3794 The Drum Beat – Issue 516 – Communication, Media, and Development Policy Blogs November 2 2009

The Drum Beat – Issue 516 – Communication, Media, and Development Policy Blogs
November 2 2009

The Drum Beat 516 contains:

* Collier vs. Ostrom – competing ECONOMIC MODELS for development.
* The apparent policy shift to focus on GOVERNMENTS.
* Relating to FUNDERS – is all well in how we do business?
* In a rapidly changing media world – what MEDIA DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY?
* Does MORE TECHNOLOGY mean worse development results?
* Comments on the social cost of the ABSENCE OF MEDIA.
* MORE COMMENTS on other recent blog posts.
* Additional RECENT blog posts.

The Drum Beat is published by The Communication Initiative – where communication and media are central to social and economic development.

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Whether we look at development from the perspective of statistics, capacity building, or who is in charge, it is vital that policymakers and practitioners critique and debate a range of policies, ideas, and strategies.

This issue of The Drum Beat alerts you to new and recent blog postings, as well as comments on those postings, that put forth ideas with different perspectives on development effectiveness. These posts appear in our Communication, Media, and Development Policy blog space – http://www.comminit.com/en/development_policy

Please read the full blogs and enter your comments and critique on the ideas expressed within them.

Plus, please let us know by sending an email to drumbeat@comminit.com if you would like to become a CI blogger!

RATE EACH BLOG

There is a 5-star rating system available for each blog post. You can rate the blog post according to the question «How useful did you find the knowledge and contacts on this page to your work?»; ratings range from «Awesome» (5 stars) to «Poor» (1 star).

Please take a moment to rate each post after reading – this will serve to provide new readers, and the bloggers themselves, with a sense of how relevant the posts are to your development work.

1.      Nobel Intentions
Competing high-level economic arguments with very different approaches to effective development action to reduce poverty – what are the communication and media development implications, and which approach do you prefer?
READ AND COMMENT: http://www.comminit.com/en/node/304932/bbc

2.      Government Rules!
The arguments for and implications of a recent shift in focus by two major development agencies to prioritise development action and support revolving around government.
READ AND COMMENT: http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303033/bbc

3.      Northern Lights
Northern actors, thinking, and venue with a focus on southern (Africa and South Asia) development contexts, issues, and challenges – is this the way to go?
READ AND COMMENT: http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303034/bbc

4.      Show me the Media Money – but what should we do with it?
What should be the media development investment strategy? A consideration of promising strategies currently being implemented in Latin America, pulling out a set of 9 principles for dialogue and debate.
READ AND COMMENT: http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303537/bbc

5.      Little Green People
Launching from a September 2009 article on «Ending Africa’s Hunger», this piece brings together statistics on development progress and concludes that «the more technology we have the less impact on development results».
READ AND COMMENT: http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303029/bbc

Become a CI BLOGGER!

Do you have experience in development policy issues and challenges? Do you have ideas you want to float past a large group of your peers? Become a CI Blogger.

See the Guidelines for Bloggers on the Communication, Media, and Development Policy website: http://www.comminit.com/en/node/286565/bbc

ACCESSING BLOGS BY ONE CONTRIBUTOR

Got a FAVOURITE CI BLOGGER? You can view (and mark as a «Favourite» in your browser!) all of their blog posts in one page. Simply go to the right column on the Communication, Media, and Development Policy Blogs site and click on «Contributors», then click on the name of your favourite blogger. A list of all posts by that blogger will be displayed.

6.      COMMENTS RELATED TO «Governance and the Media: the engagement gap» by James Deane
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/290696/bbc

«I worked for eight years as a foreign reporter in Vietnam and for the last two have been trying to rally the donor community to support media reform here. Vietnam is a one-party state and media freedoms are extremely limited. However, growing corruption that the Communist Party recognises as a threat to its long-term stability has been growing and the government has begun to ask the media to ‘help’ it uncover corruption – a job very few journalists here are able to do well after decades of state control. The donors see this linkage between media development and anti-corruption as a way in to dialogue with the government about media reform and, on the face of it, appear very keen to become more heavily involved. Yet…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/290696#comment-238253

READ ADDITIONAL COMMENTS, AND CONTRIBUTE YOURS: http://www.comminit.com/en/development_policy/comments/290696

7.      COMMENTS RELATED TO «Re-vamping UNICEF’s Africa Communication for Development Strategy» by Neil Ford

«Neil Ford suggests re-vamping UNICEF’s Africa Communication for Development Strategy in order to improve impact and achieve results. He suggests two strategic changes: (1) to focus on only few broad communication methodologies and (2) to focus on partnership development at the community level. Both suggestions are logically correct, however when Neil is telling us what to do, he is not telling us how to do it. Historically, there were several attempts in UNICEF to go to scale in communication, but only few attempts included sustainability mechanisms…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/276034#comment-238277

READ ADDITIONAL COMMENTS, AND CONTRIBUTE YOURS:
http://www.comminit.com/en/development_policy/comments/276034

8.      COMMENTS RELATED TO «Show me the Media Money – but what should we do with it?» by Warren Feek
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303537/bbc

«…Why not let the local organizations define what the appropriate strategies and means are and simply respond to their requests ? Eventually taking some risks and betting on imagination and energy rather than sticking to artificial «logical» frameworks ? The «excuse» of Northern unique expertise does not even hold anymore…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303537#comment-238489

READ ALL COMMENTS AND CONTRIBUTE YOURS: http://www.comminit.com/en/development_policy/comments/303537

Other RECENT BLOG POSTS on a variety of topics:

>> «A gutsy new DFID White Paper puts the politics back into development» by James Deane
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/298070/bbc – add your comments below the blog!

