BBC World Service – Written evidence (AFG0015)

International Relations and Defence Committee inquiry into The UK and Afghanistan

September 2020

Introduction

BBC World Service provides trusted news to radio, TV and digital audiences around the world in 42 languages including English.  It is chiefly funded by the UK Licence Fee with additional funding of £86m a year coming from Government in the form of a Grant channelled via the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office which has enabled the biggest expansion of the World Service since the 1940s.

The World Service’s expansion (known as the World 2020 programme) included the launch of 12 new language services aimed at Nigeria, Ethiopia & Eritrea, India, Serbia and the Korean peninsula, enhanced programming in English, Arabic and Russian and the opening of new bureaux in Nairobi,

Lagos and Delhi.  Government funding has been confirmed up until September 2021 – funding beyond that point will be decided as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). 

A large percentage of the additional funding the World Service receives from the Government is classed as Official Development Assistance (ODA).

As well as providing impartial, accurate and independent news wherever there is a need due to media freedom restrictions or lack of means of access, the World Service plays a role in holding power to account, offering insight and fresh perspective during conflicts and as a defence against fake news and disinformation.

This year’s Global Audience Measure[1] showed that BBC’s news services now reach 438m people across the globe each week, an increase of 13% on last year.  In Afghanistan, the seventh largest market for the BBC outside the UK, the BBC reaches 11.4m people every week – over 50% of the adult population – via the BBC Afghan service in Dari and Pashto, BBC Persian, BBC Uzbek as well as via commercially funded BBC World News TV and bbc.com/news.  BBC Pashto reaches a weekly audience of 8.3m in Afghanistan while the weekly reach of BBC Dari in the country is 4.3m (both services also reach diaspora audiences outside Afghanistan). 

The BBC’s unrivalled status in Afghanistan as the most reliable, trustworthy and independent news source[2] and its extraordinarily high reach means that it is regarded by some as a national broadcaster. 

BBC Monitoring tracks, translates and analyses local media sources to make sense of what is happening on the ground around the world.  It has highly experienced regional teams based around the world, who are immersed in the local media environment with a nuanced understanding of language and context.

BBC Media Action is the BBC’s international charity. It operates in some of the world’s poorest and most fragile countries, with media and communication that saves lives, protects livelihoods, counters misinformation, challenges prejudice and builds democracy.  It is not funded by the Licence Fee and relies on donors and partners to carry out its work.  BBC Media Action has worked in Afghanistan for nearly two decades on projects and programmes addressing media development, political participation and accountability, health, education and gender rights and inclusion.

This evidence to the Committee’s inquiry into the UK and Afghanistan includes insight from BBC Monitoring on media freedom and current challenges for media in Afghanistan and sets out to illustrate the important role BBC World Service and BBC Media Action play in the country.

The Afghan media landscape: media freedom and other challenges

(analysis provided by BBC Monitoring)

Media Environment

• Since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, private media have boomed. The market is crowded; there are approximately 60 private TV channels and 175 radio stations, most broadcasting locally.
• Around 69% of homes have a TV and the medium is a key source of news and entertainment.
• Internet availability is patchy and fewer than 20% of Afghans are online.
• The most common means of online access is via smartphones. Around 90% of households own at least one mobile phone.
• Facebook is particularly popular among young people and the political class.
• Readership of the printed press is very small, although the leading daily newspaper reaches many more people online.
• Thanks to financial and logistical support from the international community, private media have developed to the point where they have edged out state media in terms of influence.

Media Freedom

• Article 34 of the Constitution allows for freedom of the press and of expression. However, the Media Law contains restrictions regarding content that is deemed “contrary to the principles of Islam and offensive to other religions and sects”.
• There have been some systematic attempts to restrict media freedom. In June 2020, the government sought to amend sections of the Media Law that allowed journalists to protect the confidentiality of sources. The draft proposal, which had been sent to Parliament for ratification, was recalled after widespread criticism.

Foreign Investment

         Iran is known to fund some Afghan media while Saudi Arabia and Salafi circles in the Gulf and India have also reportedly moved into the media environment as the West reduces its involvement.

• Saudi Arabia runs satellite TV channels which target Persian-speaking Sunnis of the region and reportedly bankrolls a small number of Afghan outlets.

Journalism Under Threat

• The media have been beset by an increasing number of physical attacks; 2017 and 2018 were particularly deadly years for journalists, among them the BBC journalist Ahmad Shah, killed in 2018.  Mohammed Nazir, a BBC driver, was killed in a vehicle bomb attack in 2017 as he was driving journalist colleagues to the BBC’s Kabul office.

         The bold journalism that was practised under international protection has waned. Media outlets now feel pressure not only from the Taliban, but from newly-assertive conservative and ethno-nationalist circles, government officials, warlords and local power brokers.

• Insecurity, the NATO drawdown and Western officials’ talk of lowering expectations for reform and democracy appear to be encouraging various actors to try to exert more control over the media.
• As a result of the above, self-censorship has grown and outlets and reporters are tending to avoid objective reporting on sensitive developments. On the other hand, reporting that is intended to appease the powerful is on the rise.

