The Drum Beat 492 - Development Policy Analysis
The Drum Beat 492 contains these highlights, and MORE:
- BILL ORME:
"Donors, Governance and Media Aid: Some Thoughts from Sierra Leone" - RICARDO RAMIREZ and WENDY QUARRY:
"Another Development" - JAMES DEANE:
"Accountability, media and the development system: a complicated romance" - WARREN FEEK:
"People, Ideas and Things" - POLL on how central newspapers are to democracy
- Six additional RECENT BLOG POSTS along with comments related to them.
This issue of The Drum Beat alerts you to new and recent blog postings, and comments on those postings, that are on our Communication, Media, and Development Policy blog space. Please read the full blogs on a variety of policy issues and also enter your comments and critique on the ideas expressed within them.
Plus, please send a note to drumbeat@comminit.com if you would like to become a CI blogger!
NEW FROM BILL ORME
1. Donors, Governance and Media Aid: Some Thoughts from Sierra Leone
Bill dismisses the notion that policymakers do not regard media as important, proposes that the major challenge for media development is answering the question of why it warrants public funds, and highlights the need for media across the globe to develop a shared set of norms, collaborate, and seek alliances with each other.
Read the full blog post and post your own comment or question: click here.
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NEW FROM RICARDO RAMIREZ AND WENDY QUARRY
Ricardo and Wendy examine the current state of how communication is viewed and supported in relation to social and economic development by policymakers and funders. Whereas those policymakers and funders understand advocacy communication and participatory communication, they find them "messy" and instead chiefly consider and support the following types of clean, quick, and linear communication: public relations, policy communication, and educational communication. The bloggers suggest that development is now missing its "heart and soul". They propose that we revisit a development framework posited by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation of Sweden in the 1980s that is based on five core principles: development should be 1) needs-oriented; 2) endogenous (stem from the heart of each society); 3) self-reliant; 4) ecologically sound; and 4) based on structural transformation (so as to realise the conditions of self-management and participation in decision-making by all those affected by it).
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NEW FROM JAMES DEANE
3. Accountability, media and the development system: a complicated romance
While acknowledging that there are some exciting new accountability initiatives that are geared toward development actors and that enable aid recipients to monitor and participate in the decision-making around how that aid will be delivered, James suggests that the demand for these initiatives may not be as strong as the current supply. The media have in the past played a significant role in accountability initiatives, but James sees this role and relationship as "uncomfortable", with various challenges to be overcome.
Read the full blog post and post your own comment or question: click here.
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Comments received include the following:
- From Owen Barder, within his own blog:
"Over at the Communication, Media and Development policy blog, James Deane (the BBC World Service Trust guy, not the dead actor) writes a provocative post about the role of the media in helping to make eveloping country governments more accountable to their citizens, and making service providers more accountable to those meant to benefit. He says:
'It is the media, however, who might logically be expected to be central actors in this effort. The job of a journalist is to find disparate, often complex information and present it in forms that publics can make sense of. Journalists both meet and generate demand for information, and when done well, some of the best journalism provides information people didn't know they needed.
James is absolutely right to focus on the question of where the demand is for more information and better accountability. The growth of the demand side is important for two reasons:..." [more: click here]
- In response to Owen Barder, James Deane commented:
"I agree with most of what Owen says, including many of his charges that mainstream media simply have not been performing the kinds of investigative journalism function that better accountability demands. I agree that bloggers - and I would argue citizen journalists - are increasingly filling this role. And that there are transformational opportunities for citizens to demand accountability which will revolutionise accountability relationships.
There are some issues I part company with Owen on..." [more: click here]
- From Bahar Salimova:
"I absolutely agree with your point that donors are usually more accountable to their own citizens than to the beneficiaries of the aid. This can be witnessed in the donor reports, pre-established project targets and, in some cases, donor requirements to hire either people or companies from the donor country to complete specific project tasks. The latter one always amazes me, because I see it as discrimination against citizens of other nations. If citizens or private companies of the donor country are selected to be part of the development project only because their government provided aid money, what happens to the traditionally preached principle of meritocracy?...” [more: click here]
James highlights the recent BBC World Service Trust event and report 'Media and Governance: a survey of policy opinion' and outlines some of the conclusions reached by participants.
