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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Documentation Centre - Zimbabwe

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The Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) formed the Documentation Centre in 1990 to provide women with a place where they could access information on issues concerning them as well as on gender and development issues. It acquires, processes, and disseminates unpublished and published material on women's issues, gender and development, as well as feminist writings from Zimbabwe, Southern Africa, and the rest of the world. Objectives of the Documentation Centre are:
  • to provide information about the women's movement in Zimbabwe institutions
  • to inform, support, and strengthen the advocacy and lobbying activities of the organisation
  • to identify gaps in the area of gender and development and fill them.
Main Communication Strategies
The Centre provides women with these services:
  1. Borrowing/Lending: - One can become a member of the library by paying a nominal subscription fee. Members can borrow three documents for 2 weeks. Materials can only be renewed once and periodicals cannot be lent out. A rental is charged per day for video rentals.
  2. Reading Facilities - Reading space is provided for users visiting the Documentation Centre. Viewing of videos within the Centre can also be arranged.
  3. Bibliographies - Subject bibliographies can be produced on request. They can also be purchased from the Documentation Centre.
  4. Acquisitions Lists - These are produced regularly and sent to other libraries, documentation centres, and interested individuals.
  5. Referral and Reference Services - Queries relating to the Centre may be answered on the telephone and also in person. Clients can also be referred to other organisations when necessary. In addition, Internet searches can be carried out for individuals, organisations on specific subjects for a nominal fee.
The collection is composed of the following:
  • Books on women issues, gender, and development
  • Reference material such as directories and files on women's organisations and NGOs and donor agencies, funding sources, dictionaries on gender terminology
  • "Grey" or unpublished materials such as papers presented at workshops, conference/seminar/workshop reports, theses, and research documents
  • Periodicals, newsletters, and magazines from Zimbabwe, Africa and the rest of the world. Newspaper clippings from the daily newspapers
  • Videos, CD-ROMs on gender, population and development, and other subjects.
  • Information on training courses on gender training and development
  • Special collections with information on various United Nations world conferences
  • ZWRCN discussion papers, factsheets, and workshop reports.
Development Issues
Women, Gender.
Key Points

The Centre maintains documents in a CDS/ISIS database. This text retrieval programme is designed and distributed free of charge by UNESCO. Click here for more information.

Sources

ZWRCN website