David Smith

David Smith "is a media specialist with more than two decades' experience devising and implementing large-scale radio projects. His biggest project to date is setting up the Radio Okapi network in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Radio Okapi continues to broadcast in six languages from studios throughout the DRC on FM, shortwave and the internet, covering a territory larger than Western Europe. It is the largest United Nations operation of its kind, and is the most listened to and trusted national radio service in the country.

"David's career in development began in Zimbabwe, and included work as a journalist in South Africa; at Capital Radio in Durban; as a producer for the international service of the public broadcasters of Canada and The Netherlands; as executive producer for UN Radio at UN headquarters in New York; and setting up a UN peacekeeping radio service in the Central African Republic and former Yugoslavia.

"Recent projects include establishing radio networks for refugees from Darfur, preparing the ground for community radio stations in southern Chad, evaluating humanitarian radio projects in Sudan, Afghanistan and Angola, and preparing transition strategies for UN post-conflict radio operations with a view to transforming them into new public broadcasters. He is also spearheading a project to create a pan-African commercial public-service broadcaster."


 * Former Director (1984 at least), World Good News Network