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Innovation in the Horn, East and Central Africa (HECA): Perspectives from on-the-ground experiences (Oxfam Case Study, 2017)

Innovation involves applying information, imagination and initiative to get greater or different value from resources, and includes all processes by which new ideas are generated and converted into useful processes or products.

These case studies showcase some of the innovative ideas that are being implemented by Oxfam in six countries: Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi.  Each project was selected for its potential to bring greater impact in the future. They include turning ‘excrement into income’ in urban slums in Kenya; giving citizens a voice through empowering them to use their mobile phones to report and share information on justice issues in Rwanda; and using a logistical ‘hub’ in Uganda to enhance service delivery and cost-effectiveness across a region.

Click here for full case study.

Breaking the Conflict Cycle, Building Peaceful Communities: participatory photography and storytelling with African diasporas in Sydney (Journal of Communication Inquiry, 2018)

This article discusses the experience of a participatory photography project that brought together young people from the Congolese, Rwandan, Burundian, and Ugandan communities living in Sydney (Australia), whose lives are still impacted by the legacy of the conflicts that have been ravaging the African Great Region.

This initiative aimed to provide a space to encourage communication between different groups and enable the promotion of peace between communities starting from the youth is analyzed here, and reflections are offered on the use of this method with diaspora groups.

Click here to read or download the article.

Malaria Social & Behavior Change Communication National Strategies (collected and mapped by HC3 2016)

HC3 has analyzed, collected and mapped a number of national malaria communication strategies. A number of countries are updating their malaria communication strategies as they prepare concept notes for the Global Fund. The strategies include those written both and after 2010 as well as current strategies.

Click here to access this resource.

Increasing Access to Balanced and Objective Reporting: BBC World Service Great Lakes Lifeline Service 

In response to the conflict in Rwanda and the Great Lakes region, the BBC World Service established its Lifeline Service in 1994, broadcasting news and factual material from the United Kingdom gathered by its locally situated reporters in Rwanda, Burundi and the Great Lakes region.

The service, which is currently being supported by DFID, has a mixed format that comprises news, sports, human rights issues, tracing messages, music and a drama produced in Kigali by the NGO Health Unlimited.

The service was commenced in light of the clear need within the region for fair and accurate news and factual broadcasting.

Biased local broadcasters have been widely implicated in the genocide of the Tutsi that occurred in Rwanda, with the Hutu- run Radio-télévision libre des mille collines (RTLM) being particularly active.

To counter hate radio of this kind funding is increasingly being channelled towards media activities that promote free, fair and accurate reporting. Many such interventions are international in scope due to the absence of suitable partner organisations in country.

However, since it does not rely upon local broadcasting partners, the BBC is able to exercise its policy of impartiality effectively with little or no interference from external sources. The quality of its news is high.

Despite this, there are concerns associated with this type of international media response to conflict because little local capacity tends to be built through such interventions and they are generally not sustainable in the long term.[1]

[1] DFID’s ‘Working with the Media in Conflicts and other Emergencies’ 2000

Peace-Building through Media: Opening Dialogue, Liberia

In Liberia, Talking Drum Studio, has people from different ethnic groups working on a broad spectrum of programming, that ranges from news and humanitarian information to a radio soap opera, on the problems and dilemmas faced by a Liberian refugee family.

The Common Ground approach is used to identify and tackle local disputes and conflicts in the form of talk shows, in which people representing different sides of an issue are brought together to explore the common understanding between them.

Topics have included conflicts between local NGOs, ethnic groups and political rivals.

The objective of such programmes is to show that even contentious issues can be examined in ways that inform and entertain and at the same time promote the search for solutions.[1]

[1] DFID,  ‘Working with the Media in Conflicts and other Emergencies’ 2000 

Website: www.sfcg.org/common-ground-productions

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