The key challenges identified in the report draws on for investigations undertaken by BCO in 2007-2008. These were concerned with:

• The impact of radio on social and political change
• The impact of information and communications on markets and the poor
• The impact of information and communications networking
• The challenge of impact assessment itself in information and communications work.

The full report of the impact assessment study was shared by BCO with others working in this crucial field of development. A sixteen-page briefing which looks at the main findings and makes recommendations to policy-makers and other key players is now available in English, French and Spanish.

The BCO Alliance

Building Communication Opportunities (BCO) is an alliance of nine development organisations concerned with information, communications and development issues. It was brought together in 2004 as a partnership between “like-minded” donors and implementing agencies. Its membership over the following four years has consisted of three bilateral donors:

• UK Department for International Development (DFID)
• Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
• Dutch Directorate-General for Development Cooperation (DGIS)

together with six international NGOs:

• World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC)
• Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
• Hivos, itself primarily a donor working in partnership with implementing agencies in developing countries
• International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD)
• OneWorld, particularly OneWorld Africa, OneWorld South Asia and Un Mundo América Latina
• Two of the global family of Panos Institutes: Panos London and Panos South Asia.

BCO agencies have been concerned from the outset to include “impact assessment” in their objectives for the alliance. An initial report describing the activities supported through BCO was published in 2007.

Funding for BCO activities came primarily from DFID and SDC, with the former financing impact assessment work. The alliance was coordinated, during the initial four-year period, successively by IICD and APC.

To a significant extent, the BCO programme followed on from an earlier DFID-led initiative, Building Digital Opportunities (BDO), which was implemented in the period 2000-2003 and involved four of the BCO implementing agency partners (AMARC, IICD, OneWorld and Panos). There were also significant links between BCO and the DFID-led Catalysing Access to ICTs in Africa (CATIA) programme, which was implemented in the period 2002-2006.