This process is not an academic initiative, nor is it aimed primarily at national policy makers or institutions engaged in creating an enabling environment for the community media sector. While the information generated may well be of value to policy makers, service providers, and development planners, the primary beneficiaries of the initiative is the media projects and the serviced communities themselves.

The CMI offers projects an opportunity to create themselves as learning organisations. They can embrace the opportunity to focus their energies through planning and then reflect on their activity with a view to extracting lessons and improving future performance. The CMI can deliver an action agenda for strengthening the project.

Projects will benefit from a structured opportunity to develop a greater awareness of their vision, their purpose, or their goal given their values and their location in broader social process. Awareness of this vision will aid projects in assessing their choices, balancing their priorities, and evaluating their progress. 

The CMI enhances a project’s ability to access information about other members of the Development Eco-Systems and share information about themselves. The participatory nature of the CMI will support projects to maximise synergies in the Development Eco-System drawing on the knowledge and other resources in a co-creation of their goals. Greater dialogue among stakeholders will enhance transparency, accountability, networking, and partnership, 

The process also increases the self-awareness of individuals in projects, increasing analytical skills and capacities in action-research.

Stakeholders beyond the project itself can benefit from the CMI self-assessment primarily through the insights and information it communicates. Other community media and development projects will gain valuable insights that can be used to inform growth in their own contexts. 

If a significant number of projects adopt the CMI it will prove highly valuable as a builder of consensus amongst sector stakeholders, promote networking, and foster a common understanding of the state of community media. The CMI could set the capacity building agenda for the entire sector by identifying specific strengths and weaknesses across projects as well as support reforms in the policy and enabling environment.

The CMI could become a reporting standard in the sector. The Media Development & Diversity Agency (MDDA) has already adoptd the CMI framework for ther intenral monitoring and evaluation work. If other donors adopt it as a reporting standard, the CMI self-assessment could be submitted together with supporting documentation for verification. The MDDA and/or other donors could conduct site visits and ‘audit’ the CMI self-assessments. This would increase transparency and accountability, in turn enhancing the effectiveness of donor funding.

CMI assessments should also be published on a public website (like www.communitymedia.org.za). This would empower all stakeholders in the sector (and those looking to engage) with access to information – a critical ingredient in any growth. This information would prove invaluable to advocates for the community media sector who are often asked to justify the sectors value and impact.