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.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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The Drum Beat 683 - Themes from The CI Bloggers

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Issue #
683
The Drum BeatThemes from The CI Bloggers: The Drum Beat 683
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PLEASE READ, COMMENT ON, AND SUBMIT BLOGS FOCUSED ON:
MEDIA SUSTAINABILITY
CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN AGRICULTURE
GENDER-RELATED RIGHTS AND EVALUATION
GOVERNANCE AND MEDIA
TOLERANCE
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Have something to say about policy and media in the context of communication for development (C4D)? This issue of The Drum Beat is an invitation - and, hopefully, inspiration - to join an open group of bloggers who actively contribute their voices to the Policy Blogs section of The Communication Initiative (The CI) website, which has emerged through a partnership with BBC Media Action.

Included here are a few blog titles - a small segment of what we have - on strategies related to communication, media, human rights, and empowerment around: media sustainability, agriculture, gender, governance, and tolerance. Our hope is to inspire you to comment on the blogs, so that blogging becomes a conversation, and to contribute your own blogs. Details on how to participate can be found below.
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From The Communication Initiative Network - where communication and media are central to social and economic development.
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MEDIA SUSTAINABILITY
1. Local partnerships: a key to lasting change
by Caroline Sugg
"At BBC Media Action we've been talking a lot about sustainability and our commitment to supporting change that lasts beyond the lifetime of an individual project. One of the best ways we can contribute to lasting change is by working with local media partners to improve the quality and sustainability of their programming and of their organisations. So for example, we've recently been working with community radio stations in Zambia to strengthen their ability to produce political discussion programmes. The result has been low-cost programmes, editorially steered by our partners which meet the needs of local audiences. These programmes have become part of the stations' schedules and continue to be broadcast after donor support has ended..." [Jan. 2014]
2. Donors, Governance and Media Aid: Some Thoughts from Sierra Leone
by Bill Orme
"...The question I have been confronted with by development professionals is not whether media is an important or even a determining factor in development generally, and governance specifically. They get that, for the most part. Most would go further, strongly endorsing the need for independent, pluralistic news media in democratization and nation-building. The question they have is rather: What does this have to do with us?....As in health or education or any other development field, it is immensely helpful if there is a consensus about specific aid priorities in Country X among media development professionals, key officials and civil society figures, and the local journalism establishment. It is more helpful still if those identified priorities include national institutions serving the entire population at least in principle, and with objective needs for long-term aid and the capacity to utilize it." [Mar 2011]
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CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN AGRICULTURE
3. Citizen participation cardinal for growth of agriculture sector
by Nervious Siantombo
"...Panos Institute Southern Africa (PSAf) has been working towards improving citizens' access to information and knowledge about the existing key agro policies [in Zambia] that have a huge bearing on their productivity and production as well as their rights and responsibilities to ensuring that such policies are responsive to their needs. PSAf has also been promoting access to platforms for free expression of their opinions and concerns, and also active participation in informed policy debates and dialogue from their own perspective...[and] empower local communities with skills to effectively play their indispensible beneficially role in policy monitoring and holding duty bearers accountable..." [Aug 2014]
4. Mobile Phone and the Transformation of Lives: a tale of two Communities in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone
by Steven Sam
