VIENNA IW LEARN WORKSHOP AHA’S AND COMMON THREADS

Condensed Version

January 19-20, 2006

1. WHAT IS STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS?

  • ‘Communications’ is a confusing term for Project Managers, seen as ‘sexy’ now
  • Need to differentiate between ‘communications’and ‘public participation’, and how they link
  • Project should have people who know how to communicate, backgrounds
  • It is one tool to help project achieve its overall objectives, and get results faster
  • Should be done from start of project

2. DESIRED OUTCOMES (Goals in using communications)

  • Dissemination, raise awareness, persuade, train, change behaviour, get public participation, encourage other actions
  • Education/training is seen as very important, possibly should be seen as a separate effort?
  • Showproject’s added value and what it achieves!
  • maximize use of project results in terms that relate to people(environmental, economic, social)
  • stakeholders don’t know what project does, sometimes very complicated
  • Train and encourage sub-project managers to communicate strategically

3. TARGET AUDIENCES

  • Define, research, understand them, how they think (e.g. stakeholder analysis) (e.g. Cooke: targets unaware of how their activities cause problems)
  • 3 levels: regional, national, local
  • Government planners and decision-makers, industry, local residents, landowners, tourists, international institutional clients

4. MAIN MESSAGES (to target audiences)

  • Personal benefits – what’s in it for me?
  • Calls to action – make fun and simple
  • Money talks

5. DELIVERY VEHICLES (Products, activities)

  • Too much jargon, technical info
  • Promote stakeholder excellence (awards e.g. greenbag competition, waste champions)
  • Creative products and activities (e.g. banana circles, green bag)
  • Teacher-children educationand comms good idea (many projects)
  • Public awareness grants and matching
  • All sorts of other products and activities…
  • Champions and ambassadors
  • Use tangible demonstrations – show how it works!

6. MONITORING

  • Focus on measurable change at community and national levels through indicators
  • E.g. environmental, behaviour, institution, awareness/attitude, process indicators like # radio ads

7. EVALUATION

  • Hard to show communication impacts for success and environmental change
  • Technical component evaluation easier
  • Done throughout project, fed in to continuously improve things

WINS

  • Project better understood
  • Coached national coordinators to communicate
  • SP: Household waste dropped 60%, reduced organic waste to landfill, more use greenbag, government savings (Parliamentarians loved this)
  • More cross-country dialogue (e.g. Caspian, Danube)
  • International comms and public participation network (with national focal points)
  • How to transfer wins to other projects?

WEAKNESSES/BARRIERS/NEEDS?

  • Comms not planned in early enough
  • Budget constraints
  • Lack of people with comms experience
  • Takes time to train non-comms people how to communicate strategically
  • Behaviour change takes time, so needs long project
  • Hard to get data (e.g. oil companies Caspian)
  • IT not used much in some developing areas (Caspian, BS)
  • Need GEF comms and public participation strategy template (in process)
  • Hard to communicate in a ‘formalistic culture’
  • Multiple cultures, languages, expectations (translations! Too much English)
  • Hard to spark interest in some issues (e.g. nutrient pollution)
  • Hard to evaluate effectiveness of comms

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