From The Communication Initiative Network - where communication and media are central to social and economic development.
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This issue of The Drum Beat features a small selection of summaries available on The Communication Initiative website from 3 of our knowledge sections - Experiences, Evaluations, and Strategic Thinking - which illustrate how communication and media are contributing to positive development action, around the world.
Please send additional project, evaluation, strategic thinking, and materials information on communication for development at any time. Contact Deborah Heimann at dheimann@comminit.com
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EXPERIENCES
1. HIV and AIDS Campaign - India
This British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service Trust (WST) mass media HIV and AIDS campaign aimed to get people in India talking about sex. Fronted by an animated green parrot and carrying the tagline "Jo Bola Wohi Sikander" ("those who talk are winners"), the contest-based campaign encouraged men to talk to each other about HIV and AIDS prevention, emphasising that the real "winners" are those who communicate about such issues. In addition to the contest, messages were transmitted via public service advertisements (PSAs) intended to reach men aged 15 to 59 years old in the states of Andhara Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. The animated parrot was designed to come across as smart, pesky, opinionated, and humourous - and was billed as "talking about sex non-stop". Instead of just telling people to talk about sexual health, the campaign strategy involved stimulating people to talk. By the closing date, more than 394,000 people had participated in the contest.
Contact: Yvonne MacPherson yvonne.macpherson@bbcwst.org
2. Learn from the Leaders - Global
This information and communication technology (ICT)-based initiative revolves around a website designed to serve as a sustainability reporting resource. "Learn from the Leaders" is a peer-to-peer learning tool; it is an online database designed to help sustainability practitioners (reporters, analysts, consultants, etc.) access specific examples of best practices in sustainability reporting from around the world. The searchable website features examples of sustainability reporting from reports that were assessed using SustainAbility's Global Reporters assessment methodology, which includes 29 criteria, grouped into 4 categories: governance and strategy (11 criteria); management (9 criteria); presentation of performance (5 criteria); and accessibility and assurance (4 criteria).
Contact: Yula Morgan reporting@sustainability.com OR Chris Guenther reporting@sustainability.com
3. Project V - Great Britain & Northern Ireland (UK)
This initiative centres around an audio website through which children aged 9-15 in schools throughout the United Kingdom broadcast and listen to their own radio programmes. Project V draws on the use of radio to engage children in learning about, speaking out about, and making change related to various issues of importance to them. Students from various schools in the UK have identified concerns - such as health problems, environmental challenges, community/school difficulties, and scientific issues. A research consultancy organisation worked to create a culture of participative inquiry at the beginning of the project, which was designed to inspire ongoing commitment from young people throughout the production process. In an effort to create "ownership" of the Project V initiative, young people were treated as experts and project managers throughout the research process. Specifically, a "community forum" strategy was used for large-group facilitation of approximately 30 students in each of 8 school classes.
Contact: Gudrun Dalibor gudrun@yourvoices.co.uk
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Please VOTE in our current Democracy and Governance POLL:
The most important lesson to be learned for advancing democratic governance from the recent developments in Pakistan, Kenya, and Burma/Myanmar is:
- Better adapt democratic process to national contexts
- Expand ongoing public debate on sensitive issues
- Fuller engagement of minority populations
- Improve electoral legislation
- More independent monitoring
- Prioritise building local community democracies
- Strengthen media independence and plurality
- Stronger international sanctions
- Other [please VOTE and then explain your choice in the Comments box provided online]
Click here to vote; see the Top Right Side Bar.
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EVALUATIONS
4. Evaluating Heartlines: Eight Weeks Eight Values One National Conversation
This evaluation of HEARTLINES, a programme developed by The Mass Media Project in South Africa to address social issues such as HIV/AIDS, crime, violence and the breakdown of family and social structures, aimed to look at the successes of the programme and its achievement of a national dialogue on values. The evaluation's key findings include:
- an estimated 26% of the adult population (or, 7.3 million adults) watched one or more of the HEARTLINES films on television;
- highest viewership (34%) was among people aged between 18 and 24 years;
- audience numbers doubled from the first film to the last film;
- almost two-thirds of those who watched HEARTLINES discussed the films with others - resulting in an estimated 4.5 million additional values-related conversations;
- HEARTLINES had a positive impact on decreasing stigma towards people living with AIDS in South Africa; and
- HEARTLINES established support and credibility within faith-based organisations (FBOs) that were visited; according to evaluators, stories of far-reaching self-reflection and change attest to the impact of HEARTLINES on individual-level attitudes when used at FBOs, particularly with respect to forgiveness.