>> «Another Development» by Ricardo Ramirez and Wendy Quarry
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/291341/bbc – add your comments below the blog!

>> «Donors, Governance and Media Aid: Some Thoughts from Sierra Leone» by Bill Orme
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/291318/bbc – add your comments below the blog!

UTILISE RSS!

Ensure that you are alerted to new blogs and/or comments. Click on the [RSS] button under «Comments on Blogs» or «Recent Posts» within the right column of the Communication, Media, and Development Policy Blogs site.

ARCHIVED POSTS

Wondering where that recent post from «X» on governance and media went to? Click on the right column «Recent Posts» for a complete list of posts, in order of date updated.

9. COMMENTS RELATED TO «Can we put a value on the good that media do? A social cost approach to media development» by James Deane
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/298474/bbc

«James, I find your analysis very intriguing. I really hope media development actors especially from the Western world would heed this message. Just recently here in Timor-Leste, a trainer from one of the more known media development institutions from the US was training media practitioners from community radio stations. She was emphasising the need for the community radio stations to be sustainable in the long run. The usual template regarding advertising etc. She gave the example to getting restaurants to advertise. One participant asked that how would they ask the only restaurant in that town to advertise? It is a case of using the old jargon without even looking at context…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/298474#comment-238418

«I agree to most of the comments, one question is, is there an example in the world where ‘public media’ and private/civil society media have worked together for a common outcome, or is this still an untold story. Who should the donors support?…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/298474#comment-238262

«I will like to seek further clarifications on this aspect of your article.
QUOTE:
Channel 4 was set up 20 years ago as a public service broadcaster designed as a complement to the BBC. It would get some public subsidy but it was designed to become increasingly sustainable from the income it derived from advertising. Two decades on it faces unprecedented financial crisis and is lobbying strongly for a share of the BBC licence fee to keep it going. The BBC itself has depended on year-on-year subsidy for more than three quarters of a century!
UNQUOTE
Is the real problem with Channel 4 not with the top management and their take-home? Do you think if the management model of Channel 4 is re-engineered it will not survive?…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/298474#comment-238258

READ ADDITIONAL COMMENTS, AND CONTRIBUTE YOURS: http://www.comminit.com/en/development_policy/comments/298474

10.     COMMENTS RELATED TO «Whose Policy is it Anyway?» by Warren Feek
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/299174/bbc

«…I think the lack of non involvement of developing country governments and people in setting the international development agenda, has little to do with lack of awareness of the need to do so, or with ignorance of how it can be done. It is more to do with the power relations that permeate development assistance – and if we look at it from that perspective, understanding the different trends in India and China is not difficult…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/299174#comment-238255

READ ADDITIONAL COMMENTS, AND CONTRIBUTE YOURS: http://www.comminit.com/en/development_policy/comments/299174

11.     COMMENTS RELATED TO «Little Green People» by Warren Feek
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303029/bbc

«If improvements are to be realised at grassroots ordinary farmers innovations should be supported and technology development should be guided by this. Otherwise all efforts will only serve to increase the gap btwn the have’s and have not…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303029#comment-238515

«The cell phones are the technology that keep people in contact, but they had a undesirable impact in the South, Africa and Latin America. Gangs and bands use that technology for kidnapping, robbery and other crimes. Drugs dealers and mafia are using communication systems in the edge…People that earn less than a dollar/per day had expended 6 to 10 dollars in cellular phone services… Is this progress? But it is very good business…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303029#comment-238463

«…you are hundred percent right that cell phone or the modern day technological advancements contribute a lot towards the increased crime rate but you must be aware that each and everything has merits and demerits and its not the device or invention itself, but the person who uses the device. Now the cell phone or other devices, you referred to, undoubtedly are being used for illegal activities but , the same are also being used by the law enforcing agencies. its the same like a knife, which is used for cutting fruits and vegetable but at the same time can cause death if used the other way. Owing to this, we can not stop having more inventions and advancements, rather what we need to do is to educate more and more people and create an environment, where these crimes are not committed….»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303029#comment-238492

«The Patel et al. article is based on a fundamentally flawed premise: that technology use and knowledge are opposed. Quite the contrary is true. They cite for example the case of farmers abandoning the use of other soil amendments when fertilizers are used. Yet agronomists agree that the ideal situation is to use whatever soil amendments and organic sources of nutrients you have on hand and then to complement them with fertilizer to make up for the missing nutrients. Without going into detail, Africa’s soils are naturally poor and rapidly being degraded (it has been estimated that the nutrient loss every year has a cost equivalent of some USD 4 bn in Africa). So clearly abandoning other soil amendments altogether is not based on sound knowledge, or there is another reason (i.e. the organic matter may be being used for fuel or something else)…The relevant point is that we have got to move away from dogmatic black/white positions…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303029#comment-238451

«I read with interest your Development Conundrum and, when it came out, the original article). I think the real problem…is a kind of either-or mentality. Either hi-tech, or subsistence farming. There has to be a middle way, but it is very hard indeed to advocate for such a position, when extremists have a much simpler story to tell. This is as true of development as it is of politics. What is disappointing is that when a fresh source of funding and thinking comes on stream and is effectively captured by one of the extremes…»
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/303029#comment-238450

READ ADDITIONAL COMMENTS, AND CONTRIBUTE YOURS: http://www.comminit.com/en/development_policy/comments/303029

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The Drum Beat is the email and web network of The Communication Initiative Partnership – ANDI, BBC World Service Trust, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Calandria, CFSC Consortium, CIDA, DFID, FAO, Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, Ford Foundation, Healthlink Worldwide, Inter-American Development Bank, International Institute for Communication and Development, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, MISA, PAHO, The Panos Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation, SAfAIDS, Sesame Workshop, Soul City, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNICEF, USAID, WHO, W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

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