RNL broadcasts information 24 hours daily, 7 days a week locally, as well as two hours per day internationally using shortwave. The broadcast area includes Bangui and its surrounding area (a region with a population of around 1 million), as well as borderline areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the opposite bank of the Ubangi River. In addition, the station has a website that posts news and its programming schedule, as well as facilitating listener comments. It includes print versions of broadcast topics: its radio magazine; civic education information in the region; press news and information; pages on the economy, politics, society, sports, and justice; and flash information and announcements. In addition, there are pages of context for recent news, and pages about the station, including its staff, financing, objectives, impact, and charter.

The station was established when the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINURCA) ended its mission and the radio station it had established ceased transmission in February 2000. RNL re-engaged the Radio Minurca team and launched its programmes on March 27 2000. Communcation projects and information from United Nations (UN) agencies, international organisations, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) reach populations in the CAR and neighbouring regions through RNL broadcasting. The station helps local media improve their output using vocational training through exchanging programmes, and by co-producing programmes. RNL supplies humanitarian information to populations which are victims of conflicts and violence, as well as to refugee, displaced, and vulnerable populations in the sub-region. RNL personnel in Bangui and in the provinces carry out reporting and enquiries for broadcast, and for host journalists, as well as UN agencies, international organisations, and NGOs' representatives. The editorial board double-checks information items and also tries to gather first-hand evidence, accounts, and data, especially when confronted with controversial situations.

Conflict, Rights, Media Development, Democracy and Government.

According to the station’s website, with “little or no exploited natural resources, an abyssal external debt, a bloodless economy and almost totally destroyed infrastructures, the Central African Republic belongs to the group of less advanced countries.” The country has also faced recurring political troubles. Apart from RNL, only the State radio was broadcasting in FM from the national territory at the time of its launch, though in 2009 the BBC began broadcasting from CAR. The other stations, like Radio France Internationale (RFI) or Africa One, have neither staff nor studio in the country. Outside Bangui, the access to professional and impartial information is extremely limited: newspapers from the capital have a restricted distribution, while the television and the radio are still picked up only in Bangui.

According to RNL, for 19 months, Radio Minurca was considered to be the most credible radio in the CAR. Since UN agencies and international organisations considered Radio Minurca as a central element of their information and public awareness campaigns in central Africa, RNL launched its station within a month of the closing of Minurca, partnering at the time of launch with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Fondation Hirondelle. According to the organisers, positive reactions from listeners after the launch indicated that they transferred their trust to the new radio station. In June 2009, Radio Ndeke Luka was the first radio in CAR to be approved by the Hight Council of Communication. This recognition follows the July 2008 registration in CAR of the non-profit
organisation Fondation Ndeke Luka, the legal entity representing Radio Ndeke Luka.