Read the full blog post and post your own comment or question: click here.
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Comments received include the following:
- From Ronald Kayanja:
"...I work with the United Nations as Advisor or media and democratic governance. I have read the report of the meeting you had in January, and I think it was a useful initiative indeed. It raised important questions, especially on media and the fragile states. I am working in Timor Leste and we are also trying to see how the media here can develop to play a central role in not only democratization but also ensuring that this small island nation does not slide back into the chaos of the past. The country has great potential. What I would call for is a way of organizing available information on media development--especially research--to enable those of us interested get access. Something similar to the way the Development Gateway was conceived or regular journals that are substantive maybe like the Journal of Democracy. This will enable better utilization of the research for policy and theory development." [more: click here]
5. A "democratic recession" presents challenges - and opportunities
Here James identifies several instances where journals and policymakers are suggesting that we are currently witnessing the failing of democracy across the world. They aren't suggesting that democracy is bad, just that it needs to be better. James proposes that the role of media in democratic governance will move "centre stage in development debates" in order to support better democracies. Media development, according to James, will need to adapt and insert itself quickly in order to keep up with rapid structural changes.
Read the full blog post and post your own comment or question: click here.
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NEW FROM WARREN FEEK
Beginning from the position that communicators and economists sit on different sides of the development table, Warren reflects on David Warsh's book 'Knowledge and The Wealth of Nations' and narrows in on Warsh's key question: "What does economics have to tell us about the prospects for our lives?" He outlines the two answers suggested by Warsh and illustrates essentially that the table is now round and there are no sides.
Read the full blog post and post your own comment or question: click here.
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Warren focuses our attention on the proposed East African undersea telecommunication cables, positioning them as a "possible quantum leap forward in everyone's capacity to achieve reduced poverty levels, higher participation and accountability levels in political processes, decreased HIV/AIDS infection rates, and a bunch of other important goals."
Read the full blog post and post your own comment or question: click here.
View comments related to this post: click here.
How central to democracy are newspapers - some of which are being lost to budget cuts and other changes - as opposed to blogs, YouTube, emails, text messaging, twittering, and the like?
- Pivotal - informed public debate is impossible without this kind of quality platform and trained journalistic practice.
- Of some importance - we need both traditional newspapers and new media voices/venues to sustain conversations conducive to transparency.
- Unimportant - the internet and other technologies have enabled participation on the part of both citizens and journalists by trade, making open journalistic debate both possible and popular. This is the essence of democracy.
VOTE and COMMENT - click here.
RECENTLY POSTED from Jon Tinker
8. The commonalities lens sees AIDS better
This post received the following comment:
- From Colleen Ruth Calamante:
"...Are we to blindly believe that poverty and disease are not endemic in all societies? If so education is a false, blinding atmosphere, nothing more. The North-South lens has a global health landscape which exposes the truth, but often people refrain from digesting the truth because it is unpalatable and risks forever changing their current visual and socioeconomic lens. The North-South health landscape can only change if the people's vision of truth sustains change. If a balance in truth is clearly sighted we can no longer misrepresent information microscopists are conveying. The soul's truth is: it is the minorities, the children and the vulnerable groups that are at risk from the true and current danger of pandemics worldwide." [more: click here]
RECENTLY POSTED from Warren Feek
9. Scaling Steep Slopes - The Public Policies Helping to Transform Medellin
This post received the following comments:
- From Anonymous:
"In my dreams, in all of our dreams, this is what we would wish for - the revival of old fashioned community, and at the heart of this is culture; cultural activities that bind people together. I would dream of this in South Africa, but sometimes it seems that the very culture that should bind us together is what separates us. Who can agree on what the Springbok team should be called? Should we ever perform Shakespeare? Should ngoma dancing be done by women? Is virgin-testing abusive to young women? What should we call that street - after whom and why? Is Afrikaner nationalism worse than Zulu nationalism? Did Xhosas get a better deal under Mbeki's leadership? Why do whites care so much about their dogs and cats? And so it goes on and on... Mistrust, disrespect, tribalism, prejudice, and blatant ignorance. That's our only united cultural currency."
