Current trends and opinions: a survey of communications professionals among the world's top development organizations

To further evaluate the work of the UN in development communication, and compare it to other organizations working in this field, this research project organized a survey of the world's top development communications professionals. The importance of the practice has been clearly established. The intent here was to gauge the varying views and opinions on the current status and role of communications in international development, especially in relation to the various theoretical and historical models of development discussed above, and to see if a consensus is forming. This, in turn, could be used as a basis for further assumptions on the validity and longevity of devcom as a viable contribution to the work of lifting the poor out of poverty.

Survey methodology

The word “survey” is used most often to describe a method of gathering information from a sample of individuals. This “sample” is usually just a fraction of the population being studied in order to extrapolate to the population at large. A survey conducted as part of this research report sought to measure the state of development communications among professionals working in or with this discipline. It also sought to gauge the amount of seriousness given to development communications among development practitioners and organizations, and whether an emphasis is being placed on one theoretical dimension or the other (Diffusion/Mechanistic model or the Participatory/Organic model).

It should be noted up front that the survey population does not necessarily represent a statistical sampling of the specific population. It does however, identify certain attitudes and measures a number of quantifiable indicators.

The survey used a web-based survey tool, with a series of 30 questions. Participants were not required to answer all questions: a no answer to one question, in some cases jumped the participant to the next sub-section because the next question would be rendered irrelevant by the answer.

Participants

Three populations were targeted: 1) participants of the November 2004 United Nations Roundtable on Development Communications; 2) members of the United Nations Communications Group; and 3) registered contributors to the January 2004 e-forum on development communication that was hosted by the World Bank, FAO and DFID

The first group was chosen because of its active involvement in this discipline. The group represents a wide range of institutions and organizations, from the private and public sectors and from academia. The second group consists of top communications officials from within a wide range of UN organizations, from the Food and Agriculture Organization to the UN Environment Programme. The third group was the only one that was self-selected: after participating actively in the e-forum for a week, this researcher posted a message to participants, asking them to visit a link on the website of the UN Capital Development Fund, and to take the survey.

In the first group, 119 practitioners were invited to participate; 62 responded, resulting in a 52% response rate. In the UN Communications Group, 75 were invited, 23 responded, producing a 30% response rate. Out of the 690 people who participated in the World Bank's online discussion forum, 69, or 10% responded. The system was set up to recognize the IP addresses of survey participants, avoiding a case where a person from one group might be represented as belonging to another, and thus counted as having taken the survey twice. Within the survey group were included a few of the researchers mentioned in the literature review, including Jans Servaes and Guy Bessette.

To further break down the numbers of participants, though only 120 out of a possible 884 people participated, in actuality only 181 people were directly and personally invited, out of which 85, or 47%, responded. The third group, the 690 people who participated in the online forum, were merely exposed to an invitation. This same group of 690 people only generated 250 messages during the three weeks of the devcom e-forum, indicating that many of those on the list were merely “lurkers” and not active participants. Of the remaining two who participated, the group with the higher response rate (the UN Roundtable) could be explained because these are active participants in devcom, while the other group (UN Communications Group) or senior managers in departments that focus more on marketing communications for their organizations.

Of the three target populations invited to participate in the survey, 40.3% were from the UN Roundtable, 14.9% from the UN Communications Group and 44.8% from the World Bank's e-forum. Of the total 154 people who responded to the invitation, only three chose not to agree to the terms as presented on the first page. Another 31 dropped out before the third question, which sought to determine the organizational representation. Of the remaining 120 respondents, as shown in Figure 3, 46 (38.3%) represented UN organizations; four (3.3%) represented other multilateral organizations (i.e. the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development); another four (3.3%) represented other bilateral organizations (i.e. the Canadian International Development Agency); 18 (15%) represented non-governmental or community-based organizations (i.e. the Panos institute); another 18 (15%) were university professors; two (1.7%) were students; 27 (22.5%) were consultants specializing in the area of development communications; and nine (7.5%) classified themselves as “other.”

Figure 3: Breakdown of survey representation

Survey results

The participants were asked a series of questions, each elaborated upon here but also listed in Appendix D. The rationale for each question is addressed in the introduction for each subsection.

Preferred definitions of devcom

Karl Weick, the father of the information systems theory, has spent a lot of time thinking about the power of definitions. In The social psychology of organizing , Weick refers to a game of baseball where three umpires discussed how they made calls: “The first said, ‘I calls them as they is.' The second said, ‘I calls them as I sees them.' The third and cleverest umpire said, ‘They ain't nothin' till I calls them'” (1979, p. 1).

