Mapping Competencies for Communication for Development and Social Change: Appendix C-4: Factors Affecting Needed Competencies and Practices

- from Mapping Competencies for Communication for Development and Social Change: Turning Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes Into Action

Appendix C-4: Future Trends in Communication for Development and Social Change: Factors Affecting Needed Competencies and Practices

A Discussion Paper prepared for the Conference "Competencies: Communication for Development and Social Change"

by Dana M. Faulkner

the CHANGE Project

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to explore likely future trends in the field of development communications and to consider the implications of these trends for the training of practitioners in the field. It has been prepared to provide a springboard for discussion at "Competencies: Communication for Development and Social Change", a conference co-sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the CHANGE Project, th eRockefeller Foundation, and the Pan American Health Organization.

It is important to note at the outset that this paper is not intended to be a formal review of the academic literature on future trends in the field of communications, for two reasons. First, the author is not an academic and is congenitally unsuited to the preparation of academic papers. Second, and more importantly, the conference organizers requested a pragmatic approach to the topic, one grounded in the experience of practitioners and in the implications of actual practice, rather than one grounded in theory or abstract speculation. Accordingly, then, this paper is based on the ideas and questions that arise in the mind of one practitioner when prompted to raise her head from the email screen and contemplate future trends for the profession. The intent, as noted above, is not to put forward an integrated set of future scenarios but to serve as a springboard for discussion and to stimulate the assembled conferees to consider, debate, and explore among themselves the future dimensions of their conference task: that of formulating the competencies needed for the training of practitioners in communication for development and social change.

Development communication is, by its very nature, a fragmented field and thus there is no integrated starting point for the consideration of its future. Rather, I would like to start with six areas that have been the source of much recent change and some discomfit in my own practice, and to speculate upon their broader relevance and future impact:

1. The rapid advancements in communication technologies and information access that have occurred in the last decade, coupled with the increasingly stunning gap between individuals (and countries) with easy digital access and those without.
2. The emergence of major donors with new perspectives and the rising involvement of the private sector in foreign assistance initiatives.
3. The increasing debate around the merits of "purposive" (or top-down) communication programs as compared with more participatory (and less results-oriented) approaches.
4. The escalating geopolitical tensions of the last six months and the resulting increased attention to, and heightened expectations for, international development programs.
5. The growing uniformity of global culture and media ownership, co-existing within creasingly marginalized minority cultures and individuals disenfranchised from global trends.
6. The changing nature of commercial marketing and corporate communications, and the increasing dearth of cross-fertilization between corporate practice and development communications practitioners.

Discussion

Considering each of these areas in turn, it is clear that some significant implications for needed competencies can be identified. In some cases, these implications are consistent with the existing "culture" of the field of development communications; in other cases, the new needs may be discordant and require rather noticeable shifts in the nature or perspectives of training programs.

1. Rapid changes in information and communication technologies. Recent efforts have demonstrated that any search for articles on communication trends will be overwhelmed by technology-based citations. Indeed, it sometimes seems that the only trends the communications industry is aware of or concerned about are related to technology - new technologies coming on line; the entrancing possibilities of faster, better, or wider accessto information; the implications ever more media proliferation and convergence. And yet, the expansion of new technologies is recognized as something other than a universal good: to wit, the new technologies have not even been very good at commercial selling, as the decline of dot-com business models has made clear.
   
   
   

