BMAP Forward Mid-Term Evaluation

Date

June 2024

Location

Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia, and Macedonia

Contract

The Balkan Media Assistance Program to Foster Organizational Readiness While Advancing Resilient Development (BMAP-FORWARD) is a $13 million regional Activity (2022-2028) that aims to strengthen the independence and resilience of media outlets in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia through creative partnerships and collaboration. The USAID EE Bureau requested a mid-term performance evaluation of the activity to understand which approaches, tools, and interventions are successfully contributing to planned outcomes according to three key objectives, including to 1) increase strategic business practices of key media partners to operate as viable enterprises and better understand their markets and audiences, 2) reinforce the ability of content producers to produce data-driven content, engage wider audiences, improve digital security efforts, and expand reach across the region, and 3) foster stronger partnerships between media outlets and the technology, commercial, and entrepreneurial sectors to advance solutions on common challenges in the information space.

The evaluation found that the tailored and localized approach is a key strength of the activities’ ability to provide effective, useful, and timely assistance. This has strengthened the shift towards strategic planning, the ability to pursue diversified revenue sources, the improvement in content production and technology use to engage wider audiences, the production of data-driven content using new software, and cross-border collaborations. Key Recommendations included 1) continue to employ the highly tailored approach, 2) consider providing more opportunities for intentional engagement for peer-to-peer learning for newsroom staff from different outlets, 3) consider investing in strengthening in-house expertise capacity, and 4) consider designing and marketing sessions at forums geared towards facilitating potential partnerships between private sector actors.

Copyright © 2020 Integra Government Services International LLC