“Voices of the world; free the Airwaves,” was the theme of the Ninth World Conference on Community Radio (AMARC 9) that was held in Amman, Jordan from November 11 to 17, 2006. Around 350 participants from 94 countries attended the conference organized by the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) with a strong message for the development of community radio in the Middle East and North Africa.

The second day of the conference was dedicated to “Amplifying Women's Voices for Gender Equality.” Maria Victoria Cabrera Balleza, the international vice-president for the Women's International Network (WIN) of AMARC opened the day by asking the crucial questions: “Is the negative portrayal and the under-representation of women in decision making not reproduced in Community radio? Can we honestly say that we are exerting every effort and making use of all available resources to enable women to have access to and participate in Community Radio?” The latter question was already answered by the fact that only about 20 percent of the participants in this important community radio event were women. The first question was answered among others by Bianca Miglioretto from Isis International-Manila who presented a survey that Isis conducted among women community radio broadcasters in the Asia Pacific: “Women occupy only 30 percent of the leadership positions in community radio in this region. Accordingly, the training priorities women highlighted are management and decision making skills, besides technical and production skills.”

Other important issues discussed during the AMARC 9 conference were Media Freedom and Social Justice, Communication Rights and Advocacy, Community Media facing Conflict and Peace Building, Removing the Barriers to Women's Communication, Bridging the Urban/Rural Communication Divide, Community Media and Poverty Reduction, Building our Movement, News Networking and Programme Exchange.

Community radio practitioners and stakeholders from all over the world explored ways to remove barriers and increase the efficiency of community radio. They completed the first phase of the participatory action research process that helped update the challenges to community radio. The participants denounced the absence of proper legislative environments and the need to continue to lobby for community radio recognition at all levels. They also insisted on the need to increase knowledge sharing and capacity building in the network, to strengthen the exchanges. The conference was concluded by the General Assembly of AMARC where the new Board of Directors was elected and the Plan of Action for 2007-2010 was approved.

Between official plenary sessions and workshops, a lot of regional and smaller networking meetings took place to plan future collaboration and discuss the Plan of Action of AMARC. In one such gathering of the AMARC-WIN for the Asia-Pacific, women agreed that a production, training and sharing conference on “Women in Community Radio for Civil Society Building in Post-Conflict and Post-Disaster Situations” would be very important for women in the region to learn from each other’s experiences and share those with the respective radio audiences.

The ninth gathering of AMARC was hosted by the Jordanian pioneer Internet and community radio AmmanNet. The conference explored media freedom in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region resulting in the establishment of a 10-member working group to support the development of community radio in the MENA region.

On the last day all conference participants visited the historic place of Petra, where Save the Independent Radio Movement and Radio Sagarmatha, the pioneering Kathmandu-based community radio were awarded the AMARC International Solidarity Prize 2006 in recognition of their outstanding work in defence of human rights and democracy in Nepal.