Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
and
Communication
Management
in Africa
Sunday Odedele was a speaker at the first World Public Relations Festival,Rome,2003 and the
Nigerian Institute of Public Relations annual conference,Abuja,2003.He is a co-author of the
'Evolution of Public Relations: Case Studies of Countries in Transition ' published by the
Institute for Public Relations, USA 2nd and 3rd edition(2004 & 2008). A paper presenter at the
EUPRERA2008 Congress, IULM University, Milan, Italy. He writes for Journal in the US and
UK.
2
PREFACE
From the series of research I conducted, it was discovered that most of the
Public Relations and Communication Management literature available are authored by
Americans and Europeans and they focused mostly on the practice in America and
Europe. This book is making me to join my professional colleagues in America and
Europe in the race of the development of Public Relations and Communication
Management literature.
In 2005, at the second World Public Relations Festival, Trieste, Prof. James Grunig (the
father of modern public relations) advised me to conduct research and write on PR
practice in Africa, this motivates me to produce this book.
The book is made up of twenty one chapters, mostly compiled case studies of previous
PR campaign taking from the five regions of the continent: North Africa, Southern
Africa, Central Africa, West Africa and East Africa, one chapter on the history of PR in
Africa, seventeen chapters of case studies and three chapters of overviews.
From my experience as a researcher and practitioner in Public Relations and
Communication Management, I feel that this book would be useful and be of value to
students, researchers, lecturers, practitioners and organizations that are interested in
knowing the public relations environment of African nations and also are with an
interest in the development of Public Relations and Communication Management
practice in Africa. The book can serve as a source of information to researchers on the
practice of Public Relations and Communication Management in Africa.
To my knowledge, no book on the practice of Public Relations and Communication
Management in Africa has yet appeared; this book is the first to be exclusively
dedicated to the practice of Public Relations and Communication Management in
African countries.
3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Were it not for Prof. Toni Muzi Falconi (the first chair of the Global Alliance for Public
Relations and Communication Management:G/A) and FERPI, Italy, who spotted me out
and invested much on my international professional practice exposure, this book would
not have been written. What of the amiable British professor, Anne Gregory of Leeds
Metropolitan University (the former president of CIPR and the Pro-Vice Chancellor of
the Leeds Business School) who encouraged and assisted me to become a writer for the
Journal of Communication Management, this exposure has helped me a lot in writing
this book, what of her support in going through the manuscripts and making corrections
and giving advice on better ways to write the book, this also helped me in writing the
book.
What of James Grunig (the father of modern PR), who advised me in 2005 at the second
World Public Relations Festival to focus and write on African PR practice. What of
John Paulszek the chair of G/A for his support. What of Dr. Judy Turk and Dr. Linda
Scanlan, USA, the editors of Evolution of Public Relations: Case Studies of Countries
in Transition, who permitted me to co-author the second edition, the experience I gained
from it assisted me in putting together this book.
What of Jean Valin (the former chair of G/A) and Fraser Likely, Canada, who through
their efforts made my article ‘philosophy of PR’ to be placed on the G/A’s website, this
experience also helped me.
What of PR reporter, USA, which published my article ‘Inalienable Lubricant in The
Strategic Wheel of Management’ on June15, 1998 being my first international
publication, this has helped me a lot to improve in writing. Though late, I am
acknowledging his contribution to my success in the practice because he introduced me
to PR reporter, late Prof. Bill Adam of Florida International University. Were it not for
him, I might not be able to be writing for international journals.
What of EUPRERA, FERPI, and IULM University, Milan, Italy, who invited me as a
speaker at the EUPRERA 2008, Congress, the preparation has helped me in putting
together this book.
Thanks to G/A, PRSA, IPRA, IABC, CIPR, APRA, PRISA, PRII, CPRS, PRSK, NIPR,
IPRG, IPR of USA, PRWeek and University of Lugano, who in one way or the other
have contributed to the development of my career
My appreciation goes to all the authors and organizations who have contributed to the
existence of this book. The publisher also can not be forgotten for making it published.
