***

This Drum Beat is one of a series of commentary and analysis pieces. Alfonso Gumucio Dagron, development communication specialist, has responded to the open invitation for anyone in The CI network to write a strategic thinking piece on issues of concern to them in development communication. He examines here the usefulness of international and national "days." What follows is his perspective - NOT that of the Partners collectively or individually.

We are interested in featuring a range of critical analysis commentaries of the communication for change field. These will appear regularly on the first Monday of each month and are meant to inspire dialogue throughout the month. Though we cannot guarantee to feature your commentary, as we have a limited number of issues to be published each year, if you wish to contribute please contact Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com Many thanks!

***

International Days: a burden or an opportunity?

Take a good look at the calendar. You may not be fully aware, but almost every day in the year is the "international day" for some good cause. Some are well-known and celebrated: International Women's Day, World Tuberculosis Day, World Environment Day, World Population Day, International Day of Indigenous People, Human Rights Day, World AIDS Day... Can you keep track of all of them? I consider myself a relatively well informed person, but I am not able to put a date beside the World No-Tobacco Day, World Refugee Day, International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction, Africa Industrialization Day, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, International Migrant's Day, International Day for the Abolition of Slavery... The very day they happen, I realize they exist, and they seem to vanish immediately after.

Hurry up if you have an idea for another international day, because the calendar is almost full. Maybe in the future new months will be added to the calendar year to make room for new initiatives. After all, between the Julian and the Gregorian calendar big changes were made... Right now, what we have is no less than seven or eight international or world days per month, except for January, February, July and August, when people in the North are enjoying their winter or summer vacations. You see, there is logic to it.

Now my question is what do we do with all these international days and what do we expect from people? If you think of good-willing people, the militant of all good causes... Do we expect them to volunteer ten times every month? Looking it from the perspective of a conscious citizen that supports development and social change in our poor damaged world, do we want him to wear all the ribbons like a general with all his medals? Do we want him or her to wear one hundred T-shirts with noble messages?

Something is really wrong and it puts me in a bad mood, particularly because I know how it happens from the inside, from the other perspective. Let's leave for a moment the eyes of the well-intentioned citizen, and concentrate on how the mechanism works at the country level every time there is an international day to comply with. We may want to focus on the World AIDS Day, because everyone knows that one. By the way, I have been in a country where AIDS was the 23rd cause of morbidity and mortality (far down in the list from simple preventable diseases) but still, more funds were spent on doing noise for December 1st than communicating on malaria, diarrhoea, or immunisation.

If we look at all the health related world days, the burden on national ministries of health and UNICEF or WHO country offices to prepare one day-of-activities is irrational. During the two or three months previous to the "celebration" (what the hell are we celebrating?) staff concentrates on developing posters and preparing press conferences, marches through the cities, songs with prevention messages, nice T-shirts, etc. Usually media houses are very happy because they get good contracts to air ads, so that UNICEF, or WHO or UNAIDS are able to mention in their annual reports that "the whole population was involved" and the messages were aired through the mainstream media and had incredible impact in the population of a particular country. Many of these claims are not seriously substantiated, but nobody seems to care about it. The truth is: things are not getting better; something is wrong about doing so much noise and having so little results. "Mucho ruido y pocas nueces" as we say in Spanish, quoting old William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing".

Not only do I vigorously question the "celebration" as a distraction from the daily and all-year long responsibility of fighting AIDS or TB (for example), but I also find very dangerous the burden that is put on national institutions (or country offices of UN agencies) to satisfy an agenda that is imposed from New York, Geneva or Rome. I've seen many communication colleagues in Africa, Asia or Latin America tire of responding to this ad-hoc pressure to deliver new posters, jingles for radio or spots for television. Some of them prefer to outsource an advertising agency to get the whole thing out of their way and please the "masters". But still, the high-profile events where the minister of health will march or the president of the country will send a message sitting side by side with the UN representative, takes a lot of time and energy from the daily work.

This has much to do with the concept of communication that most development organizations have. Not only do they tend to confuse information with communication, but also information with campaigns. On a regular country programme, "communication" often translates into working with mass media, which is a very easy way to get rid of the already meagre budget. Very few development programmes think of communication as communicating with people, and even fewer with the idea of empowering the voices of people to better communicate. Very few see communication as a tool for participatory and sustainable development. Most see it as something you add either when a programme is already in trouble, or to advertise the success of a project when it is about to end. Communicating with people, with communities, with social organisations is not in the agendas of most development organisations. That is why they believe that making a lot of noise once a year keeps them visible. Communication is absent from their programmes, or metamorphosed in marketing techniques. They usually have a better dialogue with commercial marketing firms than with community leaders. These international days are only about visibility, not about social change. No wonder we always end up with T-shirts and bumper-stickers, even in countries where people walk, and walk and walk to get to their villages.