- From Ross:
"Thanks for your amazing article on Medellin! Truly inspiring! We're starting to plan and develop a small training and cultural centre in a rural area 10 miles south of Gaborone. Your article gave us lots of ideas. Now if we only had a few mountains to stick cable cars on!"
- From Tereza:
"I found the article about Medellin heartening, uplifting and inspiring. But while I read and rejoiced, a little nagging voice kept asking how this jives with Uribe's repressive government and the current drive to pass a Free Trade Agreement during a lame duck session. What's good for business and tourism isn't always good for people. Uribe has the worst record in Latin America for unionist killings. To bring down those numbers, family members of unionists have now been targeted instead. It looks good on paper but the reality is even more harsh..." [more: click here]
This post received the following comment:
- From Fred Fleming:
"In fairness, Howard Dean, in the 2002-3 camapaign used the web far ahead of the curve. He had blogs and alerts and forums (fora). They actually had a bunch of very innovative SW writers incl. one college student who did an effort to 'let good ideas Bubble up' from the larger community, for attention of the campaign. This sounds like running the campaign by polls, but it's not. Polls ask pre determined questions, Dean for America used the online discussions to distill the insights - things the campaign did NOT think of, but might want to think on. Sounds like something we should be doing, hmm?"
11. Development Street, no Wall?
This post received the following comment:
- From Robert Cohen:
"I can only quote (paraphrase) the last sentence of Joyce's Ulysses -- yes, yes and yes! This is indeed the time to rethink the values and models of development, from economics to politics to human relations more generally. You are right (without using the term) that the Washington Consensus that held sway for the past decades as the dominant model for development is long overdue for change -- in fact, it is already happening as new centers of global power and influence emerge offering new thinking, as we all stumble ahead looking for the new paradigms (including communication paradigms) that will get us out of the crisis and maybe maybe save the planet. Obama is just one sign of hope amidst the darkness and it's important to remember the millions of people around the planet whose hopes and work and resistance are driving the change he may or may not help bring about..." [more: click here]
RECENTLY POSTED from James Deane
12. Governance and the Media: the engagement gap
This post received the following comment:
- From Anonymous:
"...for me, there seem to be various objectives to support for media development. Some organizations want more development content in the media, others see the importance of freedom of expression, while there are those who look at the transparency and accountability angle.
What we are looking for determines whether we think our support us successful or not. A recent study on media and accountability in Uganda supported by one of the bilaterals concluded that because corruption is still a big problem in Uganda, the media has failed. As a person who has been involved in media development in Africa for many years, I found that report very shallow..." [more: click here]
13. Media Development or Media for Development?: wrong question - but what's the right one?
This post received the following comment:
- From Anonymous:
"...the problem is that there is no agreement about how you get "free of the shackles of poverty and economic oppression", and that is why media for development is so different to media development. Media for development involves an outsider's view of what development means and has a message which is usually driven by the donor's view. Developing media should mean encouraging good journalism which stimulates debate and dialogue in civil society about what is the best development path for the country. Whilst there are shared objectives between the two, media for development is very different and should be clearly differentiated. Media development should be a much more 'hands-off' intervention (if that is not an oxymoron!), with less of an agenda on the table..." [more: click here]
14. Is a free and plural media more important than elections in securing democratic development?
This post received the following comment:
- From avaiki:
"James Deane politely fudges an answer as to which is more important - media or elections - but is bang on when he says the media is a low priority in democratic capacity building. What he does not say is why. If we hold up modern notions of "political correctness" to a mirror, our reflection shows ample evidence instead of corporate correctness - rampant, mindless consumerism chewing through global resources at many times more than we have resources for..." [more: click here]
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