Development action with informed and engaged societies

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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Impact Data - Water and Sanitation Extension Programme (WASEP)

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Date
Methodologies
A case-control study was conducted to evaluate whether, after selected confounders were controlled for, children aged less than 6 years with diarrhoea were more or less likely to reside in villages that participated in the project than in villages that did not participate. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were performed.
Access
Children in the study came from 111 villages: 90 villages in Ghizer district and 21 in Gilgit district. Forty-three (39%) villages had WASEP interventions. Cases were more likely to come from non-WASEP villages than controls (55% vs 47%). All 111 villages received ongoing hygiene education from their field teams. In addition, 19 (17%) villages had an onsite Aga Khan Health Services, Pakistan (AKHS,P) health facility: 205 (45%) case children lived in a village with an AKHS,P health facility compared with 144 (41%) control children.
Other Impacts
Changes in knowledge, attitude, and practices:
Data collected on knowledge, attitude, and practices about health and hygiene showed virtually no differences between cases and controls. Evaluators speculate that response bias from participants giving socially acceptable answers to questions may have accounted for the small differences observed. They hypothesise that this lack of demonstrated impact may also reflect the presence of organisations other than WASEP that delivered similar health-related interventions in the project area. Approximately one-third of cases and controls resided in villages where other groups were working on water, sanitation, and hygiene-related issues.

Health-related programme impact:
Children not living in WASEP villages had a 33% higher adjusted odds ratio for having diarrhoea than children living in WASEP villages. Boys had 25% lower odds of having diarrhoea than girls. A 2.6% decrease was found in the odds of diarrhoea for every yearly increase in the mother's age and a 1.4% decrease for every monthly increase in the child's age.