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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Promoting ICT for Human Development in Asia 2004: Realising the Millennium Development Goals

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"Promoting ICT for Human Development in Asia 2004: Realising the Millennium Development Goals" was written in an attempt to go beyond the hype surrounding the potential and promise of ICT for developing countries. The research across nine Asian countries -- China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Viet Nam -- systematically explores the potential of ICT applications towards achieving human development goals. It uses the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a benchmark to assess the extent to which this is possible.

The diversity of the nine countries presents a rich canvas for the research. The varied socio-economic, political, geographic and cultural circumstances in which ICT for human development has been explored, could provide useful insights on not only other Asian countries but also, more generally, the developing world.

The final report of almost 500 pages will be made available late in the first quarter of 2004. In the meantime, a 29-page Executive Summary is currently available for download. This Summary encompasses:
  • Exploration of the potential and promise of ICT;
  • Mapping of the status of ICT use and diffusion in Asia;
  • Identification of challenges of ICT application, including the issue of digital divide, both between and within Asian countries;
  • Selection of ICT indicators of relevance for human development;
  • Construction of a composite aggregate index that ranks the nine countries on their ICT use for achieving human development goals. This ICTforHD index is the first such exercise for Asia;
  • Documentation of case studies and best practices of ICT applications from the nine countries across each of the MDGs.

The Summary concludes that in spite of the limitations of these technologies, the issue of digital divide and the experimental nature of many of the applications for human development, the way forward is to support the growth and spread of ICT, steering it in the direction of human development applications. Towards this end the state, the NGOs, and the private sector have complementary roles. The Asian region is particularly well placed to harness and strategically deploy ICT for human development as it not only constitutes one of the fastest growing ICT markets, but also a region of burgeoning ICT industry.

Click here to download the executive summary report in PDF format.

Click here to download the full technical paper in PDF format.

Publishers

Number of Pages
29

Comments

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Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/30/1999 - 00:00 Permalink

I think this is an interesting and useful resource. However, there's a problem in downloading the executive summary in PDF format so please have it checked out.

Perhaps the publication could be further enhanced by including a brief review and listing of the various grants available to further harness ICT in advancing the MDGs in developing countries.

Armila C. Shakya
Culture, Equity, Gender, and Governance Team at ICIMOD
E-mail: ashakya@icimod.org.np

Editor's note: we could not find any problems with the Executive Summary download...

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Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/30/1999 - 00:00 Permalink

Use of ICT for Human development hardly need any emphasis. The potential of ICT for human development in SA need to be explored and encourraged. I have just gone through this page and have downloaded the Executive summary. The page give enough orientation to the report, that seems to promiss some thing goood in this regard.