"...[E]vidence obtained during an exploratory trip to Sierra Leone towards my PhD project on the mobile phone and marginalised youth in March 2013 suggests that access to a mobile phone has benefited poor people by offering them an efficient way of communicating and accessing livelihood information....[T]his has increased collective action among the villagers [in Pujehun rural community] and improved efficiency in their farming activities..." [Aug 2013]
5. Citizen Participation Key in Management of Public Funds
by Nervious Siantombo
"...Through the radio listening groups, targeted communities in the said districts [of Zambia] are availed the local language versions of the agricultural budgets which they use to discuss the monetary and related service delivery issues with duty-bearers, mostly from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. They are also provided with policy and documents which have a close bearing on the agricultural budgets so that they comprehensively address them in the discussions through weekly interactive and pre-recorded community group radio programmes on the partner local radio stations..." [May 2014]
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GENDER-RELATED RIGHTS AND EVALUATION
6. Gender Norms and Power Inequities: Key Barriers to Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Rights
by Christina Wegs
"...While transforming inequitable gender roles and addressing deeply-rooted power inequities can be a slow and gradual process, CARE's work with global partners indicates that critical shifts in gender norms and power dynamics can be achieved and in a relatively short time. In India, Kenya, and Peru, CARE worked to challenge restrictive gender norms and empower women to claim their right to respectful, high-quality healthcare. We saw increases in women's empowerment, as well as more equitable gender relations, more respectful relationships between women and health care providers, and improvements in the quality and utilization of SRH services..." [Jan 2015]
7. Are men the problem or construction of dominant masculinities? Musings at the time of the international symposium on MenEngage
by Ranjani K. Murthy
"...While NGO [non-governmental organisation] and UN [United Nations] programmes are emerging on working with women and men, in many countries there are no national level government programmes working with men and boys on gender and social equity. Similarly, while there are programmes on girls' and women’s empowerment, they address women as passive victims and, recently, as agents. There are no programmes which address women and girls in their role as perpetrators (in some situations). Mothers play as important a role as fathers in restrictions on adolescent girls’ mobility, playtime, dress, or whom they talk with. Few countries have a gender equality (and non-stereotype) law under which men and women in family, community, markets and state can be brought to book..." [Nov 2014]
8. Power, Policies and Social/Gender Relations: Can Evaluations Change the Equation?
by Ranjani K. Murthy
"...An example of community based evaluation is assessment by slum women in Chennai, South India, of the government's food distribution system, school, health facilities, cooking gas supply and flood relief provision from a gender/equity lens. They evolved criterion of what they wanted from each service and rated each aspect on a 1-5 scale....Emerging issues were taken up with government at higher levels. Of course, (marginalized) community assessment of state policies are not enough, and state policies have to be assessed on the issue of relevance, targeting, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, using mixed methods. Nevertheless, both evaluation methodologies have to go hand-in-hand." [Jan 2015]
9. Are Gender-Sensitive Evaluations and Feminist Evaluations Different?
by Ranjani K. Murthy
"...In evaluation conferences, at times I hear 'I do feminist evaluations, and not gender evaluations. Feminist evaluation places issues of power at the center of defining scope of evaluation, evaluation process and, how findings are used. They look at intersections between gender and identities, and examine how the project/programme change social structures. Gender evaluations do not deal with issues of power and structures.'....When those of us who work with this paradigm on gender and social relations facilitate evaluations we are aware of how power gets contested at each stage of evaluation, and also try to capture marginalised women's perception of what extent power relations in different institutions are changing to the advantage of women and marginalised groups." [Aug 2014]
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WAYS TO PARTICIPATE IN BLOGGING