As part of this survey, participants were asked for their preferred definition of the practice under study. The purpose of this exercise was to try and determine a preference for either of the two dimensions discussed above: top-down diffusion, horizontal and participative – or a combination of both. Rather than forcing the participants into a decision, the researcher opted to formulate the question along the lines of their preferred definition. On the issue of what to call the discipline, participants were given a range of options mentioned in the first paragraph of the Introduction. Participants were allowed to choose more than one preferred definition.

The most popular choice was communications for development (31.8%), which includes both of the broader definitions mentioned above incorporating diffusion and participation. 8 It should be noted again that this is the preferred term at the United Nations, which accounted for 38.3% of respondents. Three other terms that support both approaches came in at 16.1% ( development communication ), 9.7% ( communication and development ), 5.1% ( project support communication ) and 5.1% (Development Support Communication).

The second highest single preference, at 17.4%, was participatory development communication , signalling a clear preference for horizontal, participatory approaches to communication in development, as opposed to the above terms, which are more open to the possibility of technology and knowledge coming from outside a community and then being diffused, through participatory means allowing for adaptation, among the community. In elaborating on this term, one of the participants, Guy Bessette, defined it as “a planned activity, based on one hand on participatory processes, and on the other hand on media and interpersonal communication which facilitates a dialogue among different stakeholders, around a common development problem or goal, with the objective of developing and implementing a set of activities to contribute to its solution, or its realization, and which supports and accompanies this initiative.” (This is also cited in Bessette's recent publication, Involving the Community , 2004.)

Looking at those terms that imply an emphasis on the top-down “diffusion” approach, the research found that 9.7% preferred the term information-education communication (IEC), which, according to the World Health Organization, involves initiatives that are largely concerned with individual behaviour change or reinforcement, and/or changes in social or community norms. Examples include public health education and communication that seek to empower people vis-à-vis their health actions, and to garner social and political support for those actions (WHO, 2001). Another term that favoured diffusion, social marketing , received 4.2% of terms selected. Two people chose to include their answer exclusively in the “other” category. One of these was more in the diffusion category (answer was “outreach”), while the other could be included in the “combination of the two” category. (This person identified the discipline as both engaging those affected by development efforts, while giving them access to information and knowledge.)

Thus, extrapolating from the above interpretation of the data, one could reasonably determine that 63.1% of the group would agree that the discipline in question involves both dimensions, while 17.4% are in the “development as participation” camp, and 19.5% consider the topic relevant only to efforts to diffuse outside knowledge. This breakdown is presented visually in Figure 4:

Figure 4: Perspectives on how communication should be used in development

Participants were furthermore asked to describe what “development communication” (or whatever it was called in question 2) meant to them and their organization. This question was not mandatory (participants could proceed without answering). However, 90 participants chose to elaborate on their definition (see Appendix E).

Financial Resources for devcom

One indicator of an organization's level of commitment to a particular discipline is the amount of resources it contributes to it. Among the group polled, 80.9% said their organization contributed resources to devcom activities, while 13% said they did not and 5.2% did not know. Sixty people skipped the question, roughly the number of consultants, professors and students for whom this question may not apply. The high level of yes responses could be expected given the self-selected bias of the group. Development professionals with either no interest or no support in the area of development communications would be less likely to participate in an e-forum or be invited to the UN Roundtable. The third group that was approached to participate in the survey, the UN communications professionals, was the group with the lowest response rate (30%).

When asked for their insights regarding which types of organizations were increasing their resources for devcom in line with recent United Nations resolutions, 95 participants responded. They were asked to consider three types of organizations: multilateral, bilateral and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). For multilateral organizations, 17.9% said no, resources were not increasing, while 57.9% said they were and 24.2% did not know. Looking at bilateral organizations, 17.9% also said no, while 47.4% said yes, they were increasing and 34.7% did not know. For NGOs, 29.5% said resources were increasing, while 41.1% said they were not and 34.7% did not know.

Of the 80.9% who responded yes to the question of whether or not their organization committed resources to devcom, 41.3% said that more than 20% of their organization's budgets were set aside for this purpose. At the bottom end of the scale, 14.7% said that less than 5% of their organization's budget was for devcom. Figure 5 presents the full spectrum of results:

Figure 5: Percentage of an organization's operating budget for devcom

When asked about the status of the budget over the past five years, 22.7% said their organization had decreased its budget; 20% said the budget had remained the same and 40% said it had increased. The rest, or 17.3%, said they did not know.

