The Drum Beat 458 - Policy Analysis and Ideas from Communication and Media Perspectives
Issue #
458
Date
The Drum Beat 458 Contents:
- New BLOG SPACE - The CI's Communication, Media, and Development POLICY site.
- OPINION on the upcoming ACCRA Conference and PUBLIC DEBATE.
- OPINION on the upcoming ACCRA Conference and DEVELOPMENT INVESTMENT.
- OPINION on policy related to the TRANSFORMATION OF MEDELLIN.
- OPINION on BARACK OBAMA and his potential FUTURE DEVELOPMENT POLICIES.
- OPINION on MEDIA INVOLVEMENT in 2008 Kenyan Political Violence.
- POLL on engaging communities in democratic processes.
COMMUNICATION, MEDIA, and DEVELOPMENT POLICY [top]
Analysis, Ideas, and Debates on Development Policy Issues from Communication and Media Perspectives
We all know that the world faces some major development issues; there is no need to run through the full list of challenges - ranging from extreme poverty to full citizen participation in representative government and everything in between. These challenges require continual assessment and review of the policies guiding local, national government, and international development strategies and investments. It is clear that communication and media perspectives and analysis are vitally important for more effective and relevant development policies.
This necessity for communication and media policy perspectives is heightened by the nature of many of the issues faced. There is neither a magic potion nor a vaccine to increase participation, accountability, and transparency in democratic governance processes, for example. Communication and media need to be central to these changes. Positive improvement across other major development issues is also dependent on challenges related to knowledge, information, social norms, culture, rights, civic involvement, and individual behaviour - the natural terrain for communication and media strategies and programmes.
In response, The Communication Initiative (The CI) is working with The BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) to host a policy blog process. This Drum Beat marks the launch of the blog space. Though the initial blogs are written by James Deane of The BBC WST and Warren Feek of The CI, we have invited others to also contribute on a regular basis. Please click here.
This policy blog space includes an opportunity for readers to insert comments and questions - please send your critiques of the contributions below, which are featured here. Please note: you will need to be registered and logged in as a CI network member in order to contribute your comments. If you have not yet registered, please do so here. (Also note: you do not need to re-subscribe to the e-magazines, though we will be carefully matching subscriptions and registrations to ensure you do not receive a duplicate subscription!)
You can organise the blogs according to authors/contributors. As we build up a larger portfolio of blogs on different issues, further navigation (e.g., by development issues) will be added.
We invite your review, critique, and comments on the 5 initial policy blogs. Please participate in making this space vibrant with development policy debate and dialogue.
For assistance with registration or contributing to the Communication, Media, and Development Policy website, please contact dheimann@comminit.com
THE BLOGS [top]
1. Accra Aid Effectiveness conference: can there be real "country ownership" without public debate? [top]
The most important development aid conference of the year kicks off next week in Ghana. The Accra High Level Forum brings together ministers from 100 countries with the heads of bilateral and multilateral development agencies and a good number of civil society organisations. It is a meeting whose outcome will shape how billions of dollars will be spent and ultimately, how many lives can be saved, empowered and improved by spending development money.
The main issue on the agenda is to solve one of the knottiest problems in the aid world - how to ensure that development strategies are "owned" by the societies they are designed to benefit. The Accra Agenda for Action, the main planned output from next week's conference, is the result - according to its drafters - of "one of the most extensive consultation processes ever held in the field of development cooperation". In the run up to Accra, more than a dozen regional preparatory meetings and consultations and countless other meetings organised by OECD and civil society actors have been held in preparation for the meeting and this document.
In Accra a civil society forum and a series of roundtables will try to influence the final draft.
Questions remain however...
...continued here...
2. Big Investors - The Vacant Low Level Seat at the Accra High Level Development Effectiveness Summit [top]
As the delegates from around the world prepare to gather in Accra for the 3rd High Level Forum on AIDS effectiveness [September 2 to 4] can I suggest that they pay a lot of attention to this figure: - 1,437,187,500,000 which I believe you would write as this number "one trillion, four hundred and thirty seven billion, one hundred and eighty seven million, five hundred thousand" though I admit to having to check that text number with a maths whiz colleague!
There is going to be a lot of emphasis in Accra on how the United Kingdom, France, Germany, USA, Canada and other [so called] 'donor' countries can get more value for their money from their financial support arrangements with so called "developing" country governments. Those "developing" country governments will be both motivated and encouraged to reflect on ways in which they can more effectively spend both the tax dollars from their citizens and the international AID that they are receiving. Major "private" donors such as the USA Foundations will be both contributing in and watching these discussions and their outcomes with great interest relative to their grants and other investments. The international NGO community will make its case for how working through their 'effective staff and programmes' can improve AID effectiveness.
