The Drum Beat – Issue 576 – Communication Strategies for Integrated Action
February 7 2011
This issue of The Drum Beat focuses on «Moving Forward via Communication: Integrated Approaches to Development Action through Communication Strategies,» a commentary paper developed by The Communication Initiative for an upcoming side event at a conference hosted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The conference, «Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health,» [see http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=95ed9ba577c010df6a238dbaa9fc5b6a] will examine the existing and potential linkages among agriculture, nutrition, and health. «Moving Forward via Communication» introduces 4 communication-centred planning strategies as potentially powerful tools to be utilised across regional, cultural, sectoral, organisational, and all boundaries.
– Below are excerpts from the commentary paper, «Moving Forward via Communication: Integrated Approaches to Development Action through Communication Strategies,» with additional links included for reference.
– For the full paper, online, please access: http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=084349a44ebcf4439e8a486ffb3fd89f[PDF].
– For information about the side event, please access: http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=65b7fd7654da777b323a8e7c2dfa8c72 [PDF].
– For information about the IFPRI conference «Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health», conference side events, and background papers, please see http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=95ed9ba577c010df6a238dbaa9fc5b6a
LINKAGES
«As the background papers for this conference illustrate, the linkages among agriculture, nutrition, and health are clear. For example,
* When farmers eat nutritious foods, they are healthier and more productive.
* When farmers produce higher quality and more nutritious crops or other food products, the health of consumers (including local populations) improves, with resulting improvements in the economic activity of those consumers.
* When women in local communities eat more nutritious food, their health status improves significantly, and maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity decrease.
* When children have better diets, they are in better shape for school and, consequently, learn more, are able to make better economic contributions in later life (perhaps as farmers), and can help perpetuate the cycle of health and productivity….
Addressing these issues requires integrated development action. And this action requires communication, which enhances leverage, learning, relationships, and synergies.
[For access to the background papers, please see http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=419d19e3413756b4baca7f4e2946d83f]
ARTIFICIAL BOUNDARIES
When it comes to how international development action is organized, demarcated boundaries are the norm, with little attention paid to the interrelationships between development issues. The United Nations is a good example…:
1. FAO handles Agriculture
2. UNESCO handles Education
3. UNICEF handles Children…
This state of development «disconnection» is counterproductive. Communication is required to connect these silos…
THE COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE
The problem is not at the community level; the issue is how international development action is organized overall. Development efforts can benefit greatly from 1) prioritizing a set of communication processes that ensures that the voices, ideas, perspectives, and plain common sense of people in local communities are included and amplified, and 2) promoting effective communication between development stakeholders in order to enhance coordination and cooperation across different vested interests and issues….
COMMUNICATION PLANNING STRATEGIES: OVERVIEW
[W]e present four communication planning strategies developed by members of the development community that highlight effective ways to undertake development action based on interrelationships rather than silos. Each strategy utilizes a different approach that can be implemented at local, district, country, regional, or global levels….
Though one approach to the challenge of integration would be to draw lines between the three elements of the triangle (agriculture, nutrition, and health) and then to delineate specific relationships among them, this is not the approach used in any of the strategic planning strategies. Rather, they all seek to identify core elements for effective integration and to work from that starting point…
PLANNING STRATEGY ONE: CATALYZING SOCIAL CHANGE
In their paper, Communication for Social Change: An Integrated Model for Measuring the Process and Its Outcomes, [the authors] highlight the core elements of a communication strategy designed to provide an integrated approach to development issues….
[T]he core element for an integrated process is a catalyst/stimulus that can be external or internal to the community….This catalyst leads to dialogue within the community that, when effective, leads to collective action and the resolution of a common problem.
