Development Calling - Introduction, Purpose, Stimulus, Consultation (draft)

by  Patrick Cook and Craig Lefebvre for the International Social Marketing Association and its Member Associations

In General

The International Social Marketing Association (iSMA) and its member associations—the Australian Association of Social Marketing (AASM), the European Social Marketing Association (ESMA), the Pacific Northwest Social Marketing Association (PNSMA), and the Social Marketing Association of North America (SMANA)—welcome and appreciate the opportunity to participate in the all-interested-parties meeting to be hosted by UNICEF on June 27 and 28, 2017, in New York, NY. The following responses represents the consolidated input of the iSMA and our member associations on the draft paper, “Development Calling,” distributed May 30, 2017. For each problem/option presented in the paper, the iSMA offers both our support and recommendations for how to proceed.

Overall, the iSMA very much supports the development of a global mechanism to advance the scale and effectiveness of communication, media, and marketing strategies and actions that bring about behaviour and social change. As a field that has been at the forefront of behaviour change around the world since the early 1970s, we do see an important role for social marketing practice and practitioners.

Therefore, we would recommend that, in addition to the specific recommendations and suggestions below, that “marketing” be added to the next draft of the paper: that is, “communication, media, and marketing social and behaviour change strategies and actions. This addition will reflect the full range of the approaches represented in this initiative and available to the development community. We also note that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been sponsoring a conference for over ten years entitled “Health communications, marketing and media:” the three can and do co-exist quite well when given the opportunity.

Thank you so much for including me in this discussion. I’m really excited to get more involved. Please take my comments for what they are worth---my background is in Child Development with an emphasis on media effects on children (and families) and I’m relatively new to Communication Initiatives and what you do but I have read many different articles on the site. I’ve been doing what I do for over 20 years now—so I’m not new to behavioral science but I likely don’t know the lingo etc in which you are speaking so please excuse my lack of knowledge on the issue. I’m assuming you want this document to be understand by a broad range of people, yes? I’m taking the tough love approach here and I don’t know the crowd so I don’t know if this will be received with scorn or appreciation—but here goes:

 
1)      The line “frustration in trying to explain what you do in ways that others quickly understand” is incredibly important. As I read this document, I couldn’t tell you what you actually do other than “we seek to change behavior.” Behavioral, social, communication change…isn’t that what everyone who does any kind of work with people think they do? (teachers, social workers, advertising executives, artists, etc) I think it’s important that you outline what this group DOES do and what it DOESN’T do and how it differs from other groups that think they do intervention work. Your core question “J” seems so large that I don’t know what’s in this category and what’s not in this category. Anyone who is working to change attitudes, knowledge and behavior at the Local, national, regional, international level seems to fall into this group. So then the very question is “who does this not apply to?”

 
2)      This is a group of communication and social change agents---of all people who have expertise in influencing other people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behavior wouldn’t this group be better than anyone else to convince others of the importance of its work? Have any studies been done demonstrating how to effective in the field? I think a large study with policy makers, etc do see what messages this community needs to start using in order to be heard would be a good next step.

 
3)      The department of Education has a what works clearinghouse for gold standard education---is there an equivalent here? Gold standard methods of behavioral change?

In general, in response to the stated ‘core question’ in the options paper (The question was: ‘… are there ways in which the people and … can work together through an agreed mechanism that will enhance the impact and reach of all of our work?’) our answer would be ‘Yes’ and we would support such an effort.  

*Note: We are using C4D as the umbrella term, and we mean by this the whole gambit of BBC, SCC, Advocacy, Media Development, CWC, RU and more.

Since I cant attend, I thought I’d send you a few general comments in response to the paper – my main thoughts and concerns on reading through the document are below. I see that you undertook consultations, and I seem to have missed those (apologies), so this feedback may be a little late, but it’s the kinds of questions I would have raised, or points I would have tried to make, if I had been able to attend the meeting later this month.

 
The stress on demonstrating impact risks reinforcing ways of measuring impact that are not helpful and will reinforce the inability of C4D to demonstrate said impact, bit of a catch 22 situation, and this is risking reinforcing a dominant logic that we should rather be challenging. At a fundamental level, who can argue against communication being central to development, especially in the SDG era? How do we allow this, and why do we not more effectively challenge said logics?

For how many years have C4D been trying to mainstream C4d, better define it and achieve shared understanding, and demonstrate its impact through RM&E? The fact that we are still trying to do this suggests to me the need for a radical rethink… if it hasn’t worked until now, lets try and shift our perspective, not do again what we’ve tried repeatedly to do, to no avail.

