The Drum Beat 377 - World Congress on Communication for Development (WCCD)

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While it takes a little time to fully digest the results and impact of an event like the World Congress on Communication for Development (WCCD), organised by The World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and The Communication Initiative (The CI), with this issue of The Drum Beat we wanted to give everyone in The Drum Beat network some initial thoughts and highlights from the Congress, provide some well-deserved thanks, let you know about the timelines and plans for such things as the publication of the proceedings and papers, and introduce a brief survey for you to share your thoughts and impressions.

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Take the Survey: Do you have an opinion on the World Congress on Communication for Development?

This survey is now closed.

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A FEW ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many people to thank for what happened in Rome. The Secretariat, made up of The CI, The World Bank and the FAO, certainly worked hard but did not do this on their own! The Steering Committee provided early and important guidance on the priorities, objectives and agenda of the Congress and continued to provide input and support throughout. The Advisory Body also offered strategic guidance and further support and direction towards finalising the invitation list and identifying policy and decision makers to invite. The Scientific Committee led the process of reviewing and approving the papers submitted and also provided the nucleus for the group that eventually wrote the paper on mainstreaming communication for development. Each session and special event was coordinated by one or more organisations that put in many hours of preparation and planning. The sessions were recorded by a group of incredibly hard- and late-working rapporteurs from Panos (and Anja Venth from Soul Beat Africa) who also noted all the recommendations. These recommendations were taken to a small writing group that took on the very large task of distilling them into a single and overarching set of recommendations. The work of this group was in turn fed to a group of policy makers who took on the task of commenting and reflecting on the draft recommendations and then braving the full plenary for a final discussion resulting in what is now called the Rome Consensus. And, of course, final and large thanks have to go to the Italian government who provided the financial support that made it all possible.

The CI's partners played a very significant role and we would specifically like to acknowledge the work and effort they contributed. Calandria, the CFSC Consortium, DFID, HealthLink Worldwide, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Soul City, UNICEF and USAID all were active members of the Steering Committee. On the Advisory Body the following CI partners also played a major and much needed role: ANDI, BBC World Service Trust, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Fundacion Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, Inter-American Development Bank, International Institute for Communication and Development, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, Media Institute of Southern Africa, PAHO, Panos, SafAIDS, Sesame Workshop, and the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre. Apart from these duties many CI partners also played major roles in coordinating and facilitating sessions and special events. Rosa Maria Alfaro took the time to represent The CI Partnership and her own organisation Calandria in the Opening Ceremonies and Garth Japhet, Chair of The CI Partnership and Executive Director of Soul City was a discussant in the opening plenary discussion. We want to thank all of you for the hard work and commitment you showed towards making this Congress as successful as it was - without passing on any of the blame for shortcomings!

HIGHLIGHTS:

October 25-27 2006 in Rome

There were over 700 participants who joined in 24 sessions, 12 special events, daily plenaries, video and film displays, not to mention the many informal discussions and opportunities to renew old connections and make new ones. Over 120 papers were accepted and most of the authors were able to attend and participate as panellists and/or present their papers in poster sessions. Through sessions and plenaries, a series of recommendations were developed and discussed which were then distilled through the work of a writing group into an overall set of recommendations now called the 'Rome Consensus'. All of this is now being consolidated by Panos London and the WCCD Secretariat into a proceedings document which aims to reflect the discussions, presentations and recommendations and provide a detailed overview of what happened.

Media Representation

Apart from policy makers the WCCD also actively sought media representatives to attend and report on what they heard and saw, interview communicators from around the world, and work on stories that underlined how important communication is to development. These stories have been sent out to a range of audiences and through a variety of media - radio, internet, print and television; community, private, mainstream, alternative, global and local. Perhaps the highest profile global coverage came through the broadcast of the BBC World Debate from the WCCD which focused on the question 'is a free media essential for development?' and was broadcast to millions. However, there was also lot of coverage through major broadcasters such as RAI (Italy), Globo (Brazil) and NDTV (India) and equally importantly strong representation from local private and community media working directly on communication for development across the world. We expect this coverage to be significant and we are still gathering stories. If you come across any please send them to cmorry@comminit.com