The catalyst is a trigger that needs to be recognized by and resonate with both the local and development communities. That resonance needs to both prompt and provide fertile ground for harnessing and amplifying local dialogue and debate… The power of this approach to integration comes from the resonance of the stimulus and the process of dialogue and debate that engages different groups, vested interests, and perspectives around a common dynamic…
[For more on the Communication for Social Change approach and its evaluation, see http://www.comminit.com/en/node/1273/36 and http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=0a1bf81cbb2786f7c81a1a41af997456 (PDF)]
PLANNING STRATEGY TWO: WORKING TOWARD A DESIRED OUTCOME
The core of the [RAPID Outcome Mapping Approach (ROMA)] approach, which was developed by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in the United Kingdom, is not a catalyst, but rather the desired (and eventually negotiated and shared) outcome toward which all actors are working. It is the negotiation of that outcome «map» that provides the driving element for greater integration across development issues, including issues related to agriculture, health, and nutrition….
[As ODI describes it:] ‘The originality of the methodology is its shift away from assessing the development impact of a programme (defined as changes in state – for example: poverty alleviation, or reduced conflict) and toward changes in the behaviours, relationships, actions or activities of the people, groups, and organisations with whom a development programme works directly. This shift alters the way a programme understands its goals and assesses its performance and results. Outcome Mapping establishes a vision of the human, social, and environmental betterment to which the programme hopes to contribute and then focuses monitoring and evaluation on factors and actors within that programme’s direct sphere of influence.’…
[For more on ROMA, see http://www.comminit.com/en/node/308757/348 and http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=32a8b164cc25b2b645309cda225983e7 (PDF)]
PLANNING STRATEGY THREE: DEVELOPING SYSTEMWIDE MAPS
The core of the third identified integrated planning strategy, known as Systemwide Collaborative Action for Livelihoods (SCALE), is mapping. The development of a common map by constituent groups with very diverse, and often different, perspectives and experiences of an issue can be a compelling platform for effective integration….
The ability for any interested party – from a ministry official to a local farmer – to see [the wide range of local and national agricultural, health, and nutrition factors – from crop yields to school attendance, from rural transport links to health facility locations] at a glance, and then to work together to address development issues, makes SCALE a compelling approach for integration…
[For more on SCALE, also see http://www.comminit.com/en/node/201273/307 and http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=705122925a328379e6a8517ff8577471 (PDF)]
PLANNING STRATEGY FOUR: LEARNING FROM THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CHANGE
The key element of the Most Significant Change approach is for constituent groups across the spectrum of interest to identify, assess, and distill the key learning from a significant change that has taken place….
[Imagine that] there is a region of the country in which there has been significant change in maternal mortality rates, child school attendance, Vitamin A deficiency, average birth weight, or farmer productivity. The Most Significant Change communication approach would engage a cross-section of stakeholders/constituents in that process to analyze how the change took place….
[For more on the Most Significant Change technique, see http://www.comminit.com/en/node/201192/36 andhttp://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=35dfb4818d01435d664e09e4ce4c2830 (PDF)]
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
The[se] communication planning strategies…are not superficial processes; they will require substantive and thorough planning and implementation…. [But ultimately, e]ach of the models outlined above, when implemented [to address agricultural, nutrition, or health issue], can produce solid action plans.
It is…important to note that the planning strategies outlined above cannot be implemented solely by development agency professionals, or only by government officials, or by local communities working on their own. Each of the approaches outlined above requires interaction between the international community, government actors, and local populations.
These two forms of integration – across sectors and across a range of actors – are both required if progress is to be made in addressing the common issues facing agriculture, nutrition, and health.»
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For the full commentary paper «Moving Forward via Communication: Integrated Approaches to Development Action through Communication Strategies» [PDF], please access: http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=084349a44ebcf4439e8a486ffb3fd89f
For more information on the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) conference «Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health», please see http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?m=95ed9ba577c010df6a238dbaa9fc5b6a
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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.
Chair of the Partners Group: Garth Japhet, Founder, Soul City garth@heartlines.org.za
Executive Director: Warren Feek wfeek@comminit.com
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The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries.
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