Is Anyone Listening?

by Anne Winter

Table of Contents

• AUTHOR'S PREFACE
• COMMUNICATING DEVELOPMENT: PAST AND FUTURE
• PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
• PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION FOR THE PUBLIC
• IMPLICATIONS FOR AGENCY COMMUNICATIONS: NEW APPROACHES AND EMERGING TRENDS
• SOME CONCLUSIONS

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

This paper draws on a number of research projects that have been undertaken by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in the past three years with a view to informing future directions that the organization's communication strategy might take, and to promoting reflection and debate within the agency around issues related to the ethics and effectiveness of its own communications.

Most recently, a presentation was prepared for a session of the Development Information Workshop, held in Copenhagen on 7- 8 November 1994, which brings together the United Nations and bilateral aid agencies on common interests in the public information sector. The session resulted in a suggestion that research be undertaken into the current use of communication in promoting global development and humanitarian issues and interventions, and that at the same time an effort be made to identify some of the key players in the field and to assess the interest in, and potential for, a collaborative effort to improve the effectiveness and impact of agency communication in an international context. UNICEF agreed to take this suggestion forward. To this end, a small team of researchers working directly in UNICEF Geneva and through an independent company, Media Natura, in London was engaged. This paper therefore also draws on the findings of this project which documented some of the major trends and issues that communication staff in agencies and their external partners see to be emerging.