5. The Development Potential of Regional Programs: An Evaluation of World Bank Support of Multicountry Operations
This report assesses the performance of the World Bank in its overseas development assistance (ODA) support for regional development programmes worldwide over the fiscal years 1995-2005. Produced by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) - an independent, 3-part unit within the World Bank Group - the evaluation indicates that a majority of the 19 regional programmes evaluated have been (or appear likely to be) effective in achieving most of their development objectives. The authors acknowledge that regional programmes hold great potential. However, the regional relationships pose specific communication challenges, in that cooperation among neighbouring states can be complicated. The evaluators explain that designing regional programmes so that they assign benefits and costs equitably among participating countries and effectively coordinate country and regional activities during implementation is key. The report finds that cross-border development programmes can deliver strong results, such as providing reliable energy, managing shared water resources, enhancing environmental protection, and combating the spread of communicable diseases.
6. Stories of Significance: Redefining Change
An Assortment of Community Voices and Articulations
This report explores the use of the "most significant change" (MSC) technique as a participatory monitoring tool to evaluate a specific communication-based programme. It was presented at the conclusion of a 13-month Department for International Development (DFID)-supported programme on community-driven approaches for addressing the feminisation of HIV/AIDS in India. This report focuses on how the MSC technique can be used to gather and analyse stories of important or significant changes from a cross-section of the group(s) a project is designed to reach. While Alliance India stresses that this MSC should not be used as the sole monitoring and evaluation technique for gauging the measurable difference a project has made, the organisation has found that this evaluation methodology can provide a richer picture of the impact of programme interventions. Despite its potential, the MSC approach was found during this evaluation process (January-February 2007) to raise some challenging questions, such as: What do we mean by impact in a project with a life cycle of one year, and how does one assess the impact of such a project? How can one train teams - especially, those with little or no prior experience in data analysis - in less than one day on effective facilitation and documentation so that they are able to collect significant change stories with requisite and relevant details?
7. End of Program Report - Taking Action: Recommendations and Resources
This evaluation explores YouthNet, a 5-year (2001-2006) programme designed to improve the reproductive health (RH) and HIV prevention behaviours of youth 10 to 24 years old, worldwide. YouthNet focused on a variety of technical areas, with specific expertise in sex education, peer education, RH services for youth, and media and behaviour change communication (BCC). The project had 4 cross-cutting themes: gender, community involvement, youth participation, and policy. This report synthesises the central findings from YouthNet's work into 10 results, incorporating findings from research, technical assistance, country activities, global leadership, and publications. The conclusion of the report lists all 37 recommendations for taking action, and points to challenges ahead in building on YouthNet's work.
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QUESTIONNAIRE
Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development, with support from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), is attempting to create a minimum quality standard for HIV prevention activities undertaken by media and to suggest ways to bundle these with the activities undertaken by the other sectors. In developing standards, terms that describe media products have to be defined, the processes that lead to these products have to be identified, and the critical steps to reduce errors and improve quality have to be formulated in consultation with media practitioners. The questionnaire represents the first consultation with media houses to ensure that the standard so developed is acceptable and could easily be put into practice.
For the questionnaire, please register by clicking here.
For more information, contact madhu@aibd.org.my
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STRATEGIC THINKING
8. Knowledge Sharing for Sustainable Development Through Biodiversity Conservation in the Mesoamerican Region
by Topiltzin Contreras-MacBeath
The Mesoamerican Network of Biotic Resources (REDMESO) was established in 2001. This organisation brings together 23 public universities from Mexico and the 8 Central American countries (Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama). The network seeks to create synergies among local scientists in order to conduct research projects and develop technologies designed to support the sustainable management of ecosystems, having respect for both cultural and biological diversity. Because, according to this document, the Mesoamerican region is a biodiversity "hotspot", it is a focal point for research and advocacy on sustainability. It is, as stated here, "strategic for the future development of the region, specially in an era considered by many as the golden age of biology due to the advances and economic perspectives of disciplines, such as those related to the biomedical sciences and biotechnology in general." For that reason, this document advocates for strategic planning and a high level of communication among researchers.
