February 2004, Masud Mozammel and Galia Schechter | The World Bank Group
This practical guide aims to unleash the potential added value of Strategic Communication by providing a model for the design of a comprehensive and integrated framework of Strategic Communication that supports the Community Driven Development (CDD) approach, with a strong focus on its manifestation at the community level. It presents Strategic Communication as both a critical management as well as an empowerment tool in its own right. This guide also aims to highlight some of the key potential contributions of Strategic Communication activities and tools to the CDD agenda throughout the entire project cycle, and across a multitude of institutional levels and stakeholder groups. It is designed for project managers and communication practitioners at the country level, and provides both with a practical overview of some of the critical aspects to consider and issues to keep in mind when designing and integrating a strategic communication framework for a given CDD operation.
At the heart of the Community Driven Development (CDD) approach is human growth and empowerment, based to a great extent on social and political change, that are in turn dependent to a significant degree on systematic, effective and popular access to and application of knowledge and information.
A Strategic Communication intervention is one of the key means through which access to and application of knowledge and information are facilitated. It is thus critical for CDD operations as it is for most other development programs. More particularly, a Strategic Communication intervention provides development agents with supporting as well as enhancing tools for better and more effective attainment of development objectives, and helps facilitate a common understanding among all participants of a development initiative, thus creating a base for concerted action. Even more so, Strategic Communication plans and activities empower development stakeholders with knowledge and information that can be applied toward effective decision making, accountable management, social and political mobilization, helpful behavior change, and overall individual and collective growth.