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CONTENTS
PART I Page 7
The History
PART II Page 28
CASE STUDIES
NON – GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs) Page 31
Chapter Two: GHANA: GRASS ROOTS SENSITIZATION AND CIVIC
EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY OF THE “WATER FOR ALL”
CAMPAIGN Page 33
Chapter Three: A PARTNERSHIP APPROACH TOADDRESSING VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN: CASE STUDY OF GHANA Page 38
HEALTH CAMPAIGN Page 46
Chapter Four: TRENDS IN TOTAL FERTILITY RATES AND CURRENT USE
OF FAMILY PLANNING: EGYPT GOLD STAR PROJECT Page 48
Chapter Five: PREVENTING, DETECTING AND TREATING MALARIA FOR
WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES: CASE STUDY OF CHEVRON NIGERIA
LIMITED Page 52
PUBLIC SECTOR Page 57
Chapter Six: PUBLIC AWARENESS ON WATER SCARCITY IN
EGYPT Page 59
Chapter Seven: THE STATUS OF E-GOVERNMENT IN
SOUTH AFRICA Page 66
Chapter Eight: THE STATUS OF CIVIC AND VOTER EDUCATION
IN ZAMBIA Page 80
MEDIA CAMPAIGN Page 84
Chapter Nine: CASE STUDY: MEDIA CAMPAIGN IN NIGERIA AND
CAMEROON TO KEEP POTENTIAL ILLEGAL MIGRANTS FROM TRYING
TO IMMIGRATE TO EUROPE Page 86
Chapter Ten: KENYAN STANDS UP AND SPEAKS OUT Page 92
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY (CSR) Page 96
Chapter Eleven: PARTNERSHIPS FOR MANAGING SOCIAL ISSUES IN THE
EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES Page 98
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME Page 106
Chapter Twelve: CASE STUDY ON COFFEE IN TANZANIA Page 108
COMMUNITY RELATIONS Page 115
Chapter Thirteen: CASE STUDY: MEETING EFA: EGYPT COMMUNITY
SCHOOLS Page 117
Chapter Fourteen: IMPROVING POLICE-COMMUNITY RELATIONS IN
NIGERIA: ISSUES AT STAKE Page 128
5
INTERNATIONAL PR Page 141
Chapter Fifteen: CREATING PRACTICAL AND SUSTAINABLE MEASURES
THAT WOULD HELP AFRICAN MEDIA IMPROVE THEIR COVERAGE OF
HIV/AIDS, TB AND MALARIA: CASE STUDIES OF BOTSWANA, KENYA
AND SENEGAL Page 143
Chapter Sixteen: FREE PRIMARY EDUCATION AND POVERTY
REDUCTION: THE CASE OF KENYA, LESOTHO, MALAWI
AND UGANDA Page 147
CRISIS MANAGEMENT Page 155
Chapter Seventeen: CRISIS CASE STUDY : THE PRESIDENT, HIS HEALTH
MINISTER, HER BOTTLE AND THE THEFT CONVICTION Page 157
Chapter Eighteen: CITY WATER CRISIS:
CASE STUDY TANZANIA Page 162
6
PART I
HISTORY OF AFRICAN PR
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HISTORY OF AFRICAN PR
African PR is evolving, a peep into the tunnel of the practice would show that there is
light at the end of the tunnel.
There is no book on African public relations yet, this is the first book to be exclusively
dedicated to the practice of public relations and communication management in African
countries. This book deals with how public relations and communication management is
being practised in Africa.
The history of the profession in the continent, case studies of African nations and
overviews of the principles and practice of the profession are considered in the book.
The purpose of the book is to show the past and the present PR concepts and practices
which will enable the practitioners to project PR development into the future in the
continent and enable the students to understand how pr is being practised in the
continent. It will also help foreign practitioners, researchers and organizations who are
interested in African PR to develop and implement relevant PR campaigns which are
environmental compliant and effective.
The book describes the context and practice and gives case studies describing the sorts
of campaigns that are typical of the continent. The case studies are on
Non- Governmental Organizations, health campaign, public sector, media campaign,
Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainable Development Programme, community
relations, international pr, and crisis management.
The overviews are on Non- Governmental Organizations, international pr and corporate
social responsibility.
History is the record of past events, usually with an interpretation of their cause and an
assessment of their importance. History is very important in sociological, economical,
educational, technological and political development. It is to people what the memory is
to an individual. The knowledge of the past is essential for the development of the
future. Therefore we need to know the past Public Relations practice in Africa to enable
us strategise for the present and future development of the profession in the continent.
8
OVERVIEW OF AFRICA
Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent after Asia . At
about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the
earth total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With about 922 million people
(as of 2005) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.2% of the world's population. The
continent is surrounded by the mediterranean sea to the north, and the red sea to the
north-east, the Indian ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic ocean to the west. There
are 46 countries including Madagascar and 53 including all the island groups.
Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only
continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Because
of the lack of natural regular precipitation and irrigation as well as glacier or mountain
acquifer systems, there is no natural moderating effect on the climate except near the
coasts.
Geography
Africa is the largest of the three great southward projections from the main mass of the
earth's exposed surface.It is separated from Europe by the mediterranean sea, it is joined
to Asia at its north-east extremity by the suez canal (transected by the suez canal),
163 km (101 miles) wide. Geopolitics ,Egypt , Sinai peninsula east of the suez canal is
often considered part of Africa, as well. From the most northerly point, Ras ben Sakka
in Tunisia (37°21' N), to the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas in South Africa
(34°51'15" S), is a distance of approximately 8,000 km (5,000 miles); from cap-vert,
17°33'22" W, the western-most point, to Ras Hafun in Somalia, 51°27'52" E, the most
easterly projection, is a distance of approximately 7,400 km (4,600 miles). The coastline
is 26,000 km (16,100 miles) long, and the absence of deep indentations of the shore is
illustrated by the fact that Europe, which covers only 10,400,000 km² (4,010,000 square
miles) – about a third of the surface of Africa – has a coastline of 32,000 km
(19,800 miles).
