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Youth-led communication for social change: empowerment, citizen media, and cultures of governance in Northern Ghana (Development in Practice 28(3):400-413, April 2018)

This article critically assesses the possibilities and limitations of strategic communication initiatives to enhance cultures of governance among youth in Northern Ghana. The analysis is embedded within contemporary debates about communication and social change, with particular focus upon dynamics between citizen media development, youth-centred citizen journalism, and processes of community mobilisation and development. Findings suggest that the project has opened up to dynamic, youth-led social change processes, evidenced by the creative, proactive enactment of citizen engagement. Youth changed not only their self-perception around agency and ability to act, but also influenced community development in a variety of ways.

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Institutional trust and misinformation in the response to the 2018–19 Ebola outbreak in North Kivu, DR Congo: a population-based survey (The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Published: March 27, 2019)

The current outbreak of Ebola in eastern DR Congo, beginning in 2018, emerged in a complex and violent political and security environment. Community-level prevention and outbreak control measures appear to be dependent on public trust in relevant authorities and information, but little scholarship has explored these issues. The authors aimed to investigate the role of trust and misinformation on individual preventive behaviours during an outbreak of Ebola virus disease.

961 adults were surveyed between Sept 1 and Sept 16, 2018. The findings underscore the practical implications of mistrust and misinformation for outbreak control.

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Measuring social and behaviour change communication capacity in Malawi (Strengthening Health Systems, 2, 69-73, 2018)

Background. In the context of the burden of disease and the need to promote health among the Malawian population, Health Communication for Life in 2016 embarked on a 5-year social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) project to support the Malawian government’s effort to expand access to sustainable health services. As part of this support, a capacity assessment was conducted in the Ministry of Health.

Objectives. To obtain a baseline measurement of current SBCC competencies, and to inform skills building for SBCC.

Methods. Two standardised participatory tools were developed to capture SBCC competencies at the national and zonal/district levels, based on a collective competency framework. The national assessment was conducted with 8 health promotion officers based in the Health Education Section of the Ministry of Health. At district level, 30 district health promotion officers from 28 districts participated in the assessment.

Results. The capacity assessment showed that health promotion officers had on average low capacity to plan, implement and evaluate SBCC interventions. However, there was variation within different domains, where the institutional capacity to lead and co-ordinate at both national and district levels was fairly strong, yet organisational capacity to evaluate, scale and sustain SBCC interventions was relatively weak. Participants also provided input to improve the assessment tools.

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How Much Evidence Is There Really? Mapping the Evidence Base for ICT4D Interventions (FHI 360 Research Report, 2019)

To identify impact evaluations on the effectiveness of ICTD interventions, the authors conducted a systematic search and screening that identifed 253 studies. They present results in an evidence map that shows the amount of evidence for each of 11 intervention categories across nine development sectors and find large amounts of evidence for some intervention categories and little to no evidence in others.

Roughly 80% of the ICTD impact evaluations use randomized assignment, suggesting a relatively low risk of bias across the evidence base. At the same time, roughly 80% evaluate pilot implementations instead of programs, raising questions about how useful the evidence is for informing programs at scale. Less than 20% of studies report costs, limiting ability to assess cost effectiveness. Four recommendations are made to improve the evidence base.

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Climate change advocacy in the Pacific: The role of information and communication technologies (Pacific Journalism Review 23 (1) 2017 133)

This article explores the phenomenon of the use of ICT for climate change activism in the Pacific. Climate change activism in the Pacific is characterised by the use of ICT tools such as social media. The article draws on semi-structured interviews and an analysis of social media sites to examine the use of social media in Pacific climate change campaigns. While other campaigns such as relating to West Papua have also been facilitated by social media, it has been generally NGO, citizen-led and varied in Pacific government support. In contrast, climate change campaigns in the Pacific are fully supported at the NGO, citizen, and state levels. Furthermore, while early Pacific ICT-based climate change campaigns used iconic images of Pacific Islanders leaving their homelands, more recent campaigns have leveraged social media to depict Pacific Islanders not as victims but as ‘warriors’. This new imagery aims to empower Pacific Islanders and engender a regional Pacific identity that shows strength and solidarity on the Pacific’s stance towards climate change.

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