Papers and Sessions

It is useful to reflect a little on how the WCCD was structured to bring together evidence with strong examples of good communication practice. This was done by balancing two parallel but interconnected processes. One was the call for papers, which was managed through the Scientific Committee. The other involved the Secretariat, Steering Committee and Advisory Body working with organisations around the world to prepare and develop the many sessions and special events. The organisations coordinating the sessions created these as interactive spaces designed to encourage discussion between academics, communicators and policy/decision makers to highlight communication for developments' impact and theoretical/methodological maturity as well as to present evidence underlining why it should be placed much more at the centre of development policy, planning, implementation and evaluation. These sessions were also designed as spaces in which participants could prepare recommendations for how to increase the use of communication in development processes and initiatives. Each session organiser reviewed the papers approved by the Scientific Committee and invited some of the authors to join their session or special event. Because of the interactive nature of most of the sessions, authors were not asked to present their papers but, rather, to participate as panellists based on the needs and logic of each session. This ensured the participatory space for discussing recommendations while also incorporating the voice and perspective of nearly half of the papers' authors.

This approach meant there was no formal presentation of papers as there would have been in a more scientifically structured event. However, the papers served as an underpinning to the discussions and will continue to serve as an important addition to a body of knowledge oriented specifically to demonstrating the impact of communication for development. While the sessions provided the space for dialogue between practitioners, academics, and policy/decision makers and a venue for creating the recommendations that will help guide action towards 'mainstreaming' communication for development, the papers established a platform of evidence that can continue to be used and expanded towards the same goal.

Content and Dialogue

The WCCD was designed to gather and present evidence that demonstrated the impact of communication on development initiatives, the added value it brings, as well as its historical and theoretical depth and maturity towards building a compelling argument for placing communication at the centre of development policy and resourcing. It focused a great deal on the need to begin a dialogue with decision makers who were responsible for achieving broad development priorities. In order to ensure that the WCCD focused on development priorities that were both high on the agendas of decision makers and had the evidence and history to make the case the WCCD wanted to make, it was decided to focus on three streams - Health in a Time of Poverty; Communication for Good Governance, Participation and Transparency; and Communication in Sustainable Development. A fourth stream was also included to profile a number of priority areas where communication was having an impact as a way of emphasising its usefulness across almost the entire spectrum of today's development priorities.

While we cannot hope to capture what went on in this short space, some of the following observations may give you a flavour. While the WCCD embraced the entire spectrum of communication for development practise, theory and approach, both mass and community media had a significant presence. As already noted, television coverage of the event was combined with television programmes made at the event by BBC and RAI. Furthermore, media featured in a number of sessions; here the focus was on such things as seeing the news media as a 'pro-development tool', using media in conflict situations, and re-thinking community media in the digital age. The ongoing and increasing importance of community radio was emphasised in many sessions. And the growing evidence of the impact of edutainment across an increasing number of development sectors was underlined.

Equally high profile were the many sessions and examples of the importance of participatory approaches and initiatives. There were clowns from Guatemala handing out symbols of health, governance and sustainable development as invitations to a highly interactive special event. A simulation game was used to underline the impact of poor communication around an unknown disease. A South African community radio station joined in real time as a participant in a community radio session. These are just three examples from the many that could have been chosen. The importance of ensuring that the voices of those most affected were not just heard, but fully part of any development process, was underscored many times as the only way to accomplish such fundamentals of successful development as ownership, sustainability, democracy, transparency and equality.

A few other core themes worth touching on included the need for more communication for development skills training at various levels and amongst different groups. It was generally felt that financial investment in communication needs to increase significantly and that much more work needs to be done to create and/or strengthen enabling policy and legal environments for communication. Finally, there was a sense that none of this would happen unless communicators continued to advocate for the goals of the WCCD. To do this effectively, many focused on the need to build and strengthen partnerships and networks.

