Communication for development: a much-ignored tool for public participation

How much do the beneficiaries of various developmental / welfare schemes know about these schemes? Even if they know about them, is the information relevant and actionable? 

My argument is that if we weave communication in developmental and welfare schemes, we'll get greater  public participation and better implementation of these schemes. My article written sometime back in a popular mag emphasises this.

COMMUNICATION FOR DEVELOPMENT –

A MUCH NEEDED CATALYST

FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF WELFARE SCHEMES

Manoj Pandey *

This year’s central budget exceeds Rs. 12.5 lakh crore. While a part of it will be spent on maintaining routine services and creating infrastructure,  a large portion would go towards creating and running welfare schemes and facilities for the people of the country.

Many experts have estimated that a substantial portion of the funds allocated for various schemes does not reach the targeted beneficiaries. The guess of Shri Rajiv Gandhi may still be true that only 15 paise reached the poor out of every rupee spent by the government for them.

One important reason for wastage and mis-utilisation of funds is the lack of public participation in the schemes.  When the beneficiaries are not active participants in a scheme, a self-propelling vicious cycle starts: people do not demand results, oversee implementation or give feedback. Due to this, the implementation is poor and vested parties create and exploit loopholes. When the scheme is not implemented properly, real beneficiaries either use the same loopholes to get in or lose interest further. This results in more deficiencies in execution of schemes.  

 All efforts to implement a scheme even with the most meticulous planning and proper use of funds are, thus, not likely to yield maximum results unless the targeted beneficiaries own it. 

If the beneficiaries of welfare schemes are only passive recipients of the  benefits, the people at large are likely to be even more indifferent to public service activities that do not benefit them directly. These activities, like voting in elections, participating in census and surveys, filing tax returns, supporting senior citizens, caring for monuments and public property, etc cannot succeed at all without willing public participation.

Many factors lead to such a lack of participation on the part of the beneficiary, such as - lack of proper information and hand-holding support, no mechanism to resolve queries and redress grievances, hesitation borne out of bad experiences of dealing with the bureaucracy, and no emotional attachment with the objectives of the scheme.  In Indian system, especially in rural areas, cultural resistance from within and from the society also discourages the poor from making use of facilities created for them and adopting better tools, technology, habits and attitudes.

Let the government talk to the people

At the heart of the problem of poor public participation is poor communication between the government and implementing agencies on one side and the public on the other. While more and more emphasis is being given to proper planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, communication has not been integrated in the planning process.

‘Communication’ is  usually thought of as a marginal activity that may, at best, lead to better information about the services and products created by a scheme. In this avatar, communication would mean issuing press releases,  advertisements and some sort of outdoor publicity, and does not deserve a role  much bigger than what it is given in the present planning process. What is needed is a proper appreciation of ‘communication’ in the context of public participation, and integrating it with the planning and implementation process as its key component.

Let us borrow the phrase ‘Communication for Development’ from international vocabulary to refer to communication in the aid of social welfare, public facilities and economic development. For the sake of brevity, let’s refer to it as C4D. This type of communication is what is required for better public participation rather than  publicity, public relations, media relations and propaganda that are often supposed to be the prime form of government communication.

How can C4D bring about better public participation?

The most obvious role of C4D is to inform the target audience about the facilities available to them. It has been seen that beneficiaries often do not have adequate information about a facility / scheme, and if the information is available, it is not actionable: beneficiaries do not know whom to approach and how to get the benefit. They have no means to analyse relevance of a scheme to their situation and to calculate the likely benefits. This results in the benefits flowing either to only a few beneficiaries who happen to have the knowledge and  wherewithal or to unauthorized people who fill the vacuum of demand.  So, it is natural that if people are well-informed, they will (i) demand facilities that the government has created for them but are not available to them, and (ii) make use of facilities already available.

More than just informing, C4D strives to involve communities. It encourages dialogue and consultation rather than bombarding one-way messages from top. C4D spurs action. In societies beset with corruption, illiteracy, feudalism and other dis-empowering forces, people need to be provoked to dream of a better life and to have the confidence that it is attainable. They need to be enthused to participate for their own and public good and not remain passive. C4D can shape a positive, confident, productivity-oriented behavior so that people’s energies are channelized into their own development and nation-building.

C4D is not the release of press handouts, broadcasting messages on radio and television, issuing advertisements and holding a fair to give out government information. These are some of the tools, but C4D does not take tools as an end.  C4D is also not shooting ideas and products to a passive population and waiting for people to lap them up; it is a constant process of engaging people’s minds. C4D does not communicate in vacuum; it seeks to build linkages between service delivery and communication teams.  C4D does not take cultural specificities as obstacles; it uses them for getting the desired behaviour change.

