3.2 RE-ANALYSING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

3.2.1 What are the reasons for the success or failure of communication for development?

Coward says that lack of initial funding is the prime problem that needs to be dealt with. Once the initial project funding has been secured, the worker can move on to other issues. Thomas [interview: 2004] echoes that the lack of basic resources, namely funding and efficient man-power, are the decisive factors. Besides, the objectives are often not sorted out well enough and so are unsustainable. “Interventions are made with the best of intentions, but are seldom appropriate” [Ibid].

Ballyn feels that the realities in the world make it increasingly challenging for those in need to have their problems resolved. Professionals often use jargons such as ‘beneficiaries’ “to reassure beneficiaries of development aid that their needs are being respected”. This gives the target population a wrong impression which can affect communication between the message sender and the receiver. Politics such as these — from the grassroots to the national and international arena — can make or break a project and its objectives.

He cites an example recorded by the Crafts Revival Trust in India. There are about 30,000 colleges of design of variable quality in India and it is part of the curriculum for the students to go on a compulsory research visit to the crafts-making communities. The struggling-to-survive artisans, in turn, are promised that they would receive better facilities and training from such studies. But no such benefit seems to come their way. On the contrary, they get tired and impatient of the endless stream of students with their repetitive questions and the never-ending surveys. As such, “trust is being eroded faster than it can be restored”.

On the other hand, Dey says that there are three specific reasons why a project fails and along with it, any attempt at communication. Firstly, some developmental projects fail because they make the mistake of blindly adopting the strategies which were successful in some other country. Secondly, most projects have objectives which are difficult to sustain. Thirdly, consistent flow of funding is also a major problem. So, Dey suggests that the objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound). This will ensure the success of development communication to an extent that the planners will know what to talk about.

At the cost of sounding “slightly jaded”, Hewitt points out that the objectives are “not well defined in the first place, and are also insufficiently resourced”. A ‘development project’ by definition implies a time-bound, issue-based set of activities. As such, they do not have a life-span long enough to see any concrete and lasting outcomes. “The project winds up, the experts go home, and little or nothing sticks – change generally takes much longer than a year or two to be evident” [Hewitt].

But Aley [interview: 2004] puts it simply yet effectively when he says that a development communication strategy is successful if the level of communication depends on who you are communicating with. For example, community level workers will use simpler ways of getting their message across with the rural population of a developing country as compared to the population of a technologically-advanced country with a reasonably high level of education.

To sum up, communication for development can be improved by ensuring proper and consistent flow of funds, avoiding use of jargons and thereby keeping away from politics, formulating well-defined and achievable objectives, and adopting innovative and creative strategies and approaches to communicate the desired messages.