Media to play its role in elections

On Saturday 30^th April elections for the National Assembly will take place across the country. In a front page article in the Vientiane Times the media are urged to report in depth to ensure people understand their democratic rights. The elections will be broadcast live to “convey the atmosphere and up to the minute results.”

The local media have been carrying two page spreads with brief profiles of candidates in the build up to the elections. As of yet there has been little international coverage however there are some foreign journalists in country to cover the elections.

As the article states the National Assembly represent the rights and benefits of all Lao people. However whether any of the candidates are actually non-party members is not clear.

On another note from the Friday 29 April Vientiane Times - a workshop on the use of messages and materials in this year’s dengue fever campaign was held for journalists. This was conducted by a behavior change communication specialist from the Academy for Educational Development in Bangkok and funded by USAID. The journalists received journalistic training in how to report about dengue fever and in raising awareness about the virus.

Developments for Lao media

The front page of the Vientiane Times, Friday 11 March, features a story about the donation of money from the Japanese Government to improve the quality of programmes on Lao National Television. In the article the funding was announced at the same time as USD 6 million also from the Japanese for Laos public transportation system.

Japan will give USD 920,000 to Lao National Television in the hope of attracting greater audiences through higher quality programmes. Specifically the Japanese will provide 484 cultural and educational TV programmes to contribute to, “ the improvement of basic education in Laos while promoting better understanding of Japanese culture among the people of Lao PDR.”

In further developments for the media in Laos a new radio and television station has been launched in Luang Prabang. The Wednesday 9^th March article states that with support from the Vietnamese government this new station will cover 12 districts in the Province. The television station will have five news broadcasts daily and also receives news from Lao National Television.

In addition to programming in Lao language the article states that in line with the Government’s 5-year development plan the radio and television stations will work to also provide news in the Khmu and Hmong ethnic group languages.

The article also covers the planned naming of 200 model cultural villages in the province. These are part of the government’s attempts to remove Laos from the list of least developed countries by 2020. 

Lao media to go digital

The February 21^st Vientiane Times article stated that Laos will convert its media systems from analog to digital by 2020. According to the Deputy Director-General of Lao National Radio, 60-70 percent of Lao electronic media systems in production and editing are currently digital but the transmission and receiver equipment is still analog.

According to the article the Government may fund the project itself or look for international assistance and loans to cover the estimated $100 million to carry out the conversion.

The main challenges highlighted are the financial constraints and insufficient manpower. All production equipment at the Lao National Radio Station will be replaced with digital as part of a pilot project.

There is a proposed roll out of Provinces converting to digital with the three ‘major provinces’ converting first from 2013 to 2015.

Digital mapping given boost

The Finnish government has announced support of US$8 million to help develop a digital mapping project for Laos. According to the Vientiane Times, Wednesday 9th February, the programme will help the National Geographic Department to create, manage and distribute a modern national spatial data service. 

As Laos continues its rapid pace of development the use of land is becoming an important issue. As the article states this is a very necessary project as the country lacks reliable and up to date maps. The programme could as the VT states, play a vital role in monitoring inappropriate land use. If it is used in this way this can only be a positive development as forest cover in Laos, for example, has declined from 70 percent to 42 percent in 2002 (the latest figures). 

This programme is also a further example of Laos developing its ICT capabilities. As Mr Suominen, the project advisor is quoted as saying, 'the project would also introduce the latest ICT technology applied to local conditions, which has the potential to accelerate many aspects of development in Laos.

Laos - Thai media relations strengthened

According to a front page article in the Vientiane Times on 31st January and KPL News on 1st February, a Thai media and information affairs delegation recently visited Laos to discuss cooperation in media affairs. This involved discussions with the Ministry of Information and Culture about digital broadcasting. The Minister was quoted as saying that Laos is seeking advice as it switches from analog to digital transmission. 

A couple of days later the Vientiane Times ran a second story on Laos-Thai media cooperation. The article stated that an agreement was reached in human resource development for Lao media, through training courses, internships, and scholarship awards. Agreements were also made on providing 'facilities' for each others journalists on the reporting of the upcoming 9th congress of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party in March. What facilities this includes is not made clear. The President of the Lao Journalists Association was quoted as saying that the Lao media attach great importance to contributing to good, neighbourly relations between the two countries.

Army media development

‘Army marches into future with radio launch’, caught my attention in the Wednesday 26th January edition of the Vientiane Times. As this blog has a focus on media and development this was an article that couldn’t be missed. 

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Lao People’s Army the new radio station, ‘responds to the modern political requirement to spread Party directives and policies, and forms part of the government’s socio-economic development plans in line with armed forces principles’. According to the article, the radio broadcasts are being transmitted by fibre optic cable from the station in Vientiane to 16 transmitters in provinces across the country.  

The company who installed the radio system was not named but their representative Mr Li Hui, who it could be assumed comes from north of the border, was quoted as saying that, ‘the Radio represents the voice of the Ministry of Defence in responding to political needs’.
On the same day the front page of the paper carried the President’s instructions to central government and provincial authorities to define their efforts in addressing poverty in their regions, particularly in mountainous areas.
 

It is widely agreed that for Laos to realize the MDGs by 2015 and exit Least Developed Country status by 2020 it needs to ensure that even those living in the remotest areas are reached and benefit from development. Around 80 percent of the population still lives in rural areas.

Xinhua open bureau in Vientiane

The Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, have opened a bureau in Vientiane. They are only the second foreign media news outlet to have an office in Laos, the Vietnamese News Agency (VNA) being the other. 

Laos print media already run International stories supplied to them by Xinhua and the Russian state news agency, Ria Novosti.