The Banikoara Community Multimedia Centre (CMC) was first established as a community radio in March 1994, under the name “Radio Banigansé de Banikoara à la croisée des chemins” (loosely meaning “Banikoara Baniganse Radio at the cross road”). The community radio was created with the support of l’Agence de la Francophonie as part of a project that had been launched in 1989 by Heads of States and Governments of French-speaking countries. The project also provided assistance to existing and/or new community radios in Burkina Faso, Congo, Benin, Central African Republic, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Cameroon. Each assisted radio signed an agreement with l’Agence de la Francophonie:

• To allow a real involvement of the populations in the programming and in the production of the radio content
• To encourage the transfer of technologies and facilitate the complete emergence of organisational structures and administration of the media well adapted to the local realities
• To offer a service better adapted to the local specificities

Management
A local management committee of 19 members directs the radio. The members of the committee are elected by a local General Assembly for a two-year mandate. The General Assembly consists of representatives from each of the 10 townships of Banikoara and oversees the political as well as administrative functions of the local authorities headed by a Mayor. The committee meets thrice a year. Within the local Management Committee there is a Control Commission for the CMC. This Commission conducts periodic checks on the operations of the CMC. The CMC manager reports to the Management Committee on daily operations of the centre and on the management of human, material and financial resources.

Infrastructure
The first Community Radio building was built with financial support from the Banikoara Co-operative Association for Farming Development(ACOODER) and the Union of Cotton Producers. Later, an annex building was constructed with funding from the community, consisting of 2 acoustically fitted radio studios. Today the CMC has a public bar, a community meeting hall, 2 semi-professional radio studios (one used for on-air broadcasting and the other for production) and two 100- watts transmitters (one used as a relay transmitter). In addition the centre has : a computer training centre equipped with 13 personal computers (PCs) (3 other PCs are in the studios and offices), printers and scanners all in a local area network (LAN); a centre for photocopying and document binding; a solar panel system; a 24 hour maize-mill electricity generator; offices and a library. The Deutche Welle Corporation donated a satellite TV and radio receiver. UNESCO provided the start-up support for the establishment of the computer centre, by contributing four PCs, printers, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), a scanner and a digital camera. UNESCO also provided essential training for the staff and management.

In August 2004, Banikoara CMC commissioned its newly installed VSAT with 18 months initial subscription, a local area network(LAN) and a server, all provided by UNESCO. The installation of the 16 kbps uplink/64 kbps downlink VSAT has created the town’s first Internet access point, which is currently the only reliable means of communication in the area.