From increasing numbers of vaccinated children and females attending secondary school to encouraging safer sexual practices and better nutritional choices, a well implemented communication plan can vastly improve a project's outcome. Further, taking a multi-tiered approach which encourages community ownership and two-way information flows can lead to a greater sense of empowerment.
Knowledge and information are forms of power in that they are crucial elements for making good decisions. Informed citizens are better equipped citizens. They have increased opportunity to access services, negotiate effectively, engage in civic action, and hold officials accountable. Without information that is relevant, timely, and presented in forms that can be understood, it is impossible for poor people to take effective action.
Although there are many projects which underinvest in information dissemination, Caby Verzosa, a Senior Communications Officer and author of the toolkit for Strategic Communication, asserts that efforts to include a communication element in World Bank projects have been increasing. "There has definitely been an upward trend in demand for our services," she says. In fact, a recent report she co-authored on behavior change communication in health, nutrition, and population projects in Africa found that over a twenty year period, 80% of projects were actively employing a communications element.
"So if the question is are we doing it?" she says. "The answer is yes, we're doing it. More and more sectors are interested and increasingly understanding the value [of communication work.] What we [the EXT department]would like to do is be able to provide Bank staff with the tools they can use to make it happen on the ground."
According to Verzosa, "All development projects are essentially about behavior change." She says the way to achieve this behavior change is to understand what people need to know, do and believe in, and then package that information in a way that is most useful to them.
In order for a communication strategy to take an empowering approach, one should look not only at employing top-down methods such as mass media like newspaper or television, but also bottom-up or interactive methods such as town hall meetings. Both media plans and interpersonal communications should play a complementary role in the process. Verzosa refers to this as a "dialogical process" which implies integrating upstream and downstream communications.
Other suggestions Verzosa offers for successful communication strategies are to i) focus on monitoring and evaluation of behavior change, ii) articulate needed behavior changes for a successful project, starting early in the project cycle, iii) view communications as a management responsibility to create an environment conducive to behavior change, and iv) create partnerships with NGOs, private sector, and government.
Communication and information strategies can come in many forms, and they offer room for creativity and ingenuity. Above and beyond the written word, information dissemination can include group discussions, poetry, storytelling, debates, street theater, and soap operas-among other culturally appropriate forms-and uses a variety of media including radio, television, and the internet.
Recently attention has also been focused on developing grassroots media development, and in particular, community radio. Community radio programs are an example of a communications medium that provide room for communities to actively decide which subject matters are of concern to them and to frame these concerns in the context of their own lives. The Civic Engagement, Empowerment, and Respect for Diversity (CEERD) and Social Development (SDV) groups in the World Bank are currently piloting community radio development, linked to Bank projects, in six countries, with growing interest from other countries. Tia Duer of CEERD notes, "support for grassroots media such as community radio is a way to develop sustainable institutions, capacities, and enabling environments for voice. This is not about using radio to channel others' messages. It's about providing people a means to articulate what is important to them, communicate horizontally, listen in on meetings and events, and to press for government accountability."
According to Duer, in parts of the world where illiteracy is prevalent, radio broadcasting is particularly relevant; it is a low-cost, accessible way to connect many poor people, even in remote places, and may be their only source of news.
Community radio initiatives can support empowerment in a variety of ways. Community radio provides an immediacy that engages people. Radio programs can include debates on issues, roundtables, local reporting and dissemination of information. The issues discussed can help people see common interests, help interest groups to form, and help people organize to tackle problems important to them. The very actions of community members doing reporting and preparing programs empowers them – as well as the people interviewed. Duer said, "We have also seen many cases where people use their radio station as their mouthpiece in raising problems that need redress. In Timor Leste, where a CDD project supported community radio stations, a community leader reported fraud on the air -- named perpetrator and asked him to come forward or face the community on the air. The accused paid back the money. In Ghana, a remote community used their radio station to press a local parliamentarian to deliver on his promise to provide a road. On the air, they called for him to come to face the community. Before long, construction began." began." station to press a local parliamentarian to deliver on his promise to provide a road. On the air, they called for him to come to face the community. Before long, construction began."
In terms of inclusion in World Bank projects, Duer recommends that as communication and voice are an integral part of CDD projects, this type of project should include support to community radio development in its Information, Education and Communications (IEC) component.
Duer also notes that tackling issues "related to legal and regulatory framework and ensuring that the environment is welcoming, is key for scaling up." Policy-based lending should include legal and regulatory reforms for broadcasting, to ensure that public-interest community radio is recognized and is treated differently from commercial and government broadcasting and is allocated a portion of the frequency bandwidth.
| The Community Empowerment and Local Government Project (CEP) in Timor-Leste was the first CDD project with an explicit component to support community radio. With eight stations operating, the project has assisted with the training of management board members, volunteer reporters, managers, and technicians since the establishment of the stations in late 2002 through mid-2003. Loty Salazar, Information Officer in the East Asia and Pacific Region, who works on the project, notes that the project component has had initial results and positive impact in several areas, including: (i) improved access to information and news; (ii) increased youth participation, particularly for women; (iii) efforts of inclusion, peace and dialogue, and (iv) enhanced accountability. |
In addition to radio, similar projects are emerging using video. A project called "Women's Voices" run by the Intermediate Technology Development Group teaches women villagers in Nairobi the basics of filming, editing, and scripting. The program began as an initiative to capture the voices of women on film and evolved to a program which gives women the skills to tell their stories in their own voices. The program is currently operating in Kenya, Peru and Zimbabwe and is being recognized internationally.
The empowering effects of community-based information/communications efforts whether they are using radio, film, or print mediums can be far-reaching and in some cases, immeasurable.
For groups of people who are traditionally marginalized and not accustomed to having their voices actively heard, seeing or hearing their needs articulated with their own voices can be particularly striking. In regards to the work on community radio, Duer says, "The psychological impact of having their own voices over the airwaves, in their own language, is striking. It is confirming; it creates a feeling of being recognized and validated."
For more information: Back to Empowerment Community of Practice Newsletter (Apr./May 2004) |
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