4. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

This dissertation had set out to research the objectives, strategies and outcomes of communication for development. It started with tracing the roots of the concept and went on to define it, thereby deriving the objectives of development communication. Following this, it identified the three main strategies by which development communication can be achieved, coming to the conclusion that a combination of all the strategies is the best approach to adopt.

Thereafter, an analysis of the research questions and the empirical study on TCG, yielded the following outcomes:

Reasons for failure of communication for development constitute: communication gap between the North and the South, unrealistic and ill-defined objectives, blind adoption of communication strategies, inadequate and inconsistent funding.

To make it successful and effective, the communication planner requires: detailed feed-forward and feedback for proper CNA and also to involve them better in the project, prevent misuse of funds and power, identify the correct communication strategy so that it fits the purpose, and evaluate the strategy outcomes at regular intervals.

The influence of the cultural context is important, because the cultural exchange between the sender and the receiver of a message determines the outcome of a campaign to a big extent. Therefore, media campaign should be focussed on responding sensitively and sensibly to the cultural issues of the target community.

However, during the course of the research, it was found that there are certain gaps in the literature on this field. Although considerable work is being done on participatory communication, there is scope to do further research on:

• What are the pre-requisites of a community where participatory communication would be most effective?
• What qualities should a communication planner possess to involve in participatory communication?