Right at the top of this paper (A. Stimulus), the issue is set out that in effect says that priority development goals are established and we need to change our behaviours in order to make progress, that is, to fall in behind this new agenda (SDGs, national or local development plans) and demonstrate effectiveness, and scale. (in one part of the paper it is presented as perhaps concerning that there is not more of a priority, in responses to the consultation, on the SDGs – that is telling us something interesting).

There is a fundamental issue with the Stimulus paragraph (highlighted perhaps by the lack of priority of SDGs by those consulted). It’s essentially setting out how we work within the system, demonstrate our value and use to the system, and thus achieve progress according to the system. We also need to challenge the system, our work should inform those plans, demonstrate different ways of achieving development goals, redefine ‘progress’ and stress the importance of paying attention to the processes of development.

What follows does not represent a formal, institutional response from Rain Barrel. The points below summarize feedback provided by several of our colleagues, but it does not reflect a consensus position across our 40+ Associates and Directors.  These are initial thoughts aimed at facilitating dialogue about a global mechanism and other efforts to strengthen our collective work.

We highly value and appreciate the effort that went into development of the draft options paper and look forward to participating in the meeting in NY on June 27th and 28th.  That said, we are surprised that the paper does not mention the discussions that took place on the same topic in 2012, raising concerns that the current process could meet with the same obstacles that resulted in deadlock and the abandonment of that earlier effort. We will participate in a spirit that seeks to avoid a similar outcome.

We also note the use of the phrase “communication, media, social and behaviour change strategies” in the draft options paper, in lieu of terms such as “C4D” or “development communication” or “behavior/social change communication”. This is itself indicative of the core identity problem that has bedeviled our field for decades, which discussions around a global mechanism need to take into account. For convenience, here we use the term C4D, though we also mindful of the 2018 gathering in Indonesia (in which the CI is involved), referred to as Social and Behaviour Change Communication.

I think the draft paper is a wonderful start to addressing a major issue in our field. The analysis that frames the paper and sets up the questions is well informed by those working in the field. It's obvious that much work has gone into crafting the present draft.

Could it be that we are trying to force a rectangle into a square hole, so to speak? In other words, is it possible that current conceptions of “communication and media for development, social and behaviour change” (as it is described in the paper) are so broad that we are actually doing ourselves a disservice by trying to lump all of our efforts under the same heading, and that it might behoove us to split these up into two or more areas (squares) each with their own set of programming standards?

The obvious division here, which many have referenced before, is that between more top-down “behavior change” campaigns and more bottom up “participatory” / social change campaigns. (I don’t mean to simplify the divide but will do so for the purposes of this comment.) Other comments below hint at different kinds of divisions. How do we create definitions, set up standards, compile an evidence base, and choose preferred evaluation strategies for groups of interventions that can be so wildly different? As Jo Tacchi says in her post below, “a one size fits all approach is unlikely to be useful.”

This is not to say that there aren’t important areas of overlap between these two areas (or others), or that projects that are able to combine them don’t offer exciting potential that has been inadequately explored, or that scholars and practitioners working in different areas shouldn’t work together to advance the communication field overall. But I’d like to see the New York meeting offer an opportunity to at least begin to try to define this space, and perhaps incorporate our thoughts into the paper, rather than solely leave this to a future “working group” as suggested in the document. Other comments below echo the idea that some kind of definition within the paper itself is warranted.

As stated in the draft paper, the survey data that went into this document shows that those working in the field are frustrated by the fact that they can’t explain what the field is in ways others can quickly understand. I think having a frank conversation about this is needed in order to address the other problem areas noted in the document. It is not possible to come up with training standards without a definition of what the field is. Defining or splitting up the field would also help frame what kind of evaluations are needed to provide better evidence of impact, and which evaluation strategies are the most appropriate. Preferred evaluation strategies will certainly be very different for projects evaluating mass media campaigns and projects evaluating a local effort aimed at raising critical consciousness through participatory processes, for example.

Introduction: It would be great to have deliberations around informal systems such community debates; the role of community champions both of whom may not necessarily utilise  formal media to influence social and behaviour change. How can impact pf such communication efforts be measured?

1.    Which specific priority worries and issues need to be addressed in order for this field of work to become more effective at greater scale.

CORE: Is “worries the correct word here? I suggest Challenges or concerns

2.    Which mechanism provides the best organizational possibility for addressing those priority worries.

CORE: Existing mechanism or a new one?

➢    A survey completed by 500 people from 87 countries responding to questions asking them to identify their priorities, opportunities, and challenges.

CORE: What languages? Did it include people with disabilities? What is the gender breakdown?

➢    The consultation questions were also asked of The CI’s Soul Beat network of people active in this field in Africa – 15 substantive contributions were received and discussed.