   In the developing world, the promised benefits of new technologies have been even harder to realize, and the oft-threatened "digital divide" has become an established gulfbetween countries and individuals with access to leading edge technologies and those without. It is becoming continually more disheartening to travel and work in adeveloping country and realize how stark the difference now is between working in the wired world and a pre-digital environment. The one, where e-mail access is the coin ofthe realm, where information and networks are accessed at the push of a button, where speed and ease of communication are assured and decisions are taken equally quickly -and the other, where one or two servers can be the only outward node for an entire country, where phone line access or tariff structures can prohibit unlimited access to theinternet, where IT help to keep systems and software running can be non-existent, where professional offices, much less government offices or non-profits can have only a single phone line and one can struggle all day to get one email out or to download one document. It makes the pace of working and exchanging information prohibitively slowin glaring contrast to a world where things are happening prohibitively fast. The proliferation of information available on the internet -- and the presumed easy access for all - has become in fact a burden for developing country professionals, as the chore of finding and downloading information is now borne by the beleaguered developing country information-seeker rather than by the disseminating agency. I have one colleague who describes the CD-ROMs much in fashion at multinational agencies as"diabolically designed to transfer the time and resource costs of printing, paper, and dissemination from well-funded first world agencies to the cash-strapped institutions of the developing world." It means that communications professionals in the field of international development and social change have to become almost schizophrenic: capable of operating in the speed- of-light world of the technologically advantaged, but equally able to shift gears and function (and keep things running) in technologically much more limited environments. The implications for training programs and competencies, it seems to me, are vast: How do we equip communications professionals to make that shift smoothly, particularly young people who increasingly grow up highly conversant with (and dependent upon) leading-edge technologies? How do we ensure that communications professionals based in developing countries are not disadvantaged by lack of access to networks and access points that are readily available to colleagues? Do we need explicit training in the mechanics of the technologies so that communicationsprofessionals working in low-access areas can also function as trouble-shooters when the technologies they are dependent upon cease to work? And, perhaps most importantly,how do we preserve a "pre-technology" mindset, so that communications programs designed for low-access areas do not presume a degree of digital literacy and access thatare irrelevant for a given area or given population?

