Practical Think Tank Preparation meeting July 7th

Hi Everyone

Welcome to Godwin, Kamal Shaw, Ejaz and Shamsher who will be joining us for the call this week.  We will be sending out an agenda tomorrow but also wanted to provide a quick note to introduce you all and provide context for the discussion.

The expert group has been reviewing documents on the cross border issue and has also received notes on bilateral discussions with Kamal Shaw, Ejaz and Shamsher designed to provide them with a country level perspective.  This meeting is an opportunity for direct engagement between the expert group and those of you working directly on cross border communication in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  It will feed into the PTT’s development of practical ideas for discussion at the full PTT meeting at the end of the month.

We want this to be a frank discussion about cross border communication that allows the expert group to hear and understand the major initiatives and challenges directly from the countries and also for the expert group to be able to ask questions of clarification and ‘test’ some of the ideas and areas of focus they are beginning to develop.  As this will be structured as an open discussion there is no need for power points or set presentations.

In terms of preparation we thought it better to provide a brief outline of some of the main areas of discussion within the expert group which each of you can use to organise your thoughts and comments before the meeting.  Please note the questions below provide a broad overview of the themes that have been raised.  We have framed them as questions because that’s where we’re at in the discussion.  They will hopefully provide some context for Godwin, Kamal Shaw, Ejaz and Shamsher and spark pre-meeting thinking.  They are not exhaustive and the actual discussion will no doubt identify other issues.  The agenda which we’ll share tomorrow will give us a framework for working through key points and identifying country priorities.

Pre-meeting questions

Overview

What assistance would you like to see from a group like the PTT?

How successful have cross border strategies directed at HRMP been in the past three years?

How central is communication to overall cross border programme planning and discussion?

Coordination:

What is the actual extent of coordination/trust between the countries on cross border issues?  How can it be strengthened?

Tailored communication:

When discussing cross border communication there seem to be different needs depending on the point of contact i.e. border straddling hard to reach communities, people crossing at formal points, people vaccinated at transit points, people at their temporary destinations, people who are staying with family as guests, people who are moving unexpectedly due to insecurity. How does the programme plan and implement communication approaches for these different points of contact?

Equally, HRMP is a broad term representing many different groups with different reasons for travel.  It can be broken down by reasons for travel (health, employment, seasonal migration, family, religious, insecurity etc), and also along ethnic/tribal lines.  Is enough known about the reasons for movement and the backgrounds of those traveling and how are communication strategies adapted to these groups?

There is a range of communication engagement that can be utilised - for example mass and local media, direct engagement using HCD approaches with co-creation of solutions, challenge mapping and identification of influencers.  What is the balance and how is it being done?

Utilisation of resources:

To what extent does CB communication utilise, support, and empower local staff in the identification of issues and creation of solutions?

How much of the communication with HRMP is focused around campaigns and how much between campaigns?  Is the balance right?

We look forward to the discussion on July 7 and hope this helps provide a very broad introduction into our discussions so far and helps us get more out of the call.

Cheers

Chris