The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative
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Summary: Global Alliance for Social and Behaviour Change - Building Informed and Engaged Societies

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Summary Outline: The Global Alliance for Social and Behaviour Change - Building Informed and Engaged Societies

Development Imperative: Accelerated progress towards national development goals and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) increasingly requires a focus on engaging people, understanding their capacities and interests, and supporting them in organising for action on those goals in their contexts. This needs to be matched with a focus on rights, social norms, the development agenda setting process, the voice of those most affected by development issues, equity and the family, and individual actions that can and need to be taken - issues that are at the heart of a large number of SDGs. A better understanding of how to programme those themes, and more effective implementation of those approaches at greater scale, will provide a major boost to development action.



Alliance Imperative: There are a large number of organisations, networks, and membership-development-focused organisations engaged in social change, behaviour change, information and knowledge, and social engagement strategies and action. But, in the main, they are organised in relation to parts of this field - for example, communication for development, media for development, health promotion, health communication, digital media and development, civil society organisations, and others. Of course, there is significant overlap across and between these different "parts". This ragged tapestry dilutes the overall understanding, impact, scale, and policy contribution from this combined field of work. Creating a combined process - an Alliance - that joins up these different components could have a significant impact.



Consultation: The outline of the Alliance below is the result of an extensive and inclusive consultation process with contributions from over 1,000 people and organisations and in-depth negotiation with many of the major players.


Alliance Vision: Fully informed and engaged societies working to achieve equity and realise their rights.



Alliance Mission: Advance the scale, quality, impact, and sustainability of communication for development, media for development, social change, and behavioural change strategies.



Fields of work Included: Supporting amplification of the voices of those most affected by development issues; communication for development; social change; behaviour change; media for development; media development; community engagement; participation; programme communication; freedom of information; development communication; social media initiatives as they relate to development priorities; and facilitating dialogue, debate, and conversation.



Development Priorities Covered: SDGs and/or formal national development priority for the country within which the work is taking place.



Goals of the Alliance: (1) Expand policy influence of this perspective and experience; (2) Capture and communicate the most compelling evidence; (3) Increase the scale of this work; (4) Improve the quality of this work; and (5) Ensure higher levels of funding support for this work.



Added Value of the Alliance: (1) Coalescing this overall field of work to fully reflect its size and strength; and (2) Organising this field of work to ensure that its voice, experience, analysis, ideas, and recommendations are increasingly prominent in development policy and resource deliberations.



Relationship Principle: The Alliance will not replace or compete with any existing partnership, network, or membership group related to any part of this field of work. Rather, it will seek to add value to those processes. The Alliance will also seek to facilitate learning between this field of work and other development disciplines.



Alliance Priorities for 2018: (1) Evidence – agree and communicate the most compelling impact and evidence data; (2) Policy - engage with the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF); and (3) Build the infrastructure of the Global Alliance.



Participation: Maximum of 30 organisations, with 50% of the individual organisations genuinely Southern developed and managed. Include a significant number of the networks and partnerships that exist for some of the sub-sectors in this field, with overall balance across the different sub-sectors in this field, global regions, and development priorities. Appendix A lists the organisations.



Commitments and Obligations: Endorse the vision and mission; commit to work actively with the other organisations that are part of the Alliance; highlight the work of the Alliance in their own processes; identify and help to facilitate opportunities to fund the work of the Alliance; consider contributing relevant capacities of their organisation to support advancing the work of the Alliance; and participate for a minimum of two years.



Partnership Instrument: An "Agreement to Cooperate" document has been developed by the organisations engaged. This is being distributed for signature by all organisations.



Alliance Secretariat: The Communication Initiative (The CI) is acting as the initial Secretariat for the Alliance with support from UNICEF and with the contribution of its own platform capacities. The long-term Secretariat arrangement will be a priority consideration for the Alliance itself, with initial ideas being generated by the Alliance cluster working on the infrastructure of the Alliance.



Long-term Resourcing: Discussions have commenced with the organisations committed to the Alliance concerning the medium- and long-term funding support.

Appendix A: Inaugural Participants in the Alliance

The following have been invited to be the inaugural members of the Alliance:

  1. Southern-created and -managed organisations
    • Soul City Institute for Social Justice (South Africa)
    • Breakthrough (India)
    • ANDI (communication rights) (Brazil)
    • BRAC (Bangladesh)
    • CCRDA (Ethiopia)
    • Femina Hip (Tanzania)
    • Minga Peru
  2. Networks, partnerships, and membership-based organisations for sub-sectors of this field
    • AMARC (World Community Radio)
    • Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD)
    • International Social Marketing Association (ISMA)
    • FEMNET (African Women's Development and Communication Network)
    • Civicus
    • The CORE Group
    • CDAC (Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities network)
    • International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE)
    • Global Network on Safer Cities (UN Habitat)
  3. United Nations
    • UNICEF
    • World Health Organization (WHO)
  4. Bilaterals and foundations
    • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
    • Open Society Foundations
    • Omidyar Network
  5. International NGOs
    • Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs
    • BBC Media Action
    • Save the Children USA
  6. Academic
    • International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
    • International Communication Association
    • American University of Beirut
  7. Government and bilateral
    • USAID
    • City of Medellín
    • DFID
  8. Private sector
    • IDEO
    • Busara Center for Behavioral Economics (Kenya)