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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Participatory Communication for Development Action Research 2000–2004 - ActionAid Malawi

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Author

SummaryText
This report is aimed to enhance the ability of poor communities to practice representing their development priorities to non-governmental organisations donors and government, and to bring “beneficiaries” into a co-equal sphere of negotiation with those with highly developed written literacy skills.

The original intent and value of this research was in setting out to define how poor and marginalised communities could circumvent the barriers of literacy and language, which constrain their ability to negotiate their development priorities with government and other development actors.

Topics include:
  • Participation - poor people’s representation: A promise unfulfilled?
  • Rhetoric of participatory tools
  • Identification of access and barriers to human rights
  • Increasing collaboration with the district assembly
  • Consistent documentation and reporting
  • Re-focus on staff capacity and time
  • Efforts to integrate the process into on-going development work-budgeting/planning
  • Benefits for policy formulation
  • Policy evaluation and re-formulation
  • Addressing gender inequality
  • Improved responses to community concerns
  • Better knowledge of community views
  • Improved relationship between organisations, departments and communities
  • Better use of development resources
  • Community’s perspective
  • Exploring opportunities for resources
  • Ability to approach others/ being listened to
  • Women’s empowerment
  • Alliance as a consultative forum
Number of Pages

29

Source

Su Braden sent an email to the Soul Beat Africa team on March 22 2004.

Comments

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Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 08/04/2006 - 09:11 Permalink

Inovatiove ideas and ground breaking work. How can such work enjoy the type of support and funding PRAs recieved in 90's.