When asked to explain their answers, 78 participants chose to respond, many writing out elaborate explanations (see Appendix F). Of these, 56 (72%) answered negatively (choosing to explain for the lack of attention given to devcom), while 15 (19%) answered positively, and 7 (9%) answered in a way that was difficult or impossible to qualify. This subjective bias towards the negative affirms Mezzalama's conclusion that the situation regarding communication activities in the United Nations system is unsatisfactory (Mezzalama, 1994).

Of those who answered in a negative light, an analysis of the responses reveals a range of possible reasons for their perceived lack of financial support for devcom activities. Some responses included more than one reason. Of reasons given, 31.9% explained the phenomenon on a lack of understanding among donors and policy makers of what devcom is, or comprehension of its potential contribution to the success of development projects: “ There is a lot of confusion about what communication for development actually means, among multilateral and bilateral donors and among NGOs/CBOs” (van de Pol, 2005a).

Next, 27.5% said it was because of low importance given to devcom by those in charge of budgets: “…donors cut out the communication budget for technical assistance grants and loans before any other component, or they add it on at the very end” (Ramirez, 2005).

Thirteen percent put the onus on devcom practitioners, saying they had failed to make the case for supporting the discipline: “Development Communication has not yet sufficiently proven that its contribution is critical to the sustainable success of development projects” (Heidrich, 2005).

Next, 11.6% put the problem squarely on the difficulty of measuring the impact of devcom: “The impact of communication for development activities is not readily measurable and to some extent not fully understood by development practitioners” (Del Castello, 2005).

Of the total, 4.3% said the lack of support for devcom is a result of development projects not being designed in a way that would benefit from it: “People are still too locked into short-term project cycles and evidence of project outcomes” (Mansell, 2005).

The remaining responses included explanations or opinions that the practice is too new, or blamed the dearth of resources on overall donor fatigue: “B/c not even ODA levels are being met” (Hunt, 2005).

Devcom staff at development organizations

Related to the question of resources, the survey asked respondents if their organizations had staff working specifically on devcom activities, as opposed to marketing/communications activities. Of the 92 who addressed this question, 64.1% said yes, 33.7% said no, and 2.2% did not know. Of those who said yes, 47.5% said 4 or more, 11.5% said 3, 6.6% said 2 and 23% said only one person worked in this discipline.

Devcom and the Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted at the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in September 2000, call for a dramatic reduction in poverty and marked improvements in the health of the poor (see Appendix A). A recent report on MDG progress calls them “ the world's time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions—income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion—while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability.” (United Nations Millennium Project, 2005, p.1).

But what do the MDGs have to do with communication? As mentioned above, the ninth biannual session of the United Nations Roundtable on Communication for Development in Rome declared that communication for development is critical to the success of the MDGs (FAO, 2004). When asked how relevant devcom is to the achievement of the MDGs, 86% of respondents said “very relevant,” 12% said “relevant,” 1% said “neither relevant nor irrelevant,” 1% said somewhat irrelevant – and none said it was not relevant at all. This is not surprising considering that 40.4% of the respondents were from the group that declared devcom was critical for the success of the MDGs.

Each respondent was asked which Goals his/her organization was contributing to through devcom activities. For each Goal, each respondent who answered yes , was then asked to elaborate, and to explain what more could be done for that particular Goal (individual responses are listed in Appendix G). Following is an overview of their responses, which is visually presented in Figure 6, followed by a discussion of responses supported by qualitative information from the survey:

• For the first MDG, Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger , of the 86 respondents, 68.6% said their organization was addressing this goal through devcom, while 25.6% said no and 5.8% did not know.
• For the second MDG, Achieve universal primary education , of the 83 respondents, 34.9% said their organization was addressing this goal through devcom, 50.6% said no and 14% did not know.
• For the third MDG, Promote gender equity and empower women , of the 83 respondents, 68.7% said their organization was addressing this goal through devcom, 20.5% said no and 10.8% did not know.
• For the fourth MDG, Reduce child mortality , of the 82 respondents, 41.5% said their organization was addressing this goal through devcom, 42.7% said no and 15.9% said they did not know.
• For the fifth MDG, Improve maternal health , of the 80 respondents, 36.2% said their organization was addressing this goal through devcom, 47.5% said no and 16.2% said they did not know.
• For the sixth MDG, Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases , 64.6% said their organization was addressing this goal through devcom, 26.6% said no and 8.9% said they did not know.
• For the seventh MDG, Ensure environmental sustainability , 66.2% said their organization was addressing this goal through devcom, 20.8% said no, and 13% did not know.
• For the eighth and final MDG, Develop a global partnership for development , 53.2% said their organization was addressing this goal through devcom, 31.2% said no and 15.6% did not know.

