The Drum Beat 279 - Senior Policy Leaders on Development Communication

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Communication, media and development were given substantial focus and analysis during the recent BBC World Service Trust/DFID conference "Towards 2005: What role does the media have in the fight against global poverty?" Two speeches in particular, by senior UK policy-makers, pointed to key issues for governments, communicators, journalists and development workers - the first by Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development in the UK Government and the second by The Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of The Exchequer in the UK Government. We include excerpts of their speeches below for your review and discussion.

Please note that the selection of the quotes from the speeches, the numbering and any explanatory notes in square brackets below have been inserted by The CI.

The DFID contact for any feedback you may have on the views and ideas expressed by Hilary Benn is DFID Public Enquiry Point enquiry@dfid.gov.uk Tel: 44-1355843132 [toll free].

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HIGHLIGHTS

>> "...Not just communication that secures column inches or airtime, but communication which educates and brings about better ways of doing things; which helps government talk to its citizens and vice-versa; and which puts the poorest of the poor at the centre of attention." - Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development in the UK Government, November 24, 2004

>> "...where the role and responsibility of the media in development starts - through better communications to promote better development. As US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant'". - RT Hon Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of The Exchequer in the UK Government, November 24 2004

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SPEECH BY HILARY BENN MP
Secretary of State for International Development in the UK Government
Nov 24 2004

Many of us involved in communication are eager to understand how senior policy makers and resource allocators value communication in the fight against poverty and related development issues. As the UK government Cabinet Minister responsible for international development, Mr Benn is one of the most senior and influential global international development policy makers. His speech stresses the vital importance of media and development communication for effective international development action. The full speech can be read by clicking here. Excerpts are below.

1. "...let's be straight about it - we share this small and fragile planet with a growing number of our fellow human beings. What happens in one country increasingly affects those who live in other countries. We will not have a safe and secure world unless we do something about poverty, injustice and inequality. We can do something...And it is the media - the mirror that we hold up to ourselves - that has an enormously powerful part to play in helping to make this happen, both in what we call 'the North', and in 'the South' where so many people bear the brunt of poverty."

2. "If you by any chance doubt the media's potential to make a difference, then just reflect on our own history. On the part that reporting played in our own [UK] development. In the 19th century, it was the people who got on their horses - and on the trains - and who travelled the length and breadth of the land to report back to society on the conditions in which so many people lived, who helped to change the face of Britain...This was great social reform born of great reporting...And I think that we are now witnessing exactly the same process happening on a global scale, in which great reporting has the same potential to help us - together - to change the face of the world. It's one of the reasons why this thing we call international development has moved from the margins of politics two generations ago to the place it occupies today - right at the heart of the big political debates of our age."

3. "But did Michael Buerk's powerful reporting [on the Ethiopian famine in the mid-1980s] or Live Aid lead... us [to] spend more of our national wealth on aid? Did it make us rewrite unfair trade rules or drop the debt of poorer countries? Not immediately, but over time it did play a part. Yet to take another example, did the reporting from Biafra, or Cambodia, or Rwanda - as the genocide unfolded before our eyes - lead us to act? No, not in time to avert the genocide, as 900,000 people were macheted to death in the space of 6 weeks. A painful lesson that reporting alone - important as it is - isn't enough. We need to act, too."

4. "There are other questions, too. To what extent does the media feel that its role is to move beyond disaster reporting to examining the deeper challenges behind the bad news and the possible solutions? What about reporting the good news - things that are working in Africa - instead of just seeing it as the continent where things go wrong."

5. "How can we ensure - and this is a particular frustration of mine - that we hear many more Southern voices talking for themselves and about what they want for the future of their country, rather than two people from the North having an argument about what we think is good for someone else?"

6. "Anyway, so much for the North. The South, too, is in the midst of a media revolution. 40 years ago, most of the population of the developing world had never seen a TV. The digital divide still exists, but it's fast being closed. For both the media and governments in the South, there are real opportunities to use communications in the fight against poverty. Not just communication that secures column inches or airtime, but communication which educates and brings about better ways of doing things; which helps government talk to its citizens and vice-versa; and which puts the poorest of the poor at the centre of attention."

7. "This isn't always easy when a majority of the world's population does not have access to a fully free press. What about societies that don't encourage a culture of dialogue, like the fact that until relatively recently there was no reporting of the growing incidence of HIV in China. And yet we know that honesty and openness about HIV and AIDS - the way we have seen it in Uganda, Senegal, Thailand - is essential in the fight to protect people from this terrible disease."

8. "And yet press freedom is good for development. It's the 'sunlight' that Gordon [Brown - UK Chancellor of the Exchequer] spoke about. It also means less official corruption, more government accountability, more civic participation - and those things help to bring in their wake more investment, higher incomes, lower infant mortality, and more adult literacy and numeracy."

9. "And we already have some shining examples of how communication has helped in the fight against poverty...The media is doing it extremely creatively and effectively: sometimes independently, sometimes alongside NGOs, sometimes in tandem with Ministries of Health and Education. Let me just give you one example. In the Horn of Africa, where nomadic Somalis tune in to the BBC Somali Service, DFID has funded a British NGO working locally in Hargeisha to create a radio soap opera. The characters discuss issues of female circumcision and reproductive health. Studies from the first series have shown that when the radio programmes were combined with listener groups to discuss the issues raised, operations on young girls decreased by up to 30%. This is the power of the media to change lives for the better."

