The PRSP process aims at fostering an open and inclusive national dialogue among the stakeholders including the government, civil society groups, and the wider population which will stimulate public debate around the PRSP in order to ensure participation and ownership of the strategy. The strategic use of communication tools and concepts can help ensure this process of inclusion through sharing and dissemination of information and knowledge at all levels of society. Besides, the two-way flow of communication among an informed audience would help ensure accountability and transparency in the formulation and implementation of poverty reduction strategy. Participation, the keystone of PRSPs, relies on accurate, consistent and continuous communication that provokes response and encourages debate and dialogue leading to better understanding, the application of issues to ones own circumstances, and participation in all phases of a PRSP. Designing a communication strategy for PRSP will vary from country to country since it involves several factors related to culture, language, behavior, socio-economic and political dynamics, psychological pattern, existing communication channels and networks in a given country. This chapter is aimed at providing a practical guidance in order to develop and implement a communication strategy for PRSP. It includes some case examples where communication interventions have been used for information sharing and dissemination in the formulation of PRSP. The first section focuses on the important factors of communication to be addressed in designing a PRSP communication strategy. The section discusses the role and scopes of the strategic use of communication in ensuring greater participation, informed public debate, and accountability in the PRSPs. The second section briefly discusses the multi-dimensional aspect of communication interventions in PRSP and focuses on the steps of developing a national PRSP communication strategy. The section elaborates different issues and steps of a communication strategy such as objective, research, activities, audience, messages, networks, channels, feedback, and costing. Finally, the technical notes will provide case examples and different matrix that can be used as examples while designing or implementing a PRSP communication strategy. PREVIOUS CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER
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