📑 Case studies

Community Radios in the MENA Region — The Cost of Weak Coordination

After the Arab Spring, community radios flourished as symbols of civic participation. International donors responded enthusiastically, each launching their own support schemes. Within a few years, several small stations were simultaneously funded by different implementers offering similar training or equipment. While individually useful, the lack of joint planning and monitoring meant duplication, inconsistent quality, and short-term dependency. Once project cycles ended, many radios could not sustain operations.

Lesson: Uncoordinated donor enthusiasm can undermine local resilience. A joint donor framework—with shared assessments, coordinated pipelines, and complementary roles—would have achieved longer-term impact at lower administrative cost.

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Duplication and Overlap in Eastern Europe

A regional media-support organisation interviewed for the Transforming Media Development study described submitting nearly identical proposals and reports to four different donors, each using distinct templates and log-frames. The organisation spent more staff hours on compliance than on journalism, eroding its audience engagement and internal morale .

Lesson: Lack of harmonised reporting wastes scarce professional capacity. Joint templates, shared audits, and pooled monitoring would reduce overheads and restore focus on editorial quality.

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The Burden of Multiple Small Grants — Middle East Example

One outlet managed over a dozen donor-funded projects at once, each with different reporting cycles. Four staff worked full-time on compliance, and three more part-time—essentially running an administrative office rather than a newsroom . This fragmentation diluted editorial output and heightened burnout.

Lesson: Scale administrative expectations to partner capacity. Harmonised requirements and multi-year pooled funds are vital to preserve journalistic focus and institutional health.

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Lebanon’s Joint Coordination Mechanism

Following the 2020 Beirut port explosion, international partners—including the EU, Member States, and local media groups—piloted a donor coordination platform. Regular meetings and transparent information-sharing reduced overlap and channelled funds to verified local actors. The European Commission’s representative in Lebanon later cited this as a model for “longer-term programming whereby donors, media development organisations and media partners can sit together and develop a plan” .

Lesson: Formalised coordination platforms empower local actors, improve transparency, and ensure crisis funds build future capacity rather than duplicate emergency relief.

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Positive Practice in Pooled Emergency Funds — Ukraine and Beyond

In response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European donors and philanthropic partners created pooled mechanisms such as the Media Development Fund for Ukraine and rapid-response windows under the European Endowment for Democracy. By consolidating application and reporting systems, these funds achieved faster disbursement and clearer division of labour. Independent Ukrainian outlets reported that shared due-diligence and joint audits “cut reporting time in half while doubling available resources.”

Lesson: Pooling resources and aligning accountability procedures can transform crisis support from fragmented relief into strategic investment.

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Coordinated Learning in West Africa — EEAS and GIZ Collaboration

The EEAS–GIZ “Reinforcing African Media Landscape” initiative in Senegal and neighbouring countries integrated safety, regulation, and training under one shared log-frame. According to project staff , cross-agency cooperation allowed funding from different EU services to converge, reducing parallel calls and enhancing visibility consistency.

Lesson: Joint programming across DGs and implementing agencies can turn parallel budgets into complementary investments, proving that coordination is a multiplier—not a constraint.

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Donor Coalition for Journalist Safety — A Model for Shared Accountability

The Media Freedom Coalition’s Donor Coordination Group (supported by the EU, UK FCDO, Canada, and UNESCO) now maintains a shared incident-tracking and funding-coordination system for journalist-safety initiatives. Its pooled risk assessments prevent duplication of emergency grants and ensure consistency in protective support.

Lesson: Cross-donor coalitions anchored in data-sharing and joint evaluation frameworks provide a replicable template for EU coordination at both HQ and field level.

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✅ Summary — Key Takeaways for Implementers

• Weak coordination drains impact. In the MENA region, overlapping donor programmes after the Arab Spring led to duplicated training, inconsistent quality, and short-term dependency — leaving many community radios unable to survive once funding cycles ended.

• Administrative overload stifles journalism. In Eastern Europe and the Middle East, organisations juggling multiple small grants spent more time on compliance than reporting, diverting staff and creativity away from editorial work.

• Joint frameworks deliver results. Lebanon’s post-blast coordination mechanism showed how transparent planning and shared assessments can channel aid efficiently to trusted local actors, while Ukraine’s pooled emergency funds halved reporting time and doubled available resources.

• Cross-agency collaboration amplifies reach. In West Africa, EEAS–GIZ cooperation aligned EU funding streams and reduced parallel calls, proving that coordination multiplies visibility and coherence across initiatives.

• Shared accountability builds resilience. Coalitions such as the Media Freedom Coalition’s Donor Coordination Group demonstrate how data-sharing and joint monitoring strengthen safety networks for journalists worldwide.

• The overarching lesson: Fragmented enthusiasm helps in the short term but erodes independence in the long run. Systematic coordination — through pooled funds, harmonised templates, and open learning systems — transforms isolated projects into lasting democratic infrastructure.