Media Matters publication: article by Warren Feek, Executive Director, The Communication Initiative
One of the biggest challenges that faces professionals in the media development and communications for development sector relates to answering a single bottom line question: what impact does the sector have on people living in poverty? The sector encounters further difficulty in presenting its case for relevance to the set of international targets embodied in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The task is made more complex by the nature of the MDGs themselves - centrallydecided, universal and technical, time-bound and non-political, for instance – which present a mismatch with the processes underlying media development and strategic communications: the latter emphasise local agendas and contexts, social complexity and long –term goals and embrace political change. This apparent disconnect should not let the sector off the hook, however. The MDGs are the landscape on which we are walking: every major international agency is framing their policy and financing strategies around the MDGs. The sector just has to make its case.
The following arguments and information upon which I draw to make "the case" have been provided from both [a] the now very extensive Communication Initiative online knowledge base of summaries of 35,000 plus programme experiences, strategic thinking pieces, evaluation results and other relevant themes from all over the world and [b] the views and opinions from an interactive, online network that now numbers more than 58,000 media development and development communication professionals globally.
This "case" has three component parts:
The History of the major social forces that have shaped this world
The Data from research and evaluations
The Methodologies that underpin the way the Communication Initiative works
“The frustration and bewilderment are doubled when we see the flow of news emerging from the UN building as report after report and official statement after official statement describe a world generally heading in the wrong direction when it comes to ’achieving’ the MDGs by 2015. New strategies are needed. Development investment patterns need to change.”
Like many practitioners I am often frustrated and bewildered by how many times we are challenged to prove that media interventions and strategies have a direct effect on the core development challenges that this world faces. Many funders, technical experts in other fields and policy makers ask "Can you prove that the media - and other forms of communication - have impact? "
In my view this question qualifies for the kind of response that my 13 year old daughter gives me when I ask her what is in her opinion a very stupid question. That response goes something like this: "Dddaahhh!"
The frustration and bewilderment are doubled when we see the flow of news emerging from the UN building as report after report and official statement after official statement describe a world generally heading in the wrong direction when it comes to ‘achieving’ - the MDGs by 2015. New strategies are needed. Development investments patterns need to change.
Let’s imagine having a chat with Martin Luther King Jr, the Civil Rights leader, in the course of which he is asked "Hey, Martin, do you think that the media has impact?" I am sure his response would NOT be "daahhh"but it would be an equivalent expression.
Just about the only thing the Civil Rights movement had going for it in terms of a strategy was public and private media and communication. No vaccines to change prejudiced social norms. No food supplements to alter ethical states. No grand economic plan to change the discriminatory world. No equity dams to build or culturally relevant new technology systems to introduce. Just private and public argument: information, debate, ideas, dialogue, analysis and convictions, a substantial part of which is channeled through the media. And the civil rights movement changed this world in very significant ways.
So, if all you get from Martin is an admittedly dreamy "daahh" equivalent, how about moving on down the road and chatting with Mahatma Gandhi. He is asked whether the media have impact? Perhaps this time there is simple silence as he considers the best way to respond given the vital role of the Indian media - small and large media - public and private media - informing and mobilising media - in the Indian Independence movement. That silence would provide a more compelling answer than any "daaahhh’ from any teenager.
You move on to a spiritual neighbour of Martin and Mahatma: Emily Pankhurst was a leader of the Women’s Suffragette movement. Many women still cannot vote in some countries. But in the first 50 years of the 20th century a seismic shift took place. The media were centrally involved in that shift.
Women did not get the vote that is rightfully theirs by holding dinner parties. They staged events that demanded media coverage. They created the space needed for public debate and private dialogue on these issues by writing columns, highlighting principles and communicating their vision and ideas - almost always through a media form. I am sure that Emily would respond to our question along the lines of: "Oh my dear…let me tell you my experience" but in essence she would mean "Daahhh!"
There are many others you could talk to as we travel this road: Nelson Mandela on anti-apartheid action, indigenous community leaders on land rights, tobacco company leaders on what the anti-tobacco movement has done to smoking rates in some countries, etc…
“Whether we like it or not - and no matter how strongly we believe that what we do works - measurable impact data is required. And data that is relevant to the MDG targets is particularly needed.”
So, the case is made! There is no need to go any further. Big increases in funding will now flow for media development and development communication? The media and communication perspective become an integral and central part of policy development and monitoring?
Ahhh – no! As the New Zealand back country farmer in my native land would probably say if you asked for directions: "If I were you I would not start from here!"
What the funders and policy makers appear to say they need is the detailed data not the historical precedents – no matter how compelling and major those changes have been. Whether we like it or not – and no matter how strongly we believe that what we do works – measurable impact data is required. And data that is relevant to the MDG targets is particularly needed.
A group of London School of Economics economists were interested in that most basic of development issues, hunger and food security. In India they looked at the public distribution of food and state government expenditures on disaster relief related to the most vulnerable people and populations in selected Indian States. Their research reveals strong, significant, and positive correlations between newspaper circulation levels and government responses. A 1% increase in newspaper circulation is associated with a 2.4% increase in public food distribution and a 5.5 % increase in calamity relief expenditures. Their summary was that "States with higher levels of media development are more active in protecting vulnerable citizens".
