"The paper synthesises findings from quantitative and qualitative data from across African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries. The second section draws on baseline data from Bangladesh, Burma, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Palestinian Territories and Sierra Leone to explore the media and governance contexts in the countries where we work. The third part then summarises what we are learning about who is being reached by BBC Media Action interventions. The fourth section, firstly, reports regression analysis conducted on baseline data from Sierra Leone and midline data from Kenya to build up evidence on the impact of debate and discussion programmes on audiences’ political knowledge and participation. Then findings are presented from a qualitative study assessing how Nigerian drama Story Story is promoting dialogue as a means of reducing conflict. Comparing findings across countries is helping us to learn more about the governance and media contexts in which we work and inform programming. A first glance at key governance outcomes across countries attests to the centrality of country context in shaping how political knowledge, discursive participation, political participation and interest in politics relate to each other. Disaggregating these outcomes by demographic variables underlines the importance of gender in structuring them, with women reporting lower levels of political knowledge and interest in politics, and discussing and participating in politics less than men. However, disaggregating political participation by income reveals less consistent results: in Nigeria and Bangladesh, those with more resources are more likely to participate, whereas in Kenya and Sierra Leone, those with more resources and less likely to participate." (Executive summary)