Since the Indipendence, Radio Mozambique has expanded to all provinces and is now estimated to reach about 95 per cent of the national population. The liberalisation of the media market in the 1990s opened up space for the emergence of community radio stations, increasing their level of expansion and territorial reach.
Community radios – of the Institute of Social Communication (ICS) and FORCOM – are an important source of information in rural Mozambique: about two-thirds of Mozambicans, especially those in rural communities, receive their information through community radios. Through programme production, community radios play an important role in community mobilisation, influencing behavioural change on issues related to health, education, agriculture and climate warning.
Donato Maguere (32) is a young man from the district of Macossa, in the province of Manica, who has been joining forces with other radio producers since 2021 – the year Macossa Community Radio (ICS) was born – and explains the importance of radio for local development.
“I have always liked radio, especially Radio Mozambique’s news bulletins, and when I had the opportunity to be part of the community radio team I was really happy because I firmly believe in the role radio plays in informing listeners and helping to maintain peace.” 
“Macossa is a very small area and with the entry of radio we are seeing growth, progress, especially in terms of behaviour change,” says Donato. “We have programmes on climate change, for example, or malaria.”
“I can also say that our radio station played a very important role during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was us, with our messages, who helped the population to control the disease, and our radio reaches the last listener in the most remote community, even where there is no telephone network,” he says proudly. “It is thanks to radio that our communities are better able to fight malaria and deal effectively with the crises caused by climate change.”
Radio is a key medium for maintaining peace. “Through the production of news and commercials, the radio daily conveys the message of the importance of the inclusion of the DRDs, the people demobilised by the war, in society,” says Donato, “with DELPAZ – the programme of the Government of Mozambique, financed by the European Union with the support of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and its partners such as the NGO HELPCODE in our province, and in Tete – we continue our work for the inclusion of everyone in society and for the tranquility of our communities.
“People believe in us because our news is credible and we do not fall into the trap of fake news often spread through social media,” adds Narcísia Kupa (34), also from Macossa Community Radio. 
“I have been working in radio for three years,” says Narcísia. “In addition to broadcasting news about what’s happening in the district, we convey educational messages about health, such as the importance of mosquito nets in the fight against malaria.”
But there is also entertainment. “We play music and take phone calls from listeners: it’s a way of establishing an even stronger bond between us and in this way our credibility also grows.”
Encouraging other girls to work in radio is one of Narcísia’s missions. “I really enjoy what I do because I feel it is relevant to our communities, so I invite other women to get involved in radio work”.