This document was produced by Palladium for review by the US Agency for International Development. The views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect the views of the US Agency for International Development or the United States Government. USAID CREATING ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES PROJECT STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLAN FINAL Submission date: 8 January 2019 Contract No: 72052018C000001
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
This document was produced by Palladium for review by the US Agency for International Development. The views expressed in this
document do not necessarily reflect the views of the US Agency for International Development or the United States Government.
USAID CREATING ECONOMIC
OPPORTUNITIES PROJECT STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLAN
5.1 General Messaging ....................................................................................................................................................... 8
7.5 Social media and campaigns ..................................................................................................................................... 12
The Creating Economic Opportunities Project is based on a theory of change that if public and private sectors
work together to generate tailored solutions to increase economic production and employment, poverty can
be reduced and living conditions improved. These in turn will diminish the drivers of irregular migration,
especially of youth and women and indigenous people.
This Strategic Communications Plan starts from the premise that communication for development has merged
traditional information-focused communications interventions with a new paradigm of participation and dialogic
communication which adds value to programmatic interventions. Communication includes a broad range of
activities from sharing information and communicating key messages to hard-to-reach audiences, creating
constructive environments in which stakeholders can participate in the definition of problems and solutions,
and supporting reflection and new thinking to enable program interventions to take root and thrive. “ …
failures of development initiatives have been ascribed to different understandings and perceptions about the nature of a
problem rather than to the problem itself.”1
One of the underpinning concepts of communications in the Project is as a process which draws together the
programmatic threads of different Components – national policy and strategy with municipal ones; financial
institutions with political and economic ones; business culture with indigenous and youth cultures; financial
inclusion with social inclusion -- in order for all stakeholders to understand the dynamics of, and participate in,
opportunities to achieve real and lasting economic change.
In this sense, communications is one of the ‘knowledge brokers’ in the project. Communications can help to
make visible the varied pieces of knowledge which different actors hold – private sector know-how and
experience of market forces and opportunities: government knowledge of public policy and long-term national
development aims; community knowledge and perceptions, academic knowledge gained through systematic
analysis – and can facilitate spaces in which this combined knowledge forms new understanding of economic
opportunity and how multi-sector collaboration can bring these opportunities to full fruition.
Principles of Communication for the Project
• Clarity – the project will promote wider understanding and knowledge of key concepts, and seek to
dispel misconceptions about economic opportunity which can transform regions
• Collaboration – the project will promote engagement between private and public sectors, between
economic and political institutions and civil society to aggregate knowledge and experiences and build
positive working relationships
• Inclusion – the project will seek ways to engage with specific target groups in ways that are culturally
pertinent, motivational and useful
• Strengthening the evidence base – the project will systematically document experiences with new
technologies, organizational arrangements, and foment learning geared towards sustainability for
project results
1 Paul Mitchell, Development Communications Manager, The World Bank, cited at the 9th UN Round-table on Communication for Development, Rome, September 2005, Development Communications Sourcebook, 2008, p 58
2 | STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLAN
1 COMMUNICATIONS ENVIRONMENT FOR THE PROJECT
Though Latin American is the second most press-free region after Europe,2 Freedom House characterizes
Guatemala as having a “partly free” media.3 This is based on an evaluation of legal, political and economic
variables affecting press freedom, which gave Guatemala a score of 58/100 in 2017.4 The study citied
“substantially increased” press freedom violations in the run-up to the 2015 elections and the deaths of two
journalists for their reporting. But in spite of this potential for violence—the Human Rights Ombudsman’s
Office identified six murders of journalists in 20165—major corruption enquiries have been sparked by national
journalism, and independent periodicals have appeared also in recent years.6
The only major study of mass communications specific to Guatemala was completed by DOSES in 2002,7
concluding that the mass media was largely urban in a largely rural country, latino in a largely indigenous nation,
and gender-biased against women. The study identified weaknesses in journalism training, especially for
journalists based outside the capital, and focus groups identified biases in media according to the political and
economic interests of their owners. A substantial telecommunications liberalization in 1996 opened the doors
to mobile phone access and internet, but also created a television monopoly in the country, and severely
hampered the operation of many small, informal community radio stations.8 The weak reach of mass media
may be one reason a study found higher credibility and access to more local forms of informing populations:
community radio: loudspeakers, community assemblies, listening to village leaders.9
At the same time, internet connectivity and exploding smartphone use in Guatemala are providing new media
opportunities to reach audiences that traditional media cannot match. Guatemala is the fifth country in Latin
America in terms of phones per person, with 17M phones for 14M people (2013 data).10 Almost half of social
network users are under-30, studying at university, and employed or self-employed.11 Eight out of ten users
cite the internet as their principal source of news; 22% find entertainment in their spare time online; more than
one-third spend more than three hours per day online.12
