Information and communication play a vital role in development, enriching and improving many aspects of our lives – social, economic, cultural and political. People need to be able to receive information, and also to make their voices heard. Open and transparent information and communication flows are an integral part of good governance and economic development. They encourage governments to be responsive and accountable, and can make them more efficient and effective. They also facilitate economic growth and help to make markets fair and competitive.
Poor and marginalised people in less developed countries have limited access to information, and their capacity to make their voices heard is also constrained. Traditionally government agencies and others have relied quite heavily on written/print media to communicate messages to the public. This has not been helpful for many poor people, particularly women, who may be illiterate or who have difficulty accessing the limited numbers of print-based products that are distributed. There is huge potential for visual (video, TV) and audio media (radio, mobiles/cellphones) and the internet to contribute to development. Radio is often the most accessible and preferred of the mass media for the rural poor - including women, who can listen to it while working in the home.
NRI has been exploiting this potential through a wide range of initiatives, using a variety of media to improve poor people’s access to information for development and to enhance their capacity to articulate and communicate their needs to service providers and policy makers. Some examples are given below.
Technical information on agriculture The internet can be a valuable source of information to farmers in Third World countries. A recent NRI-led project, TeleSupport-India, focused on facilitating the exchange of information and knowledge between farmers, community groups, research institutes and intermediary organisations (e.g. NGOs, government extension agencies). Agricultural information needs assessments were carried out at an early stage, and the results made available to information providers. Two-way communication between users and suppliers of information is facilitated by strengthening linkages between stakeholder groups and supporting direct interaction through a Question and Answer service. Web-based technology is used to store information in a database and to allow stakeholders to communicate with each other through an electronic discussion forum. TeleSupport provides information in a clear and concise form that can be easily understood by non-specialists, and supplements written text with visual media such as videos (prepared by farmers with support from the project partners), pictures and PowerPoint presentations. Information is provided in both English and local languages. Fixed and mobile telecentres (using laptops), managed by trained operators, have been made available to farmers, including women, in several villages in Kerala and West Bengal. Previous Indian initiatives utilising telecentres were reviewed to identify lessons learned regarding access, sustainability etc. (click here for Report). All information can be accessed through the TeleSupport website. Information about good agricultural practices (GPs) is documented in the shared open-access InfoBridge database. So other organisations involved in the dissemination of agricultural information have free access to the GPs and related information in the database. The database is decentralized to encourage local ownership and allow member organizations to input and update information, including feedback from farmers on their experiences with applying the GPs.
Integrated approaches to communication and learning Where communication is intended to lead to changes in attitudes or behaviour it is likely that a combination of media, used in an integrated fashion, will be needed to achieve the desired outcome. An integrated approach of this nature was taken in an NRI project in Uganda that aimed to improve crop marketing by poor households. The project, which collaborated with the Foodnet market information initiative, encouraged households to form farmer groups and to market their crops as a group; and to achieve this it developed a manual, produced 10 radio slots and provided training to farmer groups. The radio slots, which were broadcast on FM radio stations, were designed to bring to life and reinforce the main points and issues covered in the manual, through interviews with knowledgeable individuals and real life experiences of different groups. The slots, collectively entitled ‘Together to Market’, have been broadcast several times in both Luo and English, and also translated into four other local languages.
Accessing information about markets and prices Smallholders tend to lack information about markets and market prices beyond their local area, which puts them in a weak negotiating position with traders. NRI was recently involved in a project to improve coffee producers’ access to market information that involved assisting the Uganda Coffee Development Authority in designing a coffee marketing information system. One innovative component of the system was a facility that enabled farmers to obtain current prices on domestic and international markets via SMS text messages on their cellphones.
Advocacy NRI staff have collaborated in projects that used participatory video as an advocacy tool. In the past, rural energy programmes in Malawi focused on the distribution of improved fuel-efficient stoves, but the programmes failed and few such stoves were adopted by villagers. Participatory research showed the complexity of rural energy problems and their causes, and highlighted the need for cross-sectoral - and hence cross-Ministry - approaches to resolve them. With technical support from the research team, the villagers made videos, based on their research findings, and showed these to national policy-makers - a process that contributed to the reform of the National Energy Strategy.
Communication strategy Some of NRI’s communication work has been focused on development agencies rather than directly on farmers and the poor. In 2007 NRI provided communications expertise to a new pan-African agricultural development programme, Strengthening Capacity for Agricultural Research and Development in Africa (SCARDA), that is managed by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). NRI supported FARA and its sub-regional partners to develop a communication strategy for SCARDA. This included: reviewing the main communications issues that the programme needs to address; facilitating SCARDA’s main stakeholders to clarify the programme’s communications objectives and underlying principles (such as transparency and multi-directional communication); highlighting the main communication flows needed between different stakeholders; and identifying next steps required to implement the strategy and SCARDA’s communication plan and activities.
NRI also seeks to raise public awareness of development issues, and has collaborated with BBC World Service in various initiatives to exploit the global power of radio to highlight development issues and examine innovative approaches to the improvement of poor people's livelihoods. Twelve radio programmes were broadcast in 2001 in the series "In The Field", each featuring interviews with local villagers and local project workers, who described how a particular problem had affected them and how it had been tackled. In 2002, the BBC World Service and NRI produced a second series of programmes "Making Ends Meet", which explored the lives of people in remote communities around the world. Subsequently, two further series were produced and broadcast: "The Language of Development" in 2002; and "Gathering in the Rain" in 2003. For more information on the original "In The Field" series, you can request a copy of the booklet here.