Africa's largest country is Sudan, and its smallest country is the Seychelles, an
archipelago off the east coast. The smallest nation on the continental mainland is The
Gambia.
Politics
The African Union (AU) is a federation consisting of all of Africa's states except
Morocco. The union was formed, with Addis Ababa as its headquarters,on June 26,
2001. In July 2004, the African Union's Pan-African Parliament (PAP) was relocated to
Midrand, in South Africa, but the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
remained in Addis Ababa. There is a policy in effect to decentralise the African
Federation's institutions so that they are shared by all the states.
The African Union, not to be confused with the AU Commission, is formed by an Act
of Union which aims to transform the African Economic Community, a federated
9
commonwealth, into a state, under established international conventions. The African
Union has a parliamentary government, known as the Assembly of the African Union,
consisting of legislative, judicial and executive organs, and led by the African Union
President and Head of State, who is also the President of the Pan African Parliament. A
person becomes AU President by being elected to the PAP, and subsequently gaining
majority support in the PAP.
Economy
Although it has abundant Natural resource, Africa remains the world's Poverty and most
human development continent, due largely to the effects of: tropical diseases, the
African slave trade, Corruption Perceptions, failed Central planning, the international
trade regime and geopolitics; as well as widespread human rigth violations, the negative
effects of history of colonialism,depotism,illiteracy, superstition, tribal savagery and
military conflict (ranging from civil war and guerilla warfare to genocide). According to
the UN's Human Development Report in 2003, the bottom 25 ranked nations (151st to
175th) were all African nations.
Some areas, notably Botswana and South Africa, have experienced economic success.
The latter has a wealth of natural resources, being the world's leading producer of both
gold and diamond, and having a well-established legal system. South Africa also has
access to financial capital, numerous markets, skilled labor, and first world
infrastructure in much of the country and has one of the major stock exchange of the
continent, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Over a quarter of Botswana's budget (also a major diamond producer) goes toward
improving the infrastructure of Gaborone, the nation's capital, largest city, and one of
the world's fastest growing cities. Other African countries are making comparable
progress, such as Ghana, Cameroon and Egypt.
On the other hand, 80% of Zimbabwe are unemployed. Two million of the country's
residents have fled to Botswana and South Africa. Inflation rates, which fluctuate
wildly, average out to more than 1000% a year, and the Zimbabwean dollar has
depreciated against the U.S. dollar from 38 to 1 in 1999 to more than 5,000 to 1. Hunger
and starvation are widespread, and consumer shortages abound. Since 1998,
Zimbabwe's per capita gross domestic product has slid from about $700 to less than
$200. Death rates have skyrocketed, and school attendance has plummeted. Once a
country with a strong economy for Sub- Saharan Africa standards, natural resources
and a tolerant society, Zimbabwe is now one of the poorest and most bitterly divided
countries in the continent, brought to ruin in less than two decades.
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Nigeria sits on one of the largest proven oil reserves in the world and has the highest
population among nations in Africa, with one of the fastest-growing economies in the
world.
From 1995 to 2005, economic growth picked up, averaging 5% in 2005. However, some
countries experienced much higher growth (10+%) in particular, Angola, Sudan and
Equatorial Guinea, all three of which have recently begun extracting their petroleum
reserves or have expanded their oil extraction capacity.
Culture
Much of the traditional African cultures have become impoverished as a result of years
of neglect and suppression by colonial and neo-colonial regimes. There is now a
resurgence in the attempts to rediscover and revalourise African traditional cultures,
under such movements as the African Renaissance led by Thabo Mbeki, Afrocentrism
led by an influential group of scholars including Molefi Asante, as well as the
increasing recognition of traditional spiritualism through decriminalization of vodou
and other forms of spirituality. In recent years African traditional culture has become
synonymous with rural poverty and subsistence farming.
Urban culture in Africa, now associated with Western values, is a great contrast from
traditional African urban culture which was once rich and enviable even by modern
Western standards. African cities such as loango, m’banza Congo, timbuktu, thebes,
Egypt, meroe, and others had served as the world's most affluent urban and industrial
centers, clean, well-laid out, and full of universities, libraries, and temples.
The main and most enduring cultural fault-line in Africa is the divide between
traditional pastoralism and agriculture. The divide is not, and never was based on
economic competition, but rather on the colonial racial policy that identified pastoralists
as constituting a different race from agriculturalists, and enforcing a form of apartheid
between the two cultures beginning in the 1880s and lasting until the 1960s. Although
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European colonial powers were largely industrial, many of the administrators and
philosophers, whose writings provided rationale for colonialism, applied quasi-scientific
eugenics policies and racist politics on Africans in experiments of misguided social
engineering.
The easiest way to divide Africans was along economic lines. Pastoralists,
agriculturalists, hunter-gatherers and Westernised Africans, all formed distinctly
identifiable cultures