Figure 6: Which MDGs are your organization supporting through devcom activities?

From this data, we can gauge the confidence level of respondents in the use of devcom to each MDG. MDGs #1, #3, #6 and #7 were ranked the highest, signalling perhaps that devcom was most easily applied to these. But why were these particular MDGs higher than the others? To approach an answer to this question one must delve deeper into the qualitative responses.

The first MDG, eradicating poverty and hunger, overlaps with most of the other MDGs and is the work of most development organizations. For example, one UN Respondent addressing MDG #1, for example, said “All comDev programmes in FAO have as ultimate objective eradication of poverty and hunger” (Del Castello, 2005b).

Many of the elaborated responses to MDG #3, promoting gender equality, said they were using communication tools to raise awareness of gender issues and promote gender equality, indicating that this MDG was perhaps easier to address through communications than others. Case in point: Tetsuo Ohno, the director of the UN Information Center in Islamabad , Pakistan , said his office collaborates closely with NGOs, the Government and the media to raise awareness of gender equality through events on UN observances such as Women's Day and the Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (Ohno, 2005). Robert Bisset, spokesperson in Europe for the UN Environment Programme, said his organization's NGO and civil society Unit is expanding a program on women and environment issues. Within this program, communication tools are integrated into activities designed to give women and women's groups a greater voice in influencing and making policies and decisions that are designed to protect their environment (Bisset, 2005).

The seventh MDG, ensuring environmental sustainability, also is more easily achieved through communication – at least as measured by the qualitative responses from respondents. Ricardo Ramirez, a professor at the University of Guelph's School of Environmental Design and Rural Development Rural Extension Studies, commented that MDG #7 is an area “where Communication for Development and natural resource management overlap” (Ramirez, 2005b). Steve Buckley, president of the Montreal-based World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), said his organization organizes radio campaigns on environmental awareness and sustainability, and provides training and capacity building for radio producers in programme making on environmental issues (Buckley, 2005). Teresa Hanley, director of programmes at the Panos Institute, said her organization produces materials with and for the media which cover a wide range of environmental issues, and surveys media coverage of environmental issues and common challenges (Hanley, 2005).

The lowest scores were MDGs #2 and #5: achieve universal primary education and improve maternal health . The second of these comes as a surprise to this researcher, especially considering that an appropriate use of diffusion devcom to communicate health information; together with an appropriate use of participatory devcom, to get women to integrate local knowledge with diffused knowledge, could dramatically contribute to the attainment of this particular MDG.

Achieving universal primary education may have more to do with the provision of small-scale infrastructure, and SWAp 9 budgets through ministries of education. That said, however, those who answered yes to MDG 2 had some interesting advice for expanding devcom in this sector (see Annex F). Cleofe Torres, an associate professor at the College of Development Communication, University of the Philippines, Los Baños, said that development practitioners should understand that devcom is not merely the process of giving out information, but rather “should be viewed as a process of empowering people so that they learn to direct their own development path” (Torres, 2005). Peter van de Pol, project coordinator at Radio Nederland Training Center, had three areas of advice: 1) Public media organizations could be used for educating (and re-training) teaching staff for primary education (of which there is a huge shortage); 2) Public and private media production houses can make more and better educational programmes, which can be broadcasted on a national or local level; and 3) The media could be used by children themselves, to express themselves, to claim their place in society and to apply things learned to the wider world ( van de Pol, 2005b).

Many of those who said yes to MDG #5, improve maternal health, lamented the lack of attention to this area, and called for more training and resources to improve this area of communication support to the MDGs. Amri Jahi, senior lecturer at Bogor Agricultural University in Indonesia said there is a need for “ better policies, programs, training and sharing resources for improving family welfare, especially for low-income families in rural and urban areas” ( Jahi, 2005) . Gregoire Njejimana, rector at the Université Lumière de Bujumbura, Burundi, said he needs “more qualified professors as well as books, university links, etc.” in order to promote this MDG ( Njejimana, 2005). Silvia Balit, former Chief of the FAO Communication for Development Program, said what is needed is more training of local health personnel in communication techniques and methods, as well as “more resources for planning and implementation of rural communication programs that include subjects such as maternal health” (Balit, 2005).