The World Bank’s Policy Research Group assessed a Ugandan government initiated newspaper campaign to boost schools’ and parents’ ability to monitor local officials’ handling of a large school-grant program - to ensure that the money that was allocated by government to schools got to those schools for the purpose of education – not into other people’s hands through corrupt practices. The results were striking: In 1995 only 20%, on average, of the funds allocated got to those schools. 80% of those dollars just wandered away. By 2001, with the newspaper initiative the only major variable, the situation had been reversed: 80% of the dollars got to the schools. The resources are dramatically improved for more effective education – a crucial component in development.2 In summary: Increased public access to information (…) reduce[s] (…) corruption of public funds.
Charles Westoff is a leading demographer at Princeton University. He and his equally eminent colleague Akinrola Bankole, looked at the impact that accessing mass media had on people’s reproductive health choices in Africa, using DHSS data as the basis for the analysis. In assessing the data and making the analysis they controlled for the variables that could distort such findings: income levels; socio-economic status; age; rural-urban and so on.
The Executive Summary of their paper states: "The general conclusion (…) is that there is a persistent and frequently strong association between exposure to the mass media and reproductive behaviour in Africa in the expected direction; (…) greater knowledge and use of contraception, intention to use contraception in the future, preferences for fewer children and intention to stop child bearing. In addition, there is evidence that media exposure is also associated with later age at marriage. These conclusions can be generally applied to women and men, both married and single"
Some examples of the data produced: Zambia: 15% of married women with no education regularly exposed to radio and TV are currently using contraception compared with 9% exposed to one of those media and 7 per cent exposed to no media. Burkina Faso: All women regularly exposed to radio, television and print media desire a mean number of children of 3.7; compared with 4.2 for women having regular exposure to two of those media, 5.7 for one of the media, and 6.3 for no exposure to any media.
What is interesting is that just accessing the media, in particular radio, is enough to have a significant effect. It is not necessary to hear a specific message or piece of information. It is the way that the media opens up overall possibilities and horizons that transfers to, in this case, modern contraception use, fewer children and intention to stop child bearing that encourages such change.
Reducing child mortality is a very important Millennium Development Goal. In 1990 the Philippines Department of Health conducted a national mass-media campaign in support of routine vaccination services. A WHO cross-disciplinary research team assessed that media campaign. They concluded that "significantly attributable to that campaign" the proportion of fully vaccinated children of ages 12-23 months increased from 54% to 65%. The proportion of children whose vaccinations were started on time increased from 43.3% to 55.6% and the number that finished on time jumped from 32.2% to 56.2%. The average number of vaccinations that a child under 2 years received increased from 4.32 to 5.10. Coverage increased between 1989 and 1990 by a factor of 0.77. 64% of mothers who knew of the campaign had their children immunised; 42% of mothers who did not have the knowledge of the campaign had their children vaccinated. They even quantified the media role - the amount of these increases that were attributed to the media was 0.54.
Reducing maternal mortality is a vital issue that is proving extremely difficult to significantly achieve. Researchers at the BASICS project investigated the impact of an initiative in Mali called "The Green Pendelu" which uses indigenous cultural, local media resources including songs, singer/storytellers (griots) and traditional clothing to address maternal mortality issues. The goal was to increase communication between husbands and wives regarding pregnancy and to improve healthseeking behavior during pregnancy. All indicators showed significantly increased domestic communication between husbands and wives on a very culturally sensitive issue. And the result related to maternal mortality?
Assisted births by professional health workers in the project area increased from under 20% at the start of the project to 77% in the year after the communication intervention was implemented. We know from many studies that the presence of such skilled support significantly reduces maternal mortality.
What do we do about HIV/AIDS? It will be 20 years before there is an effective widely available vaccine. By then who knows what situation we will be in if we continue on the current trajectory. One thing we can do is to incorporate much more extensively than at present the strategic principles that guided the early efforts on HIV/AIDS that proved somewhat successful. A Cambridge University publication managed to identify what the principle for success was.
As an explanation of why Uganda did so much better than other countries, they found evidence of a basic population level, early behaviour and communication response, initiated at community level, to avoid risk, reduce risk behaviours and care for people with AIDS. There were greater levels of communication about AIDS and people with AIDS through social networks in Uganda, unlike the comparison countries.
The authors identified similar higher levels of communication about HIV/AIDS in other situations where HIV has declined: Thailand and the US Gay community. The media – national to local - were, of course, a crucial part of that locally initiated Ugandan communication response. In Uganda, HIV prevalence declined from 21% to 9.8% from 1991-98 and there was a reduction in non-regular sexual partners by 65%. On the basis of such evidence, why is there not much more extensive support for communities to do what they know works best in their circumstances and contexts - including the very important media response?
There are many Communication Initiative Partner organisations that do excellent research on the impact of media development/development communication on HIV/AIDs. These include Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, BBC World Service Trust, Exchange, Media Institute of Southern Africa, FAO, Calandria in Peru, ANDI – the Child Rights News Agency in Brazil.