10. "...a unique opportunity to tell the story of how we are all connected on this small and fragile planet. A chance to demonstrate that never before have people in distant countries been able to share the stories of their lives so freely. Never before have we in the North been able to see so vividly and to understand so clearly the fears and hopes of the hungry, the sick and the destitute. Never before have the poor been able to see so starkly the world of plenty from which they are excluded. Never before have we raised so many hopes and aspirations."

11. "The world is crying out for change, and you [media and development communicators] are the messengers of that cry. It's our responsibility to hear it, and if we do, then we have a better chance of doing the things we know in our heart need to be done to change this world we see before us. And it is by what we do that we will all be judged."

SPEECH BY RT HON GORDON BROWN MP
Chancellor of The Exchequer in the UK Government
Nov 24 2004

The Chancellor has prioritised significant, even radical and drastic steps to address world poverty. His speech focused on overall trends in international development, the UK Government's plans to address those issues - including the International Finance Facility and debt relief - and the key 2005 meetings that will seek to make the progress on those issues and ideas. In the course of the speech he also made very positive reference to the essential role of media and communication, beginning with congratulations to the BBC World Service Trust for its work. The full text of the Chancellor's speech can be read by clicking here. Excerpts are below.

12. "Let me in particular congratulate the World Service Trust for its less widely publicised but highly innovative work: your pioneering HIV/AIDS campaign which in India alone has helped 7 million; your pioneering public health work as in Kenya where you have engaged 4 million young people; and your pioneering distance learning programmes which in Somalia alone has attracted 10,000 into education and attracted thousands elsewhere."

13. "Today is also the time for politicians and broadcasters each doing our very different jobs and performing our every different roles to take stock - think back on and to learn from, both in terms of achievements and failures, what has been a long journey in the discussion of development issues..."

14. "And when Amartya Sen wrote some years ago of the difference between the history of famines in China and India and exposed the difference between the old China - where because there was no free press and no multi-party democracy no one reported the deaths no one ever knew the nameless, forgotten, unmentioned people who died - and the old India - where because there was openness, the authorities were forced to react he was describing in the case of India where the role and responsibility of the media in development starts - through better communications to promote better development. As US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant'."

15. "In a world where we are, thanks to your communications and media, the first generation to know the numbers, the scale, the sheer extent of the tragedy facing us in Africa and other developing countries. And we are, thanks to the development of science, medicine and technology, the first generation to know it to be preventable."

16. "And I believe that our greatest responsibility looking forward to 2005 is: a mission to get to beyond the shock horror, sensationalist, in and out - and to be consistent over time where the challenge is indeed making development issues simple to understand without being superficial; to examine and bring to the public's attention not just the surface and immediate manifestations but the underlying forces at work and the causes of the problems developing countries face, including challenges of corruption, transparency and governance."

17. "I quoted Martin Luther King a few months ago in saying the arc of the moral universe is long but it does bend towards justice. This was not an appeal to some iron law of history nor a demand that journalists act in a particular way but to remind people that by their own actions they can and do change the world for good."

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Pulse Poll

Peace-building communication initiatives should prioritise building local communication platforms for dialogue and sharing over directing peace messages at the parties to the conflict.
[For context, please see The Drum Beat 278]

Do you agree or disagree?

DISCUSS!

Please also join a discussion on these issues.
To read contributions please click here

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MEDIA COVERAGE

The BBC World Service Trust/DFID conference "Towards 2005: What role does the media have in the fight against global poverty?" held in London, UK on November 24 2004, at which the above speeches were presented, received UK media coverage. Two examples of this coverage included:

18. BBC online coverage
Excerpt: "But Mr Brown pointed out that despite the massive awareness of problems in Africa raised by Band Aid - and subsequently projects such as Live Aid and Comic Relief - aid to Africa has fallen from $33 per person in the 1980s to $19 per person..." Having shocked people in the 1980s, it is harder to re-shock them and re-shock them again," he added. Lorraine Heggessey, controller of BBC One, agreed with this view. "One of the problems for the news is that it is the same story every day," she said. "Creativity is a crucial part of this. You can't keep covering the same issues in the same way."And she added that it was often difficult to make issues like poverty engaging, because of the often technical language of development."

19. Guardian newspaper coverage
Excerpt: "What do the Vicar of Dibley and the headline "25,000 Africans died needlessly yesterday" have in common? They are both, in their own way, challenges to the way we report world poverty...The headline challenge comes from Jeffrey Sachs, UN special adviser to Kofi Annan on the millennium development goals. It could be used any day, he said, and it would be true. He was speaking at a conference last week, organised by the BBC World Service Trust and the Department for International Development, on the media and the fight against global poverty."
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PROJECTS

Following are just a few examples of communication for development projects supported by DFID and BBC World Service Trust.

* Voices Radio Soap Opera - Nigeria
A project using radio drama and discussion programmes to explore governance issues, rights, and responsibilities, and how attention to these matters can translate into positive livelihood strategies.

* Hands On - Global
A multi-media project featuring video profiles of sustainable enterprise and technology that are designed to benefit people living in poverty.

* Thabyegone Ywa - Burma
A project to raise awareness about poverty-related health issues including HIV/AIDS and to provide information about and practical solutions for everyday healthcare problems impacting people in Burma living in poverty.

* Making Ends Meet - Global
A series of radio programmes exploring the lives of people in remote communities around the world, looking at how they make a living and how their lives and livelihoods are related to those of people in the "outside world".

* Stepping Stones Africa Exchange - UK & Nicaragua
A series of workshops designed and conducted to help UK and Nicaraguan practitioners involved in gender and HIV work share information about sexual and reproductive well-being and domestic violence, begin to develop gender-sensitive approaches to these issues that engage men more fully, and build an independent international network of those working with participatory approaches in this area.

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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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