in Community Radio in Asia Pacific region.

This is the third survey of this kind, that AMARC-WIN AP has conducted. The study is a work-in-progress and we present some of the highlights available so far:

Twice as many responses

We received 70 questionnaires, which is more than double from what we received in 2006. The respondents come from 13 countries in Asia Pacific, including three from the Small Islands Developing States (SIDS). The return of questionnaires reflects the legal changes achieved during these seven years.
AMARC-WIN is being supported by national peak bodies of community radios in the region including Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Fiji Islands. These organizations are actively involved in disseminating and collecting the questionnaires, which resulted in a stronger participation from these countries. The final results of the survey will be published in the first quarter of 2022.

Early Survey Results

From the early results, it is clear that women’s participation has slightly improved in all the positions. The most remarkable improvement can be observed in leadership, which among other factors can be a result of the efforts of AMARC Asia-Pacific to strengthen women’s participation in community radio during the last seven years, including the Gender Policy for Community Radio.

Most radio station in Asia-Pacific have programs hosted by women and 65% of all the radio stations in the survey do have specific women’s programs.