CORE: Why weren’t other SBC platforms used?

CORE: General comment: Suggest to include in these principles: Priorities of  respect and a focus on quality, that is inclusive in relation to gender, age, disability, sexuality, religion, etc.

CORE: Quality is missing from this document it seems; Equity approach to access should be included : Access must also include platforms that are available in different languages and platforms; Access must include platforms for people with disabilities

In many cases, these are exclusively people-related issues, so the major strategic options available are related to communication, media, social and behaviour change

CORE: Can we add some economic contributions of these SBC effects?

Thank you very much for this very timely and important initiative. I think such a global mechanism would be very useful for countries that I are in process of implementing reforms.

For example, in the Kyrgyz Republic, we are initiating a major national development strategy Taza Koom or Smart Country. The strategy is aimed at improving the lives of Kyrgyz people through the use of innovations and new technologies. Communicating to the people of the country the necessity of such a strategy has proven a challenging task. Many countries around the world have implemented such smart country strategies or currently are implementing. Sharing communications experience would be very helpful for countries around the world.

Therefore, I believe, today’s topic of setting up a global mechanism is very timely and necessary. As for Operation Mechanisms, perhaps, for the first two-years the Option 1 would be most effective. Once, the idea gains momentum and support, it could be more sustainable. At that point Option 2 or 3 could be considered.

Dear all - very brief thoughts from me. 

Congrats on some hard work and interesting ideas. As I understand, this mechanism has been concieved to give C4D a stronger platform - to strengthen standards and rigour, put quality assurance on a global footing and provide more fundraising muscle in our  ever more measurement-addicted donor climate. All necessary and important.

Like some others who have commented, and as a veteran negotiator of strategy agreements btwn govts and aid actors, I'm leery of sucking up time and money trying to hammer down agreement around terminologies, and debating structures that don't in the end change much at ground level. In principle the idea of global standards is a good one - but what would it change, practically? When push comes to shove, the women and men implementing C4D strategies will often have to learn their trade from scratch. Turnover in local organizations is high - and even where it isn't many people face restrictions on their literacy, their ability to move around, their freedom to say and do what global best-practice suggests they should. Perhaps I'm biased, from only ever having worked in extremely poor and fragile settings. I'd also think very carefully about trainings and how they work. We are up to our knees in C4D trainings here in Lebanon - and while I'm sure some are worthwhile, we know that only repeated, systematic, tailored trainings for frontline workers themselves backed up by mentoring and supportive supervision makes a real difference to someone's ability to consistently deliver a good job. A significant part doing a good job in C4D is simply practice and confidence, and of course a deepening relationship with the beneficiary.

On the whole, a very readable, focused, clearly written document, identifying problems, offering solutions, and providing a choice of mechanisms. Congratulations. Excellent comments by Claire Hajaj.

General feedback/fears:

·      Caution needed that this does not become another top-down system, propagating a one size fits all solution. Communication in C4D/CFSBC can be silent, interpersonal and mediated; it can be interactive or not; it can range from art to talk to video to what not. It is the local conditions that should determine which type or combination of types will be used. This flexibility must be maintained in the standards that are drafted. And we need to avoid from jumping on bandwagons when something new arrives; nothing is a panacea in and of itself, it is just part of the mix.

·      Caution needed that this does not morph into or be hugely influenced by CFBC (individual behavior change). It is important to keep much of the focus on CFSC (community level social change). In many parts of the world, in most as a matter of fact, and even in subcommunities in the US, individuals do not have agency to change their behavior. Keeping communities and their cultures at the center of this exercise is critical

Here are some overall comments from me. Since I have not been involved in this process up to now, I don’t feel I can our should get too much into the weeds. Please feel free to share or not as you think appropriate. Please note these are my own views and not those of OSF.

·         As others have acknowledged, this is a really interesting and important document that sets out a number of key issues in the field. However as others have also pointed out, there is a fundamental issue of definition that needs to be addressed – it is not at all clear what ‘the field’ is. The terms used in the paper seem to try to be very inclusive – but this reinforces one of the worries identified – the problem in defining the boundaries of the field. An example of this comes in the discussion of issue based networks – where it is stated that the work of such networks is almost exclusively ‘communication, media, social and behavioural change in nature’.  So everyone involved in working on a development issue is part of this field? Unless this definitional problem is addressed it seems difficult to see how other issues such as measurement, or development of common standards can be resolved.

·         There seems to me to be a fundamental tension between the desire to ‘professionalise’ the field – to develop common standards, agreed qualifications and so on, and the emphasis on ‘bottom up’ processes, on civil society voices and perspectives. I do understand the need and desire to ensure certain standards are met, but there is also a risk here of reinforcing and entrenching an ‘expert’ class versus people in communities who are engaged in social and policy change efforts, with implications for who gets to speak where and when, who gets taken seriously, who gets to control funding and so on. At the very least this tension needs to be acknowledged.

