The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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COVID-19 Community Engagement Hub

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"Trusted, clear and effective communication and engagement approaches are critical to ensure that fear, panic and rumours do not undermine response efforts and lead to COVID-19 to spread even more quickly."

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)'s hub for sharing information, knowledge, and resources about community engagement and accountability (CEA) features a dedicated section to provide access to tools related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some of the types of resources available (several of them in multiple languages) include:

  • General COVID-19 guidance - e.g., for IFRC National Societies
  • RCCE strategy and planning guidance - e.g., the COVID-19 risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) strategy for Africa (see Related Summaries, below)
  • Stigma prevention - e.g., guidance on how to prevent and address social stigma surrounding COVID-19 for government, media, and local organisations working on the disease.
  • Community work - e.g., a strategy document on including marginalised and vulnerable people in RCCE (see Related Summaries, below)
  • Collecting community feedback - e.g., guides to run focus group discussions (FGDs) with communities and with community volunteers
  • Social media - e.g., tips for National Societies on using social media for COVID-19
  • Mainstream media - e.g., IFRC COVID-19 communications key messages
  • Radio - e.g., guide on how to run an interactive COVID-19 radio chat show programme
  • Mobile cinema - e.g., guide to be used in areas with no active outbreak of COVID-19
  • Training and presentation materials - e.g., materials to deliver a rapid training on COVID-19

The resources on the hub can be searched by type of material and region of focus.

Publishers

Languages

The languages in which various of the materials are available include: English, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish.

Source

Email from Ombretta Baggio to The Communication Initiative on March 17 2020; and COVID-19 Community Engagement Hub, March 19 2020. Image credit: IFRC