The third communications space relevant to this Project, after traditional mass media and new media platforms,
is that of the public sphere. Studies, including by UNDP13, identify Central American democracy as weak in part
because political arrangements involve citizens little in planning and evaluation, because decision-making
processes do not emphasize the role of data and analysis as crucial, and because decisions are rarely and poorly
shared with the wider public, who therefore have little confidence in authorities. Recent USAID reports that
include youth and women in the Highlands concur that participation rates of these groups are low, citing
4 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2017/guatemala Guatemala scores 58 out of 100 – not as well as Honduras’ 66; and much better than El Salvador at 41
5 Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office (PDH in Spanish), Annual Report for 2016, especially p. 201 on journalists;
7 DOSES is the Development, Organization, Services and Socio-cultural Studies Association (DOSES in Spanish), led by key media analyst Gustavo Braganza (now involved in ContraPoder); http://www.dosesguatemala.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/03/Los-medios-de-comunicaci%C3%B3n-y-la-
sociedad-guatemalteca-2002.pdf
8 “Mapping Digital media: Guatemala” by the Open Society Foundations, November 2013, https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/mapping-digital-media-guatemala-20140115.pdf
9 USAID Audience Research for Development, 2017, pp 13-14. This study surveyed participants and beneficiaries in USAID projects, many of which were in rural Guatemala. https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1862/final-report-audience-research-development-communication
15 Paul Mitchell, Development Communications Manager, The World Bank, cited at the 9th UN Round-table on Communication for Development, Rome, September 2005, Development Communications Sourcebook, 2008, Paolo Mefalopulos, p. 14
4 | STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLAN
3.1 COMPLIANCE
The first approach encompasses developing a firm base of branding and marking the Project, internally within
the Consortium and externally, and delivering high quality information and reports to Donor and Home Office
on-time, which inform, add value to achievement of results and which support project reflection and learning.
Key activities for this Strategy include:
• Development and approval of the range of key initial communications materials for start-up
• Development of internal team processes to deliver inputs to deliverables
• Hiring remaining members of the Communications Team
• A launch event, including initiating a relationship with the national press
• Creation of a Project-specific Branding Guide, to ensure that staff and partners have clear, visual
guidance on materials and how to use them in activities and events: the Branding Guide will support
development of materials and management of activities by sub-contractors as well
• Development of a social media strategy in Spanish and English, focusing on immediate goals for visibility
and mid-term goals for informing and engaging with key social media-based audiences and influencers
3.2 DEVELOPMENT OF MATERIALS AND SUPPORT TO PROGRAM ACTIVITIES
The second approach covers most of the daily work of support to program activities but understanding that
the process of engagement with stakeholders at all levels is fluid: as the project begins, materials are more
explanatory, inviting interaction and involvement in the project. Subsequently, materials will be developed to
support processes which take the project to a deeper level of interaction and commitment with stakeholders,
leading to project results.
Figure 1: Process for Developing and Evolving Project Materials
Key activities for this Strategy include:
• Development of a full range of tailored materials for Project offices, Components and partners
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLAN | 5
• Development of mediatized materials and kits for target audiences (local authorities, business
chambers, youth/ women/ indigenous people, press), and toolkits and materials for specific processes
(introduction to the project, awareness-raising on key concepts or goals, strengthening of collaborative
processes, social inclusion, advocacy)
• Development of innovative materials and tailored sets for events and activities, at local, regional,
national or international levels
3.3 SOCIAL BEHAVIOR CHANGE COMMUNICATION INTERVENTIONS
The third approach is to support specific action lines in terms of social behavior change communication
strategies and activities, which have been proven to strengthen expected outcomes.
The concept and practice of Social Behavior Change Communication is to use communications techniques to
positively influence knowledge, attitudes and practices in target audiences. It is a coordinated two-way
messaging process which takes advantage of multiple communications media to reach different stakeholders
involved in the desired change. SBCC can be characterized or differentiated from other complex
communications processes by being systematic, evidence-based, participatory and strengthening capacity.16
Figure 2: Stages of Development of Social Behavior Change Interventions17
As can be seen in the diagram above, the systematic development of interventions, based on evidence, and with
monitoring and evaluation to measure change, marks SBCC from other types of communications campaigns.
The Situation Analysis, usually focused on perceptions and motivations, is the key first step to designing an
SBCC Strategy for a particular campaign, and guides the choices of audiences, messages and media.
3.3.1 KEY ACTIVITIES FOR SOCIAL BEHAVIOR CHANGE
These activities begin with development of Terms of Reference for the situation analyses, and from that
individual, specific SBCC implementation plans will be developed and implemented, which include evaluations.
In Year 1, it is possible to see a series of initial opportunities for implementing SBCC activities, in each of the
Components, and one cross-cutting issue, but other ideas may become apparent during implementation.
Component 1 – Promotion of Commerce and Investment
• Attitudes towards external investment are negative in some cases, or at least less open to being
embraced. In order to attract new investment and have local buy-in to the benefits of that investment
in local economies, there will need to be some work to overcome these negative perceptions. SBCC
can help demonstrate benefits of new investment and the multiplication of employment and
opportunity which investment can bring
16 Significant theory and resources on a Johns Hopkins University health program site: https://healthcommcapacity.org/
17 Source: USAID Communications for Change Project https://www.c-changeprogram.org/focus-areas/capacity-strengthening#framework