10th UN Inter Agency Roundtable on Development Communication

1
10th UN Inter Agency Roundtable on Development
Communication

• Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
  Accelerating the achievement of the MDGs through
  stakeholder participation

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What is ECA?

• Regional arm of the UN secretariat in Africa
• Mandate to foster economic development of Member
  States
• Liaison body between African governments and UN
• Key part of the work is NEPAD Africas
  development blueprint
• Use convening power to promote dialogue between
  Member States

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ECA sponsors or hosts several of Africas main
policy fora

• Conference of African Ministers of Finance and
  development
• African Development Forum (ADF) five editions
  so far
• Committee on Development Information (CODI)
• Advisory Board on Statistics on Africa
• Forum on African Statistical Development
  (FASDEV)
• As well as meetings on wide cross section of
  critical development issues.

4
Until recently, we relied on traditional methods,
such as

• Website
• Newsletters
• Expert group meetings
• Mailing lists
• But we were not listening to the requirements of
  our stakeholders

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To best deliver, we realized the need to extend
the scope of our communication

• Emphasis on partnership.
• Stronger links were built with African Union and
  the African Development Bank
• Donor consultations were redesigned to
  incorporate both sides of the development
  equation
• Special focus on promotion of ICT for development
  is helping us expand our stakeholder base to
  include dialogue with parties outside the policy
  community -

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The main idea here is that all stakeholders are
agents of change. As such, they need to be
included in the policy dialogue.
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Weve begun going deeper

• In the past we simply distributed posters to 53
  Member States on African Statistics Day, for
  example. Now, besides the posters, we include a
  small advocacy radio message. This is distributed
  through our network of radio stations, and last
  year through the UN radio network also
  collaborated with South Africa to produce video
  on issues.
• An Africa Water vision video was a joint project
  of UN Water Africa partnership we produced and
  aired throughout the continent on state
  televisions
• Weve placed a lot of emphasis on ICT for
  Development we now host a number of electronic
  learning groups, one of which is specifically
  dedicated to MDG monitoring and ideas and
  experience on implementation of PRSPs

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The ECAs programme of work emphasises
interaction and dialogue ? We are particularly
interested in two-way communication that
reflects the cultural and developmental needs of
stakeholders.
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Promoting knowledge sharing

• ECAs new Knowledge Management initiative is
  creating online communities of interest and
  practice.
• Focus on strengthening communication and
  information exchange between UN system experts
  and external knowledge networks.
• All partners encouraged to participate in this.

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Strengthening Media Capacity

• Effective media are a vital to quest to achieve
  the MDGs.
• Media faces numerous capacity constraints.
• ECA is therefore working with partners to support
  development of a strong media and communication
  environment.
• Emphasis is on listening to media and tailoring
  responses to their demands.
• STREAM regional level initiative underway.
• UN-Ethiopia country team pilot project due to
  start soon.

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Challenges and opportunities

• How does our client-base perceive us?
• I-seek is an excellent internal communication
  tool, but how far are we in developing a
  comprehensive inter-agency programmatic
  knowledge-sharing tool, where we can access our
  mutual expertise?
• We need to develop a common photo and video bank,
  so that we can streamline our resources
• Exchange of personnel is highly encouraged at the
  moment, and is an excellent way to get to know
  each others activities

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Finally, we really must stop preaching to the
converted. Without exception, there is a clear
gap between our perception as communication
professionals of our role and responsibilities,
as well as contribution to substantive work,
and the afterthought approach to communication we
witness throughout the UNs programmes and
budgets.
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By acting collectively we can make development
communication a reality
Thank you. Amesegenalehu !