There will also be a lot of data presented in the course of numerous discussions and presentations. Debate will humm on the analysis of those data trends. Projections will be reconsidered. New strategic, investment and monitoring ideas will emerge for more effective development assistance, such as the vital importance of public debate as put forward by my good friend James Deane in his blog. Some existing ideas will be consigned to development history. This is all very valuable and much needed work and analysis - but perhaps it suffers from one fundamental flaw...
...continued here...
3. Scaling Steep Slopes - The Public Policies Helping to Transform Medellin [top]
Can there be any argument with a policy that drives strategies and programmes that reduces homicides from 184 to 26 per 100,000 adults over a 5 year period [2003 to 2007]; significantly raises a city's Human Development Index score [74.35 in 2001 to 80.4 in 2006]; sees the Quality of Life Index zoom upwards [68.09 in 2001 to 83.77 in 2006]; and makes considerable economic gains for that city? Not to mention puts more smiles than frowns on people's faces and more pride than shame in their hearts? Such is the case of Medellin, a city of 2.5 million people in Colombia, and how it happened, and continues to happen, may have significant policy lessons across many aspects of international development.
Mention Medellin and most people - including me before a recent visit - immediately conjure images of drug cartels and unmitigated violence. Life was cheap. Hit men were abundant. Crime was endemic. Poverty was rife. Though a wealthy city the great majority of that wealth, including the tax pesos contributed by all, were in the hands of a very few. There were numerous "no-go" dangerous areas for public officials who were anyway severely mistrusted, often for good reason. The cartels ran the poor barrios where 90% of the population of Medellin live. Factions fought. Schooling was poor quality. Housing was primarily "informal". Medellin had these and other issues that are too commonly experienced across far too many cities. But that is a view of Medellin that is five years out of date, as indicated above.
The prime driving force for transforming Medellin into a comparatively safe, economically advancing and educated city is a set of public policies built around open public spaces, transparent public processes, the culture of citizenship, high quality for all and striking symbolism including [you need to stick with me here] cable cars, library parks, bridges, budget control and a botanical garden!...
...continued here...
4. Obama, Development, AID and Grandmothers [top]
With intransigent poverty levels, raging HIV/AIDS rates, a food crisis, stagnant infant mortality rates and a whole host of other big development issues in the poorest countries of the world, maybe it is time for development policy makers to consider what kind of approach a President Barack Obama might have to development aid and assistance.
Three things jump, like an Obama 3-point attempt, to mind:
GRANDMOTHER
More than any other global leader the rich countries of the West have ever experienced Obama has a deep personal connection to Africa - his Grandmother and relatives in Kenya. The natural flow from this connection is to assume a high priority on development aid in his administration. But, within that high priority there could be deeper implications.
Obama will have both seen, over a long time period, unfiltered by status and personal distance, aid and development action as it affected his family and "African home" community in Kenya. His grandmother, relatives and community members will undoubtedly, over many years, have let him know their views on what is working and not working in their communities and country. He will have heard their voice not as a leading USA political figure but as Barack, their family member...
...continued here...
5. Kenya Political Violence - Were Media Responsible? [top]
In early 2008 the development community watches carefully as Kenyan political tensions and violence rose. A central policy issue was the role of the media. Prompted by that question, The BBC WST, with Kenyan partners produced a paper that "...examines political polarity in the media and its function as a political tool..."
Policy conclusions described as relevant to development policymakers include:
1) "The media... play a central role in shaping Kenya’s democracy. The recent record of the media, according to many within it, is that media has undermined as well as invigorated that democracy....[The briefing urges] development actors to be better engaged and more supportive of media in the future.
2) The problem facing Kenya's media is not an excess of media freedom. [but rather] a lack of it....Journalists and broadcasters face immense commercial and political constraints which are constraining their journalistic independence and integrity.
3) Some local language radio stations have incited fear and hatred....Talk shows have provided the greatest opportunities for hate speech and... [hosts] are not trained in conflict reporting or moderation....[T]his [training] was [felt to be] a priority.
4) [L]ocal language stations appear to have been playing an important role in calming tension and promoting dialogue. A strengthening of such a role... will form a critical contribution...
...continued here...
Please VOTE in our current Democracy and Governance POLL:
In 2009, the best way to engage communities in participative democratic processes will be...
- internet discussions/networking/voting
- radio or television talk show broadcasts
- radio or television advertising
- in-person organising/networking
To VOTE, click here (see "Poll" heading on the top right side) and then, if a registered CI user, COMMENT!
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