9. Children Speak Up
by Monideepa Sahu
This article reports on the expansion of children's participation at the village level of government in India. The Karnataka state government's panchayati raj ministry issued an order in late 2007 making it mandatory for all panchayats (villages) to provide children a platform to put their concerns forward directly to elected representatives at special children's "gram sabhas" [children's assemblies]. The order makes it mandatory for panchayats to report back to the ministry on action taken to address issues raised by the children. Since 2004, the model of including children in local self-government has been in place in all 56 villages in Kundapura taluka, Udupi district, Karnataka. The article estimates that 20,000 of the 160,000 children in this region have participated actively in these gram sabha meetings, discussions, and surveys. Issues that have been brought to the fore by children include, for example, alcoholism and the violence and poverty that the children associate with it, lack of sanitation as a result of stray cattle, and flooding, which blocked the path to school. Children conducted surveys, collected data, and documented discussions in support of the solutions they developed. According to this article, the children's gram sabhas are beginning to have an impact on local self-governance. One village reported 19 initiatives rising out of the 2006 children's gram sabhas in their panchayat.
10. The Message Matters: Lessons from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America on the Power and Promise of Media-Based Education Campaigns
This evaluation examines the work of Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA), a nonprofit organisation using media-based advertising campaigns in an effort to reduce illicit drug use in the United States. Published on the occasion of the Partnership's 20-year anniversary, this report assesses whether its education campaigns are indeed effective in changing drug-related attitudes and influencing behaviour.
11. The MDGs as a Communication Tool for Development
by Paola Pagliani
This paper examines a thesis that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are capable, as communication tools, of enhancing public dialogue about development, and that this dialogue can then contribute to the achievement of the MDGs. The author suggests that the MDGs are easily communicated to all stakeholders, including marginalised groups; thus, marginalised people can participate in policy setting through participatory processes and, with the building of social agency among them, claim their entitlements, as nations begin to fulfill their responsibilities toward the MDGs. Section one of the paper distills the key features of communication for development, which are applied in subsequent sections. Section two describes how communication for development was applied by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Albania to promote the MDG agenda at the national and local level. Section three analyses how the MDGs could help promote participatory and inclusive policymaking in Serbia, where barriers to inclusion and participation exist for refugees, internally displaced persons, Roma, and people living with disabilities.
12. Community-Based Participatory Action Research on Avian Influenza: Findings from Burkina Faso
by Serigne Mbaye Diene, Christophe Coulibaly, and Daniel Thieba
This paper, on participatory action research (PAR) conducted in 2 villages in Burkina Faso affected by avian flu in 2006, documents information on the existing social, cultural, and economic implications of bird flu in these villages with the following objectives:
- Study community members' understanding of the potential impact of avian flu on various aspects of their lives, through a process guided by the community using participatory research methods.
- Study the relations and connections between the social, cultural, and economic factors of avian flu and its spread in the community - putting the accent on opportunities or obstacles to the mobilisation of resources or the changing of practices to prevent or reduce the negative impacts of an occurrence.
- Study the existing communications resources that could be mobilised and feasible interventions that could be carried out with local resources to prevent avian flu, such as community actions to minimise the impacts of bird flu, and the most effective and credible sources of communication.
13. Stigma and Discrimination Faced by Women Living with HIV/AIDS
In February 2007, the international human rights organisation Breakthrough launched a multi-media educational campaign in India called "Is this Justice?" in an effort to draw the Indian public's attention to the growing incidence of stigma and discrimination faced by women living with HIV/AIDS (WLHA), most of whom have been infected by their husbands or male partners. This formative research report on gender discrimination and its effect on WLHA emerged from the process of developing materials for the campaign. The materials and research document were developed with input from the Networks of Positive Women in Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh. The research sought to understand attitudes and behaviour of individuals, families, and community members toward the WLHA; investigate whether gender differences exist in discrimination and stigmatisation against people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA); and map stigma indicators through the lens of women's rights.
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Pleasure Project Mapping
Do you know of programmes/people/organisations that use pleasure and desire (rather than disease and risk) to motivate people to practice safer sex? Do you know people or companies in the world of erotica that include safer sex (e.g., condoms, non-penetrative sex) in their films or other media?
The Pleasure Project is updating the Global Mapping of Pleasure - a directory of people, programmes, organisations, educational websites, and other media worldwide that take a sex-positive, empowering approach to promoting safer sex.
What they're looking for:
Programmes, people, organisations, publications, training materials, websites, erotica, films and other resources that:
- Promote safer sex; and
- Use messaging, materials, and media that treat sex in a positive or empowering way, as opposed to focusing on disease or the negative outcomes of sex.
To get an idea of the kinds of things they're looking for, check out the first edition of the Global Mapping of Pleasure (2004): click here [PDF].
For more information, please contact Juliet@thepleasureproject.org
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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
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