Proper C4D also means that the government and its implementing machinery get feedback. Direct feedback at grass-root levels and a consultative machinery to resolve issues can ensure that grievances are redressed effectively, satisfaction level improves, deficiencies in implementation are removed and leakages plugged to the extent possible.

C4D in international planning processes

People’s participation is recognized as an important aspect of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and National Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSPs). The UN and its associate bodies such as FAO and UNICEF promote communication as a potent tool for effective implementation of their developmental projects, albeit of much smaller levels than India’s national schemes.

Integrating C4D in the planning process

Once there is appreciation of the potential of C4D in getting public participation and in turn catalyzing implementation of various developmental and welfare schemes, it would entail creating institutions and processes for its professional implementation.

What comes first and foremost in a sound C4D strategy  is identification of the communication needs  -  on one hand, of the government and on the other, of the specific target beneficiaries and citizens in general.

For holistically assessing the communication needs of the government, all major stakeholders and communication experts would need to brainstorm and arrive at main areas needing focussed communication support.  Similarly, to find the communication needs of the people, initially the government’s communicators would need to draw from the meagre resources that are available internally and in consultation with public representatives, NGOs etc. Over time, the understanding of people’s communication needs must be supported with research and survey based inputs.

Planning for different schemes / activities may need top-down and bottom-up approaches depending upon various factors. Whatever the approach, local, regional and national-level communication strategies will need to be made depending upon the scope of a scheme and differences in target audiences, budget, state participation, etc in different parts of the country. An overall C4D strategy for a scheme would, thus, have a number of location / area specific projects. They would derive from local wisdom, local culture, local leadership, local communication tools and communicators in local languages.

The messages would also need to be local, though some information may be of universal nature.  The required behavior change would necessitate that messages are people-centric rather than scheme-centric, i.e. keeping in mind people’s needs, aspirations, cultural barriers, etc. In fact, many schemes and activities will need very focused attention to specific ethnic groups, occupational categories, areas, etc.

At pan-India level, C4D strategy would need convergence of communication efforts for all schemes. The synergy achieved would lead to better utilization of budget and effective communication. There could, thus, be a common C4D plan for the entire Five Year Plan, which would evolve from professionally crafted sectoral and ministerial plans.

For making C4D effective, a strong team of communication experts as well as teams for management, finance, monitoring and various support functions would be needed. For creating effective messages and communication strategies, inputs will also be required from experts from other fields such as behavioural economics, rural advertising, public health and agricultural extension. Communicators will need to be recruited / enlisted and organized into teams at local levels. All communication workers and managers would need to be adequately trained and sensitized for people-oriented communication.

As said before, C4D does not mean communication in isolation. An effective C4D strategy requires building linkages with the implementing agencies, different levels of governments, international agencies, NGOs, students, community leaders, self-help groups, extension services and the private sector.

Since a multi-sectoral C4D effort at all-India level has not been launched in India so far, the C4D agency will need strong R & D support in the form of theoretical inputs and sharing of experiences from communicators all around the world, research into concurrent communication activities and constant mid-course correction.

Budget for C4D should not be an issue. If only one percent of the budget for developmental activities and welfare schemes is kept for C4D, it would come to about Rs. 6000 crore per year. (Budget for publicity, PR, administrative and employment-related advertisements etc are excluded.) Judiciously used, this fund has the potential to usher in a communication revolution in aid of socio-economic development in India.

The economic and social benefits accruing out of C4D would justify expenditure on setting up  new infrastructure for this purpose. Going by India’s economic and social realities, the need for C4D would remain in India for many decades and, therefore, the C4D infrastructure and expertise created would go a long way in better implementation of government’s schemes and welfare activities. In some areas such as education, health, agriculture, child-care and social messaging, the impact of C4D may be phenomenal and the performance of schemes may improve significantly with C4D support. In future, new areas needing C4D support would keep arising due to new social,  economic, technological and strategic developments. In fact, C4D might become indispensable in handling the complexities arising out of new forms of inequalities and exclusion being implanted on the existing ones.

In the ‘15 paise out of a rupee reaching the beneficiaries’ situation, C4D might not make a direct and instant impact but it will catalyse the positive processes in the system for long-term gains. If the C4D strategy is properly planned and implemented, it can lead to a very salutary  shift in people’s response towards not only various schemes and facilities, but also development per se and the society.  The rewards of this initiative can be immense.

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