Communication for Development
Communication for Development (C4D) is a broad term used to refer to all the different types of communication that need to take place in societies if sustainable democratic development is to occur.
It encompasses access to and exchange of information, dialogue, creation of knowledge and open access to knowledge, development communication, strategic communication, participatory communication, expressive culture, media, information and communications infrastructure and technologies.
C4D recognises that communication processes often reflect power relations and aims to address this by enabling people’s capacities to understand, negotiate and take part in decision-making that affects their lives.
The growing interest in this sector lead to the first World Congress on Communication for Development organized by the FAO ComDev Team, The World Bank and The Communication initiative in Rome, Italy, in October 2006.
Communication for Development is built around four axis:
- Com4Prom: Communication for Promotion promotes development aid in donnor countries to justify how and why development aid ressources are spent.
- Com4Imple: Communication for Implementation facilitates the implementation of development aid on developping countries by explaining development programmes to local populations.
- Com4Power: Communication for Empowerment gives power to local population to report on the implementation of the development aid they receive from donnor countries.
- Com4Coord: Communication for Coordination allows donnor entities to coordinates their activities on a global scale through a series of coordination tools and rules.
Com4Prom: Promoting Development Aid in donor countries.
Promotion of cooperation for development in donnor countries has for aim to explain why and how aid programmes funds are spent in developing and emerging countries.
The communication targets two audiences: public at large concerned by general aspects of development and field actors concerned by technical aspects.
Communication strategists in charge of promoting general aspects of development aid among donnor countries' citizens consider that Com 4 Prom requires "serious" formats to reach the audience to be produced by journalists and documentaries makers.
Unfortunately, news mainly focus on things that "go wrong", shaping information as catastrophic.
In the other hand, documentaries, even if very interesting and shot on highest standards, are too frequently tagged as "boring" by broadcasters and consequently pushed in the late hours of week days or early week-end TV grid's slots.
Therefore, news create a negative image of development aid, made of tensions and disasters meanwhile documentaries are only seen by few already convinced TV viewers who know what the subject is about.
The more people watch information on development aid, the more they feel that nothing changes over the years: the situation is catastrophic, no progress is made... Citizens are driven to despair and turn inactive. This lack of interest and participation facilitates the reduction of development public funding and brings less citizens' support to NGO's.
To reduce the missing link between donors and reality in the field, Com4Prom focuses on Positive Communication, showing successes and concrete results and using trendy and participative formats that turn audiences in participative citizens and active consumers.
Participative citizens support cooperation projects in developing countries and volunteer on NGO's activities. They push governments to implement the 0,7% budget target for development and ask them to support, implement and respect international conventions through multilateral organisations.
Active consumers care of their ethical and ecological print, supporting fair trade. They push corporate companies to implement and extend their Corporate Social Responsability programs.
External links
- FAO ComDev
- FAO ComDev on twitter
- Panos London
- The Communication Initiative Network
- UNICEF C4D
- Communication for Sustainable Development Initiative CSDI
- Com4Dev.info