Financial Struggles

         Afghanistan’s media are under increasing financial pressure. In seeking new sources of funding, they are vulnerable to manipulation by other countries in the region which are jockeying for influence as the West disengages.

• Financial insecurity has coincided with the departure of the bulk of Western forces. Advertising revenues are shrinking fast and international donors are tightening purse strings.

The BBC in Afghanistan

Background

BBC World Service started broadcasting in Pashto in 1981, at the height of the Cold War, in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  As information in the country was under strict government control, the BBC’s radio broadcasts in Pashto became staple listening for millions in Afghanistan. Mullahs were asked to adjust the evening prayer times to allow people to tune in to the BBC.

From the mid-1990s, the weekly radio soap-opera New Home New Life in Pashto as well as Dari (produced by the BBC’s international charity BBC World Service Trust – now BBC Media Action) started to raise topical issues such as awareness of mines (a scourge that claimed thousands of civilian lives), immunisation, and refugees’ return to their villages.  Aimed at empowering women, it was also a radio drama in its own right, bringing together entire families and, where radio sets had to be shared with neighbours.

The BBC in today’s media landscape

Today, there are lots of sources of international information in Afghanistan.  But it is to the BBC that people still come to get confirmation of what they’re hearing or seeing elsewhere.  For audiences there, the BBC continues to be one of the main windows to the rest of the world.

The BBC now reaches 11.4m people in Afghanistan weekly via radio, TV, online and social media platforms – over 50% of the adult population. 

A third of the BBC World Service’s non-English language services’ audience is aged 15-24 and this engagement with younger audiences can be seen in Afghanistan where 39% of the audience falls into the 15-24 age bracket.

Women in Afghanistan are also strong users of BBC content making up half of the audience although engaging women on digital platforms is a challenge that the BBC faces along with other media. In order to address this, the BBC is currently in the process of launching new Instagram channels in both Pashto and Dari aimed directly at women in Afghanistan.

In addition to the BBC Afghan service in Dari and Pashto, BBC Uzbek offers TV and social-media content tailored for Uzbek-speakers in Afghanistan. The BBC Uzbek Monday to Friday TV news programme for Afghanistan which reaches 1.8 million viewers every week relaunched in January 2020 in an extended, 15-minute format with an even greater emphasis on Afghan and regional developments, technology, women’s  issues, sports and Uzbek cultural heritage.   

The BBC’s TV offer in Afghanistan is available:  in Pashto - on Shamshad TV, in Uzbek - on Arezo TV, and in Persian - on Ariana News TV (the programmes are also available via the services’ websites and YouTube and Facebook channels).  BBC Persian TV content is also available directly on satellite to audiences in Afghanistan. The English-language TV channel, BBC World News TV, and the English-language website, bbc.com/news are also available.     

BBC content is also available via 32 BBC FM frequencies across the country, a private radio network and three private radio stations.  Following a new partnership with Afghanistan’s national broadcaster, Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA), last year the BBC’s flagship radio news programmes for Afghan audiences are also rebroadcast live in Dari and in Pashto every day via RTA’s FM network in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan, as well as on medium wave.  

BBC News services rank above all other media in Afghanistan, national or international, for trustworthiness, independence and reliability. The BBC also leads other international media in Afghanistan on measures to do with helping people understand the news, what is essential to know and informing their world view.

Editorial highlights

Daily radio output in Pashto and Dari includes four live broadcasts of news and current affairs in each language: one-hour audience-participation programmes - Word of the Day in the morning and News and Views in the evening; and Global Newsbeat bulletins for younger listeners. 

The BBC Pashto daily TV programme, BBC Naray Da Wakht, is broadcast live from London on Shamshad TV in Afghanistan. Its popular presenter, Sana Safi, has a social-media following of 1.7m. 

Political debate programme, Open Jirga, produced by BBC Media Action works with RTA and the BBC Afghan service to ensure ordinary people from across the country can question their leaders and hold them to account. Impact research with men and women who attended Open Jirga studio recordings found that 70% reported learning about the peace process and talks from Open Jirga and 79% reported learning about voting rights.

Open Jirga is now focusing on the Afghan peace process, providing the only national conversations on public television, accompanied by a digital initiative aimed at young people. The programme uses audio and video connections to link up to 50 audience members from remote regions to a studio panel of officials, political leaders and peace process negotiators. 

In 2018 a new TV series of children’s bedtime stories in Pashto Lallo Lallo (Lullaby) was introduced.  The programme started out as a radio series in the early 90s during the civil war in Afghanistan with the intention of giving children some moments of escapism and happiness. The series was co-presented by Kharakai, a make-believe grey rabbit, who Afghans fell in love with, sending her letters, gifts, and toys.   Afghan children can now watch the stories rather than just listen to them.

The TV series talks about health, safety, education and morality, and features Kharakai’s daughter, Warakai.  Starting as a ten-part weekly series, it was later extended with more episodes – following a warm welcome from the TV and digital audiences. 