2. Emergence of new donor perspectives and a greater role for the private sector. For many years, most international development activities have been supported by well-established organizations building on a significant institutional history of investment and programming in the field of development communications. Multilateral agencies like UNICEF, FAO, and WHO; bi-lateral agencies like USAID, DIFID, and CIDA; and private foundations like Rockefeller and Ford all have long experience with development communication programs, the design of which are the result of articulated communications strategies built on (sometimes strenuous) internal and external debate and testing of methods, philosophy, purpose and practice. More recently, the emergence of new donors (such as the Soros Foundation in eastern Europe, and the Gates Foundation globally) has interjected a new set of priorities and some often-unprecedented approaches to development communications. A further departure has been the involvement of for-profit corporations as equal partners with traditional donors in such major new initiatives as Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI.) These additional perspectives are often more results-oriented, and geared to a more compressed timeframe, than existing communications programming, and can create significant pressure on development communications professionals to create highly directive "one-way" communications interventions implemented over relatively short periods. How candevelopment communications professionals best be prepared to respond to and work within these new perspectives? What new skills and competencies are needed for effective liaison with corporate partners? How can communications practitioners be prepared to bring the realities of the developing country context to a donor perspective forged by ROI concerns and quarterly financial reporting?
3. Increasing debate and dialog around participatory approaches vs. targeted communications programs. Even within donors with well-established models of "purposive" communications programs, pressure is growing for recognition of the merits of more participatory approaches. On the one hand, targeted communications programs are accepted as effective in achieving specific behavioral results in support of particular development goals. On the other hand, participatory approaches focusing on community development, community empowerment and self-determination may offer more long-term sustainability and greater consistency with the underlying principles of development. In fact, in most field environments, development communication professionals utilize a range of approaches and techniques to fashion programs that best suit the resources available and the unique needs of the situation without recourse to abstract theories or philosophical debates. At the same time, new analytical techniques, based in behavioral science and network theory, are demonstrating utility as adjuncts to more traditional communications approaches. The debate and dialectic between and among these different approaches requires communication professionals to become both much more conversant with quantitative methods such as network analysis and behavioral observation, and flexible enough to appreciate and practice participatory methods where appropriate. How can communications professionals be helped to develop competencies across a broad range of methods without exacerbating the perceived philosophical differences between and among the various approaches? How can training programs be designed to accommodate the practical need for a flexible range of methods rather than advocacy for or against a given approach? To what extent can greater competency be developed in quantitative methods without inhibiting the acknowledged role of art and creativity in designing communications programs?
4. Heightened geopolitical tensions and increased interest in international development programs as tools of national security. The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11and the subsequent bombing attacks on Afghanistan have focused unprecedented attention within the United States on foreign assistance programs and their role in ensuring greater security in societies marginalized by global economic growth or disrupted by war and civil unrest. Outside the US, questions are being raised regarding both the potential for US interests to dominate the foreign assistance agenda for countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the ramifications of security concerns taking a central role in the rationale for increased foreign assistance funding. As foreign assistance programs come under increased scrutiny, and become the target of increased expectations to support crucial national political interests, the relatively protected humanitarian environment that has surrounded many development communication programs is likely to change. Already, high-level officials in the U.S. State Department are launching propaganda-like communications programs designed to generate greater support for American culture and political beliefs. Indeed, food aid packages being distributed in Afghanistan are reported to contain pamphlets and educational brochures extolling the benefits of American intervention in the region. It seems likely that this increasing politicization of American foreign assistance programs will trigger at least questions regarding the true aims of other foreign assistance programs, and increasing skepticism about and resistance to communications programs funded or mounted by outside sponsors. What new skills and attitudes will communications practitioners need to function effectively in a more politicized foreign assistance environment? Should development professionals be trained to detect and resist the subversion of powerful communication techniques to the support of national political goals? How can communication professionals make the sponsorship and source of funding for all development communications programs more transparent?
5. Growing uniformity of global culture and media ownership, contrasted with increasing marginalization and disenfranchisement of sub-cultures. To travel in the developing world is to increasingly suffer from a pronounced cognitive dissonance regarding the proliferation of the global monoculture. In some cases, the global culture seems all-pervasive, with travelers encountering the same media outlets, fashions, pop stars and brand names in country after country. At the same time, significant groups within developing countries seem increasingly isolated within their own cultures, prevented, by economic or political disenfranchisement, from participating in the global culture. Yet because of the dominance and visibility of the global culture, it has become increasingly tempting to design communications programs that presume a common level of media literacy, exposure, and access. And, with the continuing concentration of media ownership, the very existence of media outlets that reach isolated cultures is threatened. How then can communications professionals develop skills and competencies that are sophisticated enough to take advantage of the global media culture but not lose sight of the idiosyncratic needs for both content and dissemination in disenfranchised and isolated cultures? Would it be useful to segregate professional training tracks to allow for the full exploration of communication methods and techniques that are not based on modern communications methods?
6. Changing nature of commercial marketing and corporate communications. In the corporate world, the leading edge of commercial marketing has changed radically in a few short years, as the "push" model of advertising has fallen victim to proliferating media choices and greater customer control of delivery channels. Few consumers with a choice of one hundred cable television channels will sit still and listen to intrusive advertising jingles. Fewer young people, in a world dominated by networked, peer-to-peer contact, give any credence to the authority of traditional information sources. In an environment where access to information is almost unlimited, commercial marketers have been forced to come up with creative ways to overcome information overload and media saturation. Viral marketing, tipping points, change agents, and other new techniques have begun to characterize leading edge marketing strategies as corporatemarketers move far a field from the traditional "3 P's" (product, place, and promotion) that defined the original point of collaboration between corporate and social marketing. Yet even as corporate marketing has been pursuing these potentially powerful new developments, the degree of cross-fertilization between commercial marketers and development professionals seems to be declining. As social marketing has evolved into more sophisticated and participatory approaches, the number of been commercial marketers involved in development communications has declined, leaving few opportunities for the adaptation of leading edge marketing techniques to the needs of development programs. Are there useful aspects of contemporary commercial marketing that deserve to be incorporated into the practice of development communications? What competencies, if any, does commercial marketing require that go beyond other areas of development communications? How can training programs be structured to allow cross-fertilization with commercial marketing thinking without the contamination of development communications practices and ethics?

Summary

In summary, there are a variety of social, political, economic, and technological trends that pose interesting implications for the competencies needed by professionals in the area of communications for development and social change. Undoubtedly, conference attendees will be able to expand this list and pose yet more questions for the futuretraining of such professionals. The next step is to examine the potential future impact of such trends, to develop a consensus on which developments are most likely to occur or to have the highest impact on professional practice, and to determine the resulting shifts needed in skills, attitudes and knowledge for the preparation of future professionals.