BLOG!

The CI wants to hear from you! Just click here to contribute. We ask bloggers to freely register on our site (through the login/register button), so the blog submission will be attributed to your own user name. Once logged in, click on the blog button at the top of your screen - just add your title and your blog content - add an image if you wish. We will check with you when publishing your work. Questions? Email jlevy@comminit.com
RATE EACH BLOG

You can rate the blog post according to the question "How useful did you find the knowledge and contacts on this page to your work?" - ratings range from "Awesome" (5 stars) to "Poor" (1 star). Please take a moment to rate each post in order to provide new readers and the bloggers themselves with a sense of how relevant the posts are to your development work.
INTERACT WITH CI BLOGGERS

Have you read a blog through The Drum Beat that you agreed or disagreed with? Let the blogger know! Go to the Policy Blogs website and click on "Post a Comment or Question" below any of the blogs.
INVITE OTHERS TO BLOG

Does this Drum Beat issue and these blogs bring to mind a colleague or friend who has something inspired to communicate to the C4D field in the realm of policy and media issues? If so, please forward this Drum Beat to them via email, provide them with its URL, tell them about it on Facebook or Twitter, and/or guide them directly to the Policy Blogs website. Thank you for helping spread the word.
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GOVERNANCE AND MEDIA
10. The power of the media in Nigeria
by Anu Mohammed
"...What was particularly encouraging to our [BBC Media Action] team was the fact that one of our radio programmes, Talk Your Own-Make Naija Better, seemed to be having a really positive impact....Our research showed that approximately every eight out of 10 people who regularly listened to the programme agreed that Talk Your Own plays a role in holding government to account. Regular listeners also agreed that the programme informs citizens about the decisions and actions of the government (88%) as well as provides an opportunity for people like them to question government officials about their decisions and actions (79%)." [Dec 2014]
11. Independent Judiciary: Key to a Better Performing Judicial System
by James Ayodele
"...Under the European Union (EU) funded project 'Support to the Justice Sector in Nigeria,' the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association, Access to Justice, and the National Judicial Council facilitated a Judicial Reform Conference in Abuja from 7 to 9 July 2014....Conference presenters and participants highlighted the need for an independent judiciary as a pre-requisite to enhancing the performance of the justice sector in Nigeria. In this regard, it was emphasized that the adjudication of cases must occur within an environment free of interference from the other branches of government, and from private or partisan interests..." [Jul 2014]
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TOWARDS TOLERANCE
12. Women's Voices: Why Now?
by Leslie J. Sacks
"...The generally unequal, downtrodden, and oppressed state of women around the world is symptomatic of a larger rejection of humanitarian, liberal, progressive, and tolerant values by certain leaders of societies. Sadly, I believe it is also indicative of a deeply worrying intolerance toward basic civil liberties, a lack of respect for the individual, and, subsequently, for each and every human life. It is these rejections and intolerances - epitomized by, but not limited to - radical interpretations of religion, which fuel fanatical violence and terrorism, homophobia, misogyny, and a general distrust for those who are different. I believe women are the key to changing this state of affairs. In the Muslim World, particularly, I believe women are the great and often overlooked agents of change. Women's Voices Now, through its film festivals, shows exactly what I mean..."
13. Making choices to end intolerance
by Lilian Keefer
"...When the thinking begins from appreciating that everyone is entitled to their human rights, regardless of the differences that exist between and among all of us, it will create an environment that accepts people as they are and eventually lead to ending intolerance. Recognising the power of dialogue and debate in ending intolerance, Panos Institute Southern Africa (PSAf) promotes, facilitates and creates spaces and platforms for dialogue....When people are aware of their differences and embrace the diversity that society presents to us, they can use those differences to build stronger relationships and enhance social cohesion..." [Nov 2014]
14. Human Rights for All
by Gillies C. Kasongo
"...The failure of many Southern African states to legally recognise the individual as the 'right holder', with rights over control of their own lives and bodies, is a violation this right. Duty bearers have a clarion call to realise these rights....That institution or person should secure the safety of sexual minorities and end of a culture of harassment and hate speech. Each person should equally embark in an open dialogue without fear of prosecution, while at the same time recognising the sensitivity of the issue....PSAf believes that there is an urgent need for constitutional and social transformation in order to achieve human rights for all..." [Oct 2014]
15. Fear causes media to self-censor on sexual minorities in Africa
by Owen Nyaka
"...What is it about lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people that ties broadcasters' tongues and melts journalists' minds in articulating stories on these neglected communities? An obvious answer to this is the four-letter word: fear....The fear of being labeled, the fear of being disowned and fear of the unknown. As a result, the media is failing in its duty to provide accurate and balanced information to the public it serves. Radio, television and newspapers constitute some of the most influential sources of information for people in the region and could play a crucial role....This is not only important from a human rights perspective, but also from a public health point of view. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI) are more at risk of HIV infection, while discrimination and stigma make it more difficult for them to access prevention and treatment services. Positive media coverage can help break down these barriers..." [Dec 2014]
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This issue of The Drum Beat was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.
The Drum Beat is the email and web network of The Communication Initiative Partnership - Partners: ANDI, BBC Media Action, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Breakthrough, Calandria, Citurna TV, DFID, FAO, Fundación Imaginario, Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano (FNPI), Inter-American Development Bank, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, MISA, Oxfam Novib, PAHO, The Panos Institute, Puntos de Encuentro, The Rockefeller Foundation, SAfAIDS, Sesame Workshop, Soul City, STEPS International, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNICEF, USAID, The Wellcome Trust, World Health Organization (WHO), W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

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.

Chair of the Partners Group: Garth Japhet, Founder, Soul City garth@heartlines.org.za

Executive Director: Warren Feek wfeek@comminit.com
The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries.
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