Recommendations from Communication Working Group to aids2031 Agenda for the Future

This 18-page report compiles the input of one of the nine working groups - the communication working group - comprising aids2031, a global initiative working to better prepare the world to manage AIDS for the long term. The Communication for Social Change (CFSC) Consortium led the communication working group for this initiative. This group looked at how AIDS communication was financed, the particular communication needs of people exposed to chronic violence, the evolution of AIDS communication, and the impact of social networking on how young people form their sexual identities. This working group also used CFSC approaches to sponsor public dialogues in 4 countries in order to better understand key public concerns about managing AIDS. The purpose of this report is to offer elements of communication thinking to inform the final aids2031 report ("Agenda for the Future"), which is expected to be released in August 2010 in conjunction with the International AIDS conference in Vienna, Austria.

The recommendations integrate lessons from the past two and a half decades with future trends identified by the aids 2031 communication working group, other working groups, and external literature (with input from modelling of future trends applied by relevant academic disciplines and the private sector) to reflect anticipated changes in the global AIDS landscape, as well as general future global trends, including those in communication.

In brief, these trends point to "a dramatic shift taking place in the way we communicate. There is a move from the top-down, one-to-many model to that of many-to-many. This weakens the role of gatekeepers and purveyors of knowledge - the traditional professional communicators - in favour of catalysts of unmediated debate, dialogue and exchange of ideas. The future emphasis will be not so much on creating or harnessing networks but on joining them. The very nature of community may be redefined, not along geographical lines but by age, digital literacy, and themes of common interest. By the same token the role of organisation will possibly become less significant, therefore disseminating organisational messages will be less of an imperative as opposed to more cross-cutting themes. This has to be factored in future communication approaches, particularly when taking a
long-term view, as in the short- and medium-terms the need for localised, and mediated communication at the local grass roots level...must be met..."

An excerpt from the Recommendations section of the document follows:

"...On the global level, there is need for greater cohesion and coordination of efforts in all fields of HIV/AIDS response including communication. On the other hand, individual program planning and implementation has to integrate grassroots community input that reflects local cultural and audience characteristics and needs....All of our detailed recommendations address one or the other of these needs, but the need for reconciling them under a unified global leadership must be clearly communicated in the Agenda for the Future document."

"Short-Term:

1. There is a need for a more coherent and coordinated global approach to all of HIV/AIDS response, including communication. To make that possible a common definition and language defining what AIDS communication is and what it includes must be established...
2. When investing in communication approaches, especially in hyper-endemic countries, funders must also invest in communication process measures that are determined in advance with active participation of people from the affected communities...
3. Introduce more standardised, rigorous monitoring, evaluation and analysis of the outcome of AIDS communication initiatives as set against their original objectives. These procedures must not focus on measuring the outputs of communication initiatives but on the sustained impact over time...
4. Donors, community groups, civil society groups, government AIDS councils, schools, parents, religious groups and others must pledge to work together on communication and local culture, especially as it applies to how belief patterns about sexuality and sex are formed and nurtured among its youth. To do so, we must listen and encourage honest dialogue without judgment...
5. AIDS communication must be funded to plan and implement research-based communication strategies at market rate as part of every country's AIDS response...The aim is to set frameworks to guide the AIDS community when attempting to plan communication spending for countries with different levels of HIV/AIDS prevalence and in different contexts.
6. HIV/AIDS communicators must learn about and adapt to the radical nature of the changes in the digital communication environment. Engage wholeheartedly in these spaces and devote significant resources to developing and sharing good practice.
7. Invest aggressively in building capacity and shared learning about social networking in non-OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries where social media are taking off. Investigate and consider community ownership of social networking sites [SNS], or at least of its content.

Medium-Term:

1. There needs to be a focused strategy to gather evidence about best practice and centralise knowledge. Donors and the international AIDS community should establish a central repository or clearing house of good communication practice and lessons learned...
2. ...The AIDS response community must prioritise learning from a large body of experience to enable communicators and strategists to adapt in a more informed way. There needs to be more resourcing and support for methods to synthesize learning from experience, to develop compound learning about effectiveness and to distribute this widely.
3. AIDS communication stakeholders need to build their capacity to...quickly adapt to changing situations and ensure that what they are communicating is effective in addressing HIV/AIDS.
4. ...Greater transparency is needed in HIV/AIDS communication spending disclosure from donors...
5. We need to ensure that communication (not just AIDS communication) has wider relevance in tackling some of the underlying social issues, such as communicating about and with high-risk and often stigmatised groups...
6. Develop a social network group...for practitioners involved with aids 2031 and associated programs and commit resources to community management to help this grow as a knowledge and practice sharing hub.
7. Establish programs to test and innovate in SNS based outreach, bringing together people who work in social media with those experienced in working with young people in specific locations. The experience and good practice standards that youth workers bring to the table needs to inform and enable application and program development...

Long-Term:

1. AIDS communication in the future must focus clearly on communicating about intimacy, relationships, love and sexuality despite guaranteed push-back from some religious, community and educational organisations. Age-appropriate and accurate sex education for young people at all levels of a society - using all available communication channels - must be a part of this.
2. AIDS communication must be firmly rooted in local realities and context....Dialogue organised and owned by local communities is preferred.
3. There needs to be constant research into developments in the
   communication environment in particular those that relate to communities affected by AIDS or potentially at risk of contracting HIV. This is vital so that they are maximising the benefits of using new tools such as the Internet and mobile telephony, while maintaining a focus on using the most effective options such as newspapers and radio...
4. AIDS communicators need to create strategies for developing sustained relationships with the editors and journalists to understand what they need to provide sustained media attention about AIDS....World Aids Day is not enough to maintain media interest.
5. Short term recommendation seven [see above] will also require long-term investment in communication infrastructure including schools of communication, communication practitioner training and more skills-specific media development.
6. ...[W]e sincerely believe that social networking is both growing in importance and changing so rapidly that continued primary research is essential....[For example], we suggest:...Develop a light-weight monitoring and evaluation framework to calculate the ROI [return on investment] of SNS based interventions. Develop a risk-assessment framework for engagement as well...
7. Engage in a structured way with major players, particularly in the area of cross-media applications, including in mobile phone environments.
8. Social networks integrate broadcast and online media in multi-platform productions. Soap operas and community narratives is a format that has been used for development communication in Radio and TV. Extending this approach into SNS is a major opportunity...
9. Establish innovation funds to pilot new ideas for SNS based outreach and communication....Organisations and campaigns should engage with established social networks, and this needs to balance working to a standard structured, managed framework with relaxing control in terms of content and engagement activities..."

Readers who are interested in contributing their ideas about AIDS communication to the aids2031 effort can do so by visiting the website and/or contacting the email address listed below.