Thanks to all who have devised this draft plan. I have read with great interest many of our colleagues who have contributed great comments.

Unfortunately I can not attend the conference in New York but I hope that you will try to reflect their written views to conference

C4D is what we are calling it now, so OK, after almost 40 years of doing this stuff lets settle on a name. Whatever we call it, it must receive greater and wider attention and recognition.

C4D is multi layered, complex and broad ranging practice making it a challenge to present in sound bites. It is also problematic for some people who are in powerful positions as the process we use often devolves power away to those who really should be driving and determining their own development.

C4D is about managing change for people mostly at community level but it seems harder to change the minds of some funders, politicians, governments, global companies and those in powerful positions in the media. Mainstream media are more about communication for status quo C4SQ. We must work systemically, use a consultative and participatory approach as much in the boardrooms and corridors of power and with media moguls as we do in the shantytowns and rural communities. Many of the privileged elite in power come from a village somewhere in their pasts. There must be common ground, Surely C4D is something they can respond positively to.

Let us use the undeniable strengths of C4D, the participatory approach, the inclusive methods the exciting creative events, the revelation of interconnectedness to showcase the benefits that C4D has brought to the world.

Can this conference operate within the methods and practices that it espouses?

Once I had to sit through training on participation where the trainer sat behind a table at the front and talked at the intelligence in the room that were being asked to sit in rows. Yes this stuff can still happen ,let the conference embrace the intelligence in the room and lets us use the methodologies that we know works.

Hello - just some general comments previous  to the NY meeting . 

Many thanks to Rafael, the C4D team at UNICEF NY and Warren and The CI for this  important effort. Although I understand some skeptical POVs on the  Mechanism process, or any action that tries to get this  field together - with all its complexities and interests  - I think it is well worth the effort.

But we do need  - all of us - to  guarantee that the discussion and decision making  has a strong grounding at the national, country level hopefully with resonance at the municipal and CSO´s movements level .This is critical  : otherwise this will only circulate at the UN headquarters, international NGOs and intermediate NGOs level - all  implementing valuable development strategies but  missing key actors and issues on the ground which vary according to the context . I insist specifically on  the role of national ministries and institutes - special commissions etc , secretariats and mayors at municipal levels , and networks of the NGOs and SCOs and Foundations that work with these key actors .  

Having been part of a series of relevant meetings and discussions - for ex: the Rockefeller convened Communication for Social Change -CFSC -  process which began in 1997 ( 20 years now!), the Rome WCCD Congress in 2006 ( a decade+1 !), the GFMD Greece meeting ( a decade - 1) , many may agree that we did manage to make a "splash" in the sector, in some University curriculums,  and in general in the way communication and media were /are re- considered in the development / public sector / academia / Foundation / CSOs arena . I can speak at least on behalf  of what we saw happen in Latinamerica and in Colombia , specifically, my home country . This had to do  in part with the active participation of many strong communication  leaders from the South which were treated as equals and as peers by northern agencies ,  as well as a robust  knowledge management platform and networking process . A critical role The CI and partners had and should continue to move forward. 

20 years after the CFSC discussions, we do need to reconvene those of us ( and many more)  concerned about the present and future of the C4D /CCS /SBCC / Media for dev /  - etc etc field . We all face huge development challenges still - yet I am afraid with much less funding and very often fragmented perpectives on what we are and do, are we good at what we do etc etc? 

So , great  this Mechanism process begins "formally" in NY, but we need to get the discussion positioned strategically at the national and local decision making levels . One of the ways  to explore could be via the SDGs route,  but this faces important barriers at the local planning  -  local budget implementation level. This is a huge task for the UN agencies at the country level - a good example is Colombia which has been recognized for its efforts on the SDGs appropiation in the national development plan  but is still weak  at the municipal level where development really happens ( and the funds). 

Another obvious route is to re-position this discussion in key events but we have lost the traction to be present there  : what is happening on this matter at the IAMCR in Cartagena, Colombia - less than a month away ?

Yet the field is vibrant  : a good example was the  2016 SBCC Summit convened by HC3 - JHU and partners in Ethiopia ....so definitely the Second SBCC SUmmit in April in 2018 is a deadline to keep in mind ....

Just a few thoughts from a local practitioner and supporter of these global discussions and debates, and hope we can suppoort it in Latinamerica  ! 

PD : in the Consultation process you missed the Uninorte, Barranquilla meeting at the end of March in the AFACOM Congress .