I've always found amazing anecdotes when dealing with international or national days. Let's look at the creation of some of these marketing tools. I was serving with UNICEF in an African country in the early nineties when the Ministry of Health decided that a new logo was needed to promote the anti-malaria campaign. In order to speed up the process of designing and validating the logo, a meeting was convened with the main partners: health staff, local NGOs, international cooperation agencies, etc. I was the only communicator in the room.

The discussion immediately identified the first item, which should be in the centre of the logo: a mosquito. A nurse attending the meeting observed that although being so important in the transmission of malaria, the mosquito only offered a negative image: the logo should suggest that there is cure for the illness, she added, and suggested that chloroquine tablets be placed near the mosquito legs (it reminded me of the kryptonite for Superman). The Rotary Club representative said that his institution had been fighting for many years to prevent malaria through the distribution of impregnated bed nets; prevention, he argued, is so important, that we should have a bed net in the design of the logo. Another participant, from a local NGO, said that because of this being a national campaign, the map of Nigeria should be on the background, "and green as our flag", she added. A doctor, who didn't want to miss his opportunity to make a contribution, suggested that since there are many mortal cases of malaria, a hypodermic injection labelled "Fansidar" should also appear in the design. His suggestion, however, was rejected by the Ministry public relations officer, who said there were already too many items in the logo. And yet immediately, he suggested one more: the Ministry of Health logo and name should surround the design. By that time, I found a good excuse to leave the meeting. This anecdote shows how easy it is to get things wrong when candid perceptions drive the creative process instead of serious specialised communication work.

Forget formative and participatory research: most of these campaigns, logos, messages or posters are decided in a room full of bureaucrats. Communication or information staff are usually overpowered by high ranking officials or doctors who are certain they know "how to communicate" ideas. The decision-making process is of course bundled with political hierarchy, and usually information and communication staff are low-level appendixes to a programme.

One of the paradoxes of the one-day efforts to please donors is that their effectiveness is limited not only by the improvisation that drives the whole process, but also by the lack of strategic and even "tactical" thinking - to use words of the military-advertising jargon that please many of our colleagues. I've seen posters and brochures and T-Shirts (let's suppose they are very well done) that were delivered by the printer one day before the "D" day, which meant there was no chance on earth that they would be widely distributed through the country. Sometimes, with enormous efforts, the Ministry of Health manages to get the posters to the provincial level... And they usually remain in a corner or under the table of the chief health officer for months or until next year. Maybe some of them end on the walls of the local health centre, but seldom get to the community level, certainly not for the "D" day and often not for any other normal day. I remember in Papua New Guinea asking the health staff at a local hospital why the posters were lying for weeks on the floor instead giving them away to people or hanging them on the walls. I got two answers: a) We don't have tape or tacks to hang them; and b) The "doctor" thinks they are very ugly. (Actually, these were AIDS posters where a condom looked as big as the man that was portrayed.)

In the end, most of "D" day activities remain in very urban locations and unnoticed in rural areas. But that pattern seems to be on purpose, because what ministries and country offices want is to put together something that is visible, and visibility is only provided with the help of mass media. An article in the major journal in a country where only 1% of the population reads journals will be more appreciated in the annual report than 365 days of doing community work in a poor isolated community.

The bottom line is that "D" days are part of the agenda of donors in the North, not of developing countries. Through those singling days, development agencies in the North want to make noise about how good their work is. In the South, those days are useless. What we need is 365 days of attention to the issue, and not a one-day celebration for the dead and forgotten. I can understand, maybe, that in the North they struggle to keep the momentum on issues that are not on the priority list of people of industrialised countries; maybe "D" days are justifiable from that perspective, and good for the North. However, countries in Africa, Asia or Latin America should design their communication activities over the whole year, and if they want to celebrate something on a particular day, they should do it only if they have successes to show. Otherwise, it is like celebrating their failure to achieve.

It hurts to realise that while almost every organisation for development - even the World Bank - is talking about community participation and the need to better communicate with society, very few translate this speech into concrete action. "Communication is important", "communication is our key of success", "we have failed because people were not involved"... I've heard this so often. However, in reality, communication budgets are always too low to be "important", and professional communication staff is absent (or happily installed in headquarters) or at the lowest hierarchy possible, perhaps not considered essential to do communication work, which is a sad paradox.

Are international "D" Days useful? My position is clear all through the lines above. What do you think?

Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron

Development Communication Specialist

agumuciodagron@yahoo.com

***

Please participate in a Pulse Poll on this same theme:

International Days are not useful in developing countries.

Do you agree or disagree?

***

This issue of The Drum Beat is meant to inspire dialogue and conversation among the Drum Beat network.

***

This issue of The Drum Beat is an opinion piece and has been written and signed by the individual writer. The views expressed herein are the perspective of the writer and are not necessarily reflective of the views or opinions of The Communication Initiative or any of The Communication Initiative Partners.

***

The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.


Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com


To reproduce any portion of The Drum Beat, see our policy.


To subscribe, click here.