Season of programmes on female issues - in March BBC Pashto rolled out a season of content exploring key issues that matter to women in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  An eight-part weekly digital, TV and radio debate series, Let’s Talk (Razai Khabery Wakro), covered subjects such as domestic violence, female identity, women’s rights, and sexual and reproductive health.  The series previously ran on Persian, Uzbek and Dari services, having evolved from an Instagram-focused project to a fully-fledged version on digital and TV platforms. The digital and TV series, Determined Women (Hoodmany Khezy), profiled the accomplishments of outstanding Pashto-speaking women including politicians, musicians, artists, businesswomen and sportswomen. 

Coverage of Afghanistan:

• A key highlight of BBC coverage of the situation in Afghanistan was One Month in Afghanistan – an investigative data project to monitor and report how many people were killed in Afghanistan in August 2019. This was a very important piece of journalism providing an important backdrop to the ongoing peace talks between the US and the Taliban in the Gulf.  BBC News teams gained incredibly rare access to Taliban-controlled territory, in Faryab province[3], to meet those civilians most at risk.  
• Afghanistan elections - following Afghanistan's twice-delayed presidential election in September last year BBC Persian produced a special series of content including on the effectiveness of the sophisticated biometric voter identification system at preventing fraud and a deeper look at the achievements and failures of the national unity government.

Covid-19

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Open Jirga debates included government representatives and health experts, dispelling dangerous rumours about Covid-19 and providing trusted information about prevention, symptoms and treatment.

In late March 2020, as the virus spread and trusted sources of information were in demand, BBC News recorded the highest reach of any international media organisation in the world with 310m people accessing coverage across 42 languages. BBC Pashto and BBC Dari online audiences were up by 48% and 123%, respectively, in the first three months of 2020 compared to April-December 2019.

BBC Media Action is establishing a project focusing on hygiene and health with Afghan’s urban poor and its nomadic population to slow the spread of the virus – more details included below.

BBC Media Action

As mentioned above BBC Media Action has worked with the BBC Afghan service on key programmes including:

• Open Jirga - its flagship discussion and debate programme established in 2012 in collaboration with RTA, which was funded by the Department for International Development and is now funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (formerly FCO).
• Radio drama, New Home New Life, on air since 1994, and produced by the Afghan Educational Project, follows the lives of 50 characters and their families living in three fictional remote villages in rural Afghanistan. Following an intensive process of capacity-building and mentoring, AEPO became an independent organisation in 2012, with continued editorial support from BBC Media Action.

BBC Media Action has also strengthened the production skills and standards of state broadcaster RTA, working on planning and budget processes as well as TV and radio coverage of key governance issues.  Past projects include helping the Afghan parliament build a modern Media Centre with cameras for covering lower house sessions, and support to establish the country’s media law.

BBC Media Action is now establishing a project funded by the DFID-Unilever Hygiene Behaviour Change Coalition, focusing on hygiene and health with Afghan’s urban poor and its nomadic population to slow the spread of Covid-19. The WHO reports over 22 million Afghans are without basic handwashing facilities including soap and water at home. Combined with cultural traditions including communal eating with hands and handshake greetings, and the need for the urban poor to earn money to support themselves and their families despite lockdown, the country is hugely susceptible to the pandemic, particularly in overcrowded homes and in IDP camps. The country’s estimated 1.5 million nomads are also at increased risk, given their lack of access to basic infrastructure, and are underserved by government services and NGOs.

Trusted information about health and hygiene will go out over Media Action’s diverse network of state and community radio station partners, over mobile phones and via outreach to community leaders, to help save lives from Covid-19 while achieving gains in other hygiene-related health issues.     

Conclusion

Afghanistan’s media are under increasing financial pressure, self-censorship is growing and it is becoming more dangerous for journalists to operate there.

Meanwhile Afghanistan’s neighbours including Iran and Saudi Arabia are increasingly jockeying for influence in the media. Such outlets risk eroding sectarian relations, which have traditionally been good despite four decades of conflict.

The BBC reaches more than 50% of people in Afghanistan every week, it has an important and influential role: through the World Service language offer in the three main languages in Afghanistan, delivering impartial trusted news and information to the population, bringing different communities together and ensuring that the views of all parts of society are reflected in public discourse; and through BBC Media Action projects which help to strengthen local media and bring important health information to those at risk.

The BBC also provides the strongest defence against a tide of fake news and disinformation, much of it directly damaging the global public health response to the Covid-19 crisis.

This year’s increase in the BBC’s global audience figures show very clearly how the World Service can deliver audience reach growth as a direct result of investment in its services.  With the help of additional government investment, the BBC has a plan to reach a much larger global audience which combined with the enormous trust audiences have in the BBC will secure wider benefits for the UK.  A strong World Service makes other objectives – a Global Britain, the promotion of open societies sharing UK values and economic growth through trade – easier to achieve.

The BBC’s proposals include plans to further expand BBC Pashto, with a wider editorial mix particularly with regard to programming targeting women in Afghanistan, and to improve integration between language services in order to drive greater reach.  With sufficient investment new FM transmitters to increase output power for rural audiences could also be introduced.

Discussions on these proposals and future investment will take place as part of the Government’s Integrated Review and the final decision will be known when the CSR is announced.

Received 14 September 2020