The Drum Beat 160 - Thinking Strategically

A note of condolence

The Development Communication world is deeply saddened by the death of Claude Ondobo, Deputy Director-General for Communication and Information at UNESCO in Paris. Claude made a significant contribution to the development of our field of work. Though his spirit lives on, his physical presence will be much missed by all of those who had the pleasure of knowing and working with him. Our condolences, love and support to his family, colleagues and friends. Messages of condolence can be sent to condolences-ondobo@unesco.org

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EVALUATION

1. Evaluation's Friendly Voice: The Structured Open-Ended Interview - by Martha C. Monroe

Guidelines for choosing to use a structured open-ended interview are offered, as well as three cases to demonstrate how interviews can be used to gather important evaluative information.

2. The Mountain Forum: Learning to Communicate within a Pluralistic Network - by Elizabeth A. Byers

"[The Mountain Forum] creation and experience during its first 18 months of operation reveal a number of insights regarding information structures, cooperation between organisations, empowerment, and pluralism...."

CHANGE

3. Participation & Poverty: Listening as a Poverty Reduction Strategy - by L. Muthoni Wanyeki

"...The central goal [of participatory communication] is that of access to the means of communications, enabling audiences to provide their own information and to identify, analyse and overcome problems. Conversely, it enables others to understand the context of audiences so that services delivered are useful...."

4. Positive Deviant - by Jerry Sternin

"The traditional model for social and organisational change doesn't work," says Sternin, 62. "It never has. You can't bring permanent solutions in from outside." Maybe the problem is with the whole model for how change can actually happen. Maybe the problem is that you can't import change from the outside in. Instead, you have to find small, successful but "deviant" practices that are already working in the organisation and amplify them....

5. Voluntary Complexity: the emergence of the small, mobile and intelligent NGO - by Oliver Lowenstein

"...there are today literally thousands of organisations which run on a micro-scale, 'one man and his dog' as one put it, doing things the world over. And what has been noticed is that these organisations can get things done. Fleet-footed, and small enough to respond to sudden changes in circumstances, these players show a capacity for adaptive behaviour that the creaking cumbersome dinosaur logic which big, organisational thinking cannot match...." And many of these organisations recruit volunteers who pay the organisations for their volunteerism...

RIGHTS

6. Universal Education Seen as Crucial in AIDS Fight - by Yvette Collymore

"...According to the [World] Bank, the combination of 'Education for All' along with gender equity goals and targeted HIV preventive education, including reproductive and sexual health information, promises to be the most effective means of stemming the epidemic's spread.... Others agree that countries' ability to cope with the epidemic will depend on the extent to which their educational institutions can continue to be essential parts of the society's infrastructure. Research has shown that better-educated people generally have greater access to information, are more likely to make well-informed decisions, and have better jobs and greater access to resources that can help them to support healthier lives...."

7. Trafficking in Persons: Myths, Methods, and Human Rights - by Melanie Orhant

"To reduce the number people trafficked, worldwide governments, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), and others are tackling some of the root factors that encourage the practice. Poverty, unemployment, and lack of education and access to resources are driving forces as people take risks to improve their living conditions...."

ICTs

8. Improving Health, Fighting Poverty: The Role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

- from Exchange

"...there is a 'real risk' of marginalising poor people and poor countries. Moving from potential to real benefit is a challenge. How can ICT activities foster empowerment rather than lead to new dependencies? How can the potential of ICTs be ‘harnessed systematically’ to bring about improvements in the health of the poor?..."

9. Internet Infrastructure and e-Governance in Pacific Islands Countries: A Survey on the Development and Use of the Internet (2002) - by Zwimpfer Communications Ltd.

"...With less than 25% of the population of most Pacific Islands having access to the Internet, it is perhaps not surprising that e-governance is not high on these countries' agendas.... One country reported a 'lack of knowledge on this e-governance service' as a key inhibitor. Underlying these issues of limited Internet access and limited understanding of e-governance, are even more basic issues relating to telecommunications infrastructure, quality of service and costs.... This research is intended to contribute towards a foundation for moving towards a 'connected Pacific'..."

10. Blueprints & Road Maps: Architecture for the University in Cyberspace - by Parker Rossman

"In the context of changes that are likely to come into higher education as a result of the convergence of information age technologies, this paper discusses one of many possible scenarios for the restructuring of the university, especially in cyberspace...."

11. The Chicken, the Egg, and African Telecommunications - by Barnaby Richards

In January of 2001, 3 Interdisciplinary Masters candidates from the University of Colorado traveled to Eastern Africa to research the effects that the Internet and telecommunications advances were having. Visiting numerous Internet Service providers, incumbent telecommunications companies, regulators, cyber cafes, and telecenters over the one-month trip this paper composes follow-up research that hopes to answer many of the questions raised on the trip. Why is Africa so far behind in telecommunications development? Why is such development important to the continent? In what ways can such development help? What has been done to show that such development does or does not help? What needs to be done to foster such development?...

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Please send us information about communication initiatives, evaluations, articles, publications, events, training, awards, e-magasines, discussion forums, and trends pertaining to Environmental Issues for an upcoming issue of The Drum Beat. Contact Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

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COVERAGE OF THE WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

12. Directly linked from the WSSD site, Earth Negotiations Bulletin will provide a daily report on negotiations at the event, as well as, in collaboration with UNDP, a special daily report on selected side events.

13. WSSD Radio Voix Sans Frontiers (VSF) Project

- Africa, South America, North America, Europe

The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), as part of its ongoing "Radio Voices Without Frontiers" initiative, is bringing together 30 community radio producers from around Africa (including Angola, Mozambique, Malawi, Mali, Togo, the Gambia and South Africa), and others from North and South America and Europe, in Johannesburg to produce 10 days of live radio programming from August 26 to September 4, 2002. There will be 5 hours of live programming each day - 2 hours in English, and 1 hour each in French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The feeds will provide in-depth community radio coverage of sustainable development issues, and will be distributed live via satellite and Internet platforms to community radio listeners around Africa and the world.

14. PLANetWIRE Coverage of the WSSD - Global

Coverage will include features on issues pertinent to the Summit meeting and its underlying subject matter - poverty, and a global environmental agenda - with particular attention devoted to women's issues. PLANetWIRE will also offer a series of background resources for journalists on its site related to WSSD 2002.

15. Roads to the Summit - Published this year by Panos London and LEAD International, this 53-page report explores the work of 6 countries - India, Japan, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United States - in the area of sustainable development since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. This study is carried out in the context of these countries' preparations for the upcoming World Summit in Johannesburg.

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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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