Journal of Community Mobilization and Sustainable Development

Non-governmental organization (NGO) based community radio stations (CRS) have played a crucial role at microlevel by mobilizing community participation in grassroot development. The study revealed that CRS owned by NGOs were more aligned to the community needs and aspirations. On the other hand, it was also found that the NGO owned CRS regularly confronted the issues of financial sustainability and a major thrust of these radios was towards the struggle for financial assistance for survival. Their impact was found to be substantial whereas the government support was found to be negligible. Thus, it is inferred that the government should make structured investment into programme production and community participation processes of community radios across the country to strengthen this very effective grassroot media.