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| A NETWORKING AND LEARNING PROGRAMME ON HEALTH COMMUNICATION FOR DEVELOPMENT | ||||||
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Communication Initiative (CI) |
Links On this page Dialogue rather than best practice Core issues in health and development communications Presentations Warren Feek Part 2 (Powerpoint 108 KB) Andrew Chetley (Powerpoint 73 KB)
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Full report: Exchange lunchtime discussion 15 April 2002 The Communication Initiative is a partnership of 16 development organisations seeking to support communications interventions for positive international development. Exchange, on behalf of UK based CI partners BBC World Service Trust and The Panos Institute hosted an open roundtable forum in which Warren Feek, the CI Director updated participants on the strategic direction and performance of the Communication Initiative. The CI partners are Exchange, The Rockefeller Foundation, BBC World Service Trust, The CHANGE Project, CIDA, The European Union, FAO, Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, The Panos Institute, Soul City, The Synergy Project, UNAIDS, UNICEF, USAID and WHO. Warren Feek started by providing background information on the CI that included goals, focus and strategy. Discussion participants, especially those on the loop to Drumbeat e-magazine, also suggested improvements and new activities that they would like to see CI introduce.
CI focus
Warren said that the medium and style used by CI help it to look at the available information. He gave examples of media used as: radio; television; printed material; computing and Internet; telephone and fax; advertising; personal contact; community action; film and video; and live drama. On the CI style, Warren pointed out: entertainment; news and information; traditional folk media; marketing; interpersonal; advocacy; community participation; awards and recognition. CI strategy CI looks at partnership process, horizontal linkages, peer review, strategic thinking and real time knowledge and information. Warren said that it was very important in communication for people to receive information they need when they need it. He noted that having linkages from other practitioners was more likely to improve people’s practice while strategic thinking is what helps people to perform. He stressed that CI uses horizontal linkages to support the improvement of its work. Some of the following trends were also noted:
Dialogue rather than best practice Debate centred around political correctness on the usage of the term “best practice”. It was felt that the term should be avoided to ensure different cultural contexts and related practices be taken into consideration, as opposed to the application of a single model. “You can not replicate a practice but you can have a dialogue,” said Warren. He added that it was a fallacy to take what is known as best practice in Colombia to Durban. He was of the view that making decisions from your context is better than implicating best practice to others to follow. On what people need to help them do their job better today, Warren’s advice was for people to choose according to their context and interests. He also identified recognition, profile, community, connections, respect, and voices from the on-the-ground action. Warren also pointed out indicators that prove whether the people CI want to engage are the ones engaged. The indicators include:
Staff from Exchange, Panos and CI all presented their perspective on the five core issues in health and development communications Five core issues - Exchange Conversation: With regard to health issues the trend to date has been to focus on delivering messages. A need to move away from simply delivering messages to encouraging related conversations was emphasised. Culture: The culture in which the above occurs needs to be taken into consideration as it can be positive and be used effectively. Culture was also looked as something that holds the key to the fundamental process of communication. “We communicate most easily and most happily within our own cultural constructs”. Context: Greater attention needs to be paid to the overall context of a given issue. Health as a sector has had a tendency to focus on biomedical issues often resulting in important social issues being ignored. The UNAIDS HIV/AIDS Comunication Framework was identified as one tool that could help. Communities: There was need to strengthen capacity development of members of the community to allow them do more themselves with limited external intervention. This encourages and empowers to share their experience with their neighbours in a sustainable way. Channels: Preferred formats of media should be applied, depending on what the given group of people is comfortable with. Research indicates that a variety of channels used in combination with each other are more effective than a single channel. Andrew added a sixth issue of Connections: When analysing a situation, we need to consider making connections with both the problem at hand and with other people. In order to be more effective we should not work in isolation but network with others as there is such a wealth of activity and information available. Five core issues - CI Warren Feek started his presentation with a quote which gives a useful illustration of how ascribed meanings should be relevant to the context:
CI sees the core issues as: Data Validity: A great challenge is to view the field as being data driven which is met with resistance in relation to the issue of validity. An Equal Partner: The need to question equality amongst partners was raised. At policy level experts are engaged in mapping the way forward. There is still a dominant view in development action and communication policy that it is the processes which help explain, promote and sell the ‘real’ programmes and the organisations behind them that is important, not genuine partnerships with the other disciplines. Whose Voices: One therefore needs to be aware of whose voice is actually being amplified, as the tendency in communication strategies has been to stress the voice of the people who have worked out the answers. Often there tends to be a dialogue between experts and experts on an issue with specific proposals as to what ‘people’ ‘should do’ with little impact on most development issues and the issues are becoming more social and political. Issue based: The manner in which the field is broken into sectors (gender, health issues, environment, HIV and AIDS) is not a true reflection of reality and one needs to bear in mind that all issues are intertwined and affect each other. The question remains: How do we negotiate and implement communication initiatives that match the reality of life rather than the reality of the development business? ‘Out of date’ understanding of commercial marketing: the focus of commercial marketing is on strategies as opposed to influences. Warren also had a sixth core issue of organising ‘our’ perspective and voice. He said that demographers, drug developers, epidemiologists, scientists and many other disciplines in development find ways to advocate their perspective and recommendations as a discipline. He noted that ironically communicators seem to struggle in doing the same. He identified the need for our views to be much more to the fore. Warren pointed out the queue of disciplines taking responsibility for the HIV and AIDS ‘success’ in Uganda as evidence. Five core issues - Panos James Deane from Panos raised a fundamental question of why we choose to focus on certain issues. He told participants about the latest policy documentation on communication technology, produced by DFID a month ago, which focuses on the importance of information in the development context. Are the actual needs shaping the focus, or is the focus related to financing and budgets? The need to move away from being message oriented to talking was reinforced. The liberalisation of media in many areas is a massive opportunity to bring social issues into public agendas. Radio as a means to generate conversations was highlighted, via phone ins, discussions and talk shows. Predetermined ideas on the outcome of agendas need to be replaced with a more data driven approach. In light of the consumer agenda, a growing number of marginalised groups should be considered. The importance of ownership of development agendas at the civil society level as opposed to government and NGO level, was stressed. The growing role of communications and development was viewed as critical and at the heart of poverty alleviation Group discussion After the presentations, there was a general discussion in which listening to people’s voices was identified as a fundamental issue. The group also discussed:
Challenges identified during the group discussion included:
Evaluation Most participants praised the excellent speakers and an interesting audience. Several people noted that the two hours are not enough time to make an in-depth discussion. Because of the high number of participants who attended, there were some complaints of the venue being too small. Over 40 people attended the discussion. Topics that people suggested for future lunchtime discussions included:
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