Communication strategies are undeniably important for development, but we must ask: are we truly communicating or merely talking to ourselves? Are we using media mindlessly? Little is known about the impact of development communication, yet more and more aid agencies are allocating sizeable sums for "project support communications", money which might otherwise be used for drugs, food supplements, extension workers, and so on.
Instead of studying the cost-effectiveness of image-building, the average project officer goes shopping and buys as much media as he can afford and the more sophisticated the medium, the more he wants it.
The real experts in communications, the advertising agencies, cannot afford such a careless approach to media planning. Their efforts must stimulate a rise in product awareness, or the client will abandon them. True, the effects of development campaigns cannot be measured as readily as the sale of soap or Coca Cola, but there must be measurement and testing at all stages, else we may shortchange the beneficiary by giving him expensive media when what he needs is Vitamin A.
Communication must lead to awareness and action. But the suggested action must be feasible; there is no use telling people not to defecate on the roads if they have no latrines. Some time ago, a leading UN agency in Kathmandu produced a poster which depicts a mother and child. The message is complex and authoritarian, exhorting the mother to stimulate her child. If she needs to be told, the chances are she does not know what that means and there is no attempt to explain. This is communications for its own sake.