It is fair to say that there was a spirit of seeking synergies, similarities and shared objectives. The 'field' as represented by the participants felt like a place where there is growing consensus on many basic principles. On the whole the importance of participation as well as questions of ownership, sustainability, control and power were universally embraced and arose as strong themes throughout the WCCD. There was also an emerging sense that we need to both understand communication as a right, and approach communication for development using a rights-based framework.

Here are a few participant voices:

"Communication is probably the most powerful way of bringing about social change." - Anonymous

"Decision-makers are aware of the importance and power of communication and see the need for funding any communication initiative that is used to enhance the type of work that they are trying to promote. They may not, however be interested in fostering participatory communication for the very fact that fostering participation can lead to change and dissent - not, in reality part of the agenda." - Wendy Quarry

"The mistake was not to put the people and the community first, so there was a lack of ownership and trust. Now we need to give people opportunities to ask questions. If we empower the people, they will find their own gatekeepers and use them to intervene when our children are not immunized." - Community leader, Imo

"The capacity to receive information, to debate and to express ones own ideas and needs is a right in itself and also an essential part of people’s ability to lift themselves out of poverty and participate in the life of their society." - Panos

"A person who has had an experience is the one who narrates the story well" - Rwandan saying

"We should recognize that bad development communication is worse than no communication at all". Garth Japhet

Excerpt from the Rome Consensus:

Communication is essential to human, social and economic development. At the heart of communication for development is participation and ownership by communities and individuals most affected by poverty and other development issues.

The overall WCCD recommendations in the Rome Consensus [click here for the PDF] set the following broad priorities:

• national development policies should include communication for development
• development organisations need to incorporate communication for development as a central part of their programming from inception
• communication for development capacity has to be strengthened within countries and organisations at all levels
• more financial investment is needed
• policies and legislation need to create an enabling environment
• communication for development programmes need strong and ongoing monitoring and evaluation indicators and methods
• partnerships and networks promoting communication for development are needed at international, national and local levels
• communication for development needs to adopt a rights-based approach.

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ACCOMPLISHMENTS

So, what initial impressions have we drawn on what was accomplished in Rome between October 25 and 27 and after nearly two years of preparation? Many of us have argued for some time that we do not do a good job marshalling the evidence and arguments that will create an informed understanding of, and support for, communication for development amongst key decision makers. The papers prepared for the WCCD respond to this need and offer a significant base of evidence to be reviewed in detail over the coming months and built on over the coming years. The recommendations in both the consensus document and from each session provide a broad sense of overall direction and priorities for continuing to advocate for a more central role for communication for development. This was the first event of its kind and size, so we do not want to claim too much nor suppose it would meet every expectation or be uniformly successful. However, we feel that it has moved us forward in terms of evidence, identifying priorities, and confirming that we have a lot of common ground on which to build.

WHAT NEXT?

Between now and early March 2007 the WCCD Secretariat will have published the full proceedings of the Congress along with all of the accepted papers. The Congress proceedings will be available in printed form and on the WCCD website for download. The papers will be published on an accompanying CD-ROM and will also be available for download from the website. We are presently working on a final set of recommendations that will consolidate the 'Consensus' recommendations with the recommendations that flowed from the sessions themselves and we hope to have this ready before the end of December 2006.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

The CI, as you know, is always interested in what you think. Our own thoughts and impressions are still preliminary. We know that many of the people who participated are also subscribers to one or more CI publications and we are interested in hearing what those of you who went to the WCCD think. We also know that the WCCD generated a lot of interest and discussion amongst the many of you who, though you were not able to attend, identify with the goals. We are equally interested in hearing what you have to say.

To give you an opportunity to tell us what you think, we've set up a survey. Your participation will help The CI define what our role should be now that the WCCD is behind us, while the work of advocating effectively for communication for development has only just begun.

Please see the links below for the Survey in either English, French or Spanish.

This survey is now closed.

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Please also participate in our Poll about the MDGs:

2006 was a successful year for using communication towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). If you agree, please indicate how? If you disagree, why not? If possible, please provide examples.

Many thanks!

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This issue was written by Chris Morry.

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The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

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