A very good example of partner research is the very extensive and deep evaluation of the Soul City initiative in South Africa. Soul City has always placed a high priority on thorough and well resourced evaluation. The largest of those evaluations - Soul City 4 - was guided by an international advisory panel.
The evaluation found that thirty-two percent of African respondents with high Soul City TV exposure said they always use condoms, compared to 31% with medium and 28% with low Soul City exposure. Young respondents (16-24) exposed to Soul City were also more likely to say they always use condoms. Thirty-eight percent of those who watch Soul City television a lot always used condoms. In comparison, 26% of those who watch television, but did not watch Soul City, reported that they always used condoms.
What a strange feeling it must be for those people involved in environmental communication when they have to justify the impact of the media on environmental issues. It is undeniable that without the media, Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior is just another boat.
So, it is instructive to look at what happens when there is no media and communication process integral to the overall strategy. Rather than look at the big environmental issues lets look at some basic, local environmental concerns.
The Ghana Upper Region Water Supply Project (URWSP) had repeatedly attempted to promote the use of communal waste dumps and latrines by, for example, the subsidised provision of squatting slabs. These attempts "failed". In that sanitation and hygiene norms, expectations and behaviours in the communities targeted by this project did not improve. The project began and continued as a top-down technical project, with an apparently simple solution. But there was little by way of media and communication process.
The absence of a media and communication strategy meant that some very basic and important questions were simply not asked. This was highlighted by researchers from the Center for Development Studies in Ghana, in a paper published by The University of Bradford. Whilst the Ghana Water Supply project focused on the quality and placement of "squatting slabs" the absence of a media and communications strategy meant that issues like traditional use and family and household dynamics appear to have been just plain ignored.
A World Bank Policy Research Paper, produced by the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Division at The World Bank Institute, explored the link between information flows and governance, worldwide. Using two kinds of indicators, Roumeen Islam from the Institute found that "information gives power to monitor and make good choices"; thus, there is "a significant and positive correlation between transparency and improved governance".
Just giving better data to people", she summarises, "can help countries do better."Of course the media is a prime vehicle for better sharing of such data and information. Islam’s analysis also showed that "better decision-making in economic and political markets boosts growth", which suggests that "advising countries on the importance of(...)making this data widely available is policy advice that can boost economic growth." There is further exploration of the link between information flows and governance or institutional quality in Islam’s paper. It demonstrates that countries with better information flows also govern better. The media are maybe the key actors for freedom of speech and freely available information, and transparency.
The data linking investments in communications to impact on the MDG agenda exists, therefore. The practitioner sector and donor community alike need then to move beyond the idea that the effect of communications is impossible to measure and quantify. It also needs to identify which of the core elements of communications and media are required in greater scale to achieve the MDGs and to implement effective poverty reduction strategy (PRS) programmes.
Below are eight key areas : VOICE: Increased space for and attention to the voice, perspective, and central contribution of those most affected by poverty and other development issues.
KNOWLEDGE: Widened and expanded knowledge and information sharing including, for improved relevance and other reasons, a higher priority on knowledge and information generated within the communities and countries that are bearing the heaviest burden of poverty and related issues.
CULTURE: Improved ways to engage the rich cultural diversity across the globe and the important and diverse ways in which those varied cultures understand, address, and harness the vitally important factors of leadership, community, behaviour, and inclusion in order to improve their families, communities and countries.
DEBATE: Significantly expanded public and private debate and dialogue on the issues that are of priority importance in each international, national, and local context.
POLICY: More open, participative, and inclusive processes of policy development that increase the substantive integration of the views and perspectives of those most affected by poverty and other development issues.
LEGISLATION: More effective legislation, including on media, supporting a pluralistic communication environment with space for a full range of organisations and voices.
BEHAVIOUR and ATTITUDES: Expanded focus on addressing the relevant behaviours of both people affected and decision makers in order to accelerate action on the development issues of concern.
DATA: Improved collection, sharing, and utilising of data related to the human and social dimensions of development.
A TROVE OF PROVEN EXPERIENCE AND METHODOLOGIES TO BE APPLIED AT SCALE
Does the practitioner sector possess the capacity and methodology to successfully apply increased investments in these areas by the decision-makers in development agencies? The Communication Initiative has summarised over 35,000 experiences drawn from on-the-ground experience and learning. It has assembled over 200 pieces of strategic thinking, gathered over 75 individual and social change theories, and is hosting a growing rich set of planning models that can systematically guide the implementation of initiatives informed by the strategies outlined above.
The case is made, I believe. Furthermore, a community of professionals with the necessary experience and knowledge tools is ready to make its make its contribution to addressing poverty and to the other international development issues covered by the MDGs.
For this to happen at the scale required calls, however, for a major shift from decision-makers in local, national and international development that would raise from its current marginal status the use of strategic communications and media in development, and mainstream it across the workings of all development agencies. Ensuring that this shift occurs is the most urgent challenge facing the international development community.
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