Relevance of the project

The Vrinda Handbook - Introduction

see  General Index

 

REPERTORY  3 -  Vrinda' s Introductions to WIKI chapters  -   01-41 - 04:29

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JBSDBeurHQ&feature=share&list=PLD229CF52091DBD22

 

How the project was conceived
 Over the past years, public support for global actions against poverty has been declining. In order to understand this trend, the TVP partners decided to interview various stakeholders and experts working in development cooperation as well as the opinion makers, like educators, journalists and local government representatives. We discovered that the opinion makers are little prepared in terms of knowledge and communication skills to convey authentic messages in the most effective manner. They usually convey what they hear in the media and this is often negative observations. And they miss out the positive-impact stories.
The interviews revealed that although organized campaigns concerning world’s poverty do reach the public with touching slogans and images, these campaigns adopt is usually an advertisement-style rhetoric. The public has little faith in these campaigns since they appear to largely justify the business niche of the campaigner. So, the ability of these campaigns is limited in changing people’s perspectives and attitudes towards issues and difficulties that developing countries face except perhaps in the case of humanitarian responses to disasters and calamities.
The interviews also revealed that only few people are aware about the Millennium Development Goals, the most important commitment taken by the International Community to reverse grinding poverty, hunger and disease that affects billions of people across the world; to bring economic and social justice to the most deprived, marginalised and vulnerable populations across the world.
Besides ad hoc spaces that Millennium Development Goal agenda is able to capture in the media, it rarely gets mainstreamed into the regular news or educational programs. And although policy makers are quite vocal in supporting international development efforts, they are unable to make additional funds available for these efforts or even raise support among the public or to even change people's perspectives.
In response to these opinions and feedbacks we received, we developed a communication approach that would facilitate the opinion makers in educating, informing and communicating their public about development issues. At the heart of our approach is our desire to empower the opinion makers rather than to reach out to the citizens directly through an advertisement-style campaign. While building awareness about the eight Millennium Development Goals, we also collected, developed and produced resources and tools that opinion makers could use in informing their public.
We interviewed the staff of organisations that receive funds and implement projects. We also met people who benefited from these projects and we collected their stories. We also wanted to understand the development paradigm they believe in; the challenges they face and how they address these; the successes they achieved and why; the dynamics amongst the various stakeholders and institutions that lead development processes and communicate it to the public.

 

The context analysis

Not enough progress towards the achievement of MDGs

UN monitoring of MDGs (www.mdgmonitor.org) reveals that many countries are not making enough progress and might not achieve declared targets by 2015. This is largely due to a combination of the lack of driving policy changes in these countries and the lack of consistent commitment by donor countries. In spite of official declarations to pursue the 8th MDG goal (i.e. Developing a Global Partnership for Development) by devoting at least 0.7% of GNP to development cooperation, the average contribution by donor nations is still approx 0.23%, i.e. equal to US$ 56 billion per year (EU has committed 0.7% by 2012). UN and World Bank estimate that an additional USD 50 billion donor contribution per year is still required to this end. One of the reasons for the low prioritization of commitment to International Development Agenda is the low awareness, among people in Europe, of the real development issues and on the scope and impact of international cooperation. (see The Millennium Development Goals Report 2007).
 

Ineffective communication campaigns about MDGs

The context analysis carried out by TVP partners also revealed that organized campaigns concerning world poverty do reach the public with touching slogans and images. Official campaigns about MDGs have been well articulated in Italy and Belgium through posters, presence on the press and TV spots; this campaign did achieve important results as far as the viewership it achieved. However, most of these campaigns adopt an advertisement-style rhetoric. The public perceives this rhetoric as being motivated by the interest of justifying the business niche of the campaigner. The result is that these campaigns have a limited ability to change the attitudes of the public towards issues and difficulties that developing countries face (except sometimes in the case of humanitarian response to massive calamities). Besides ad hoc spaces that the agenda for the MDGs obtains in the media, it does not really get mainstreamed into the regular news programs; from the special events in schools or small additions to curricula, attention to development issues does not advance onwards to get mainstreamed into regular learning. And although policy makers voice out their intentions to support international development efforts, its implementation is actually linked to the availability of additional funds which are often found later on to be insufficient.

Those who are trusted by the pubblic do not address the issues of Global partnership for development

The context analysis carried out by project partners further revealed that the public has faith in the messages of the trusted educators and informers (journalists, local authorities and educators) rather than the campaigners. However, the professional context in which these trusted educators and informers work tends to lead them to highlight only the negative side of development problems and to often miss out the positive-impact stories, like the coordinated efforts of development actors in responding to emergencies through a globally participated agenda. These opinion makers, who can make a significant change in the attitude of the public, are little prepared to tackle communication on:
• the scope and impact of the actions financed with EU taxpayers money that contribute to international development efforts;
• how and why NSA and LA become actors of international cooperation for development and what do they benefit through such efforts.

Instead, those who know more about international cooperation agendas, i.e the development experts and actors, are unable to produce a significant change when they try to reach the public directly because their efforts are perceived as self motivated, i.e. aimed at justifying their own business niche. And the lack of cross sectoral synergy between the development experts and the opinion makers hampers the transfer of knowledge resources and information tools from the former to the latter. These two groups tend to remain apart and rarely have the opportunity to work together for raising public awareness about development issues and promote education for development in the European Union.
 

The problems identified and the solutions proposed

This analysis revealed:
1. the declining level of public support for actions, in support of developing countries, financed by EU taxpayer money,
2. a general lack of knowledge and preparation amongst opinion makers of target countries (Italy, Bulgaria, Romania and Belgium) for illustrating, to the public, the scope and the challenges of international cooperation for development.

This context analysis also revealed that there is a vicious circle of scarce attention given by educational institutions to development issues and insufficient media coverage of international development agendas that leads to low prioritization among policy makers with regard to implementation of international cooperation agreements.

 

What are the factors responsible for the problems identified?
 

Box 1: The problem tree
 


 

From this context analysis, the partners identified the 3 main problems that this Action will address: 
1. the lack of awareness among the general public on the linkages between development cooperation and the governance of global issues (like global security, intercultural dialogue, environment, migration, etc.) . 
2. insufficient knowledge and preparation amongst opinion makers;
3. lack of synergy and subsidiarity between the development actors and the opinion makers 
(see Box 1: The problem tree)


 

[edit]How to tackle the problems identified

This Action, being a response to the above problems, while building awareness on issues related to the 8 MDGs, Education for development, Development and media, global security, migration, human rights, social dimension of globalisation, will focus on:
 

  • producing knowledge tools and resources required by the opinion makers in order to improve their capacity to inform the public about development issues;
  • build networking and subsidiarity amongst stakeholders (development actors and the opinion makers) so as to build cross sectoral synergies aimed at enabling the public to give an informed support to actions against poverty and in favour of fairer relations between developed and developing countries 
     

See more in what are we making and  activities and expected results
 

Disseminated through informal and formal channels of education, the above themes, will be understood by analysing:
 

  • what are the current challenges in the implementation of the MDGs agenda,
  • what are the factors establishing coherence for development,
  • how can we anchor development polices in European societies,
  • what are the ethical responsibilities of opinion makers in enabling informed choices among the public with regard to the support for actions aimed at reducing poverty and establishing fairer relationships between developing and developed nations;
  • what is the communication style that facilitates intercultural understanding and dialogue.


 

[edit]The expected outcome of TVP

By creating, collecting and distributing knowledge resources and tools for media personnel so as to facilitate them in informing their public of international development priorities, this Action will help the opinion makers to better inform the European public about the scope and challenges of the Global partnership for Development.
 

A more informed public will understand why it is in the interest of everybody to built faire relations between developed and developing countries. And this will lead to changes in the attitudes of the EU public with regards to issues and difficulties the developing countries and their peoples are facing.

In this way we hope that TVP will contribute to raise public pressure upon policy decision makers for implementing the international agreements (like the MDGs) aimed at reducing poverty and at improving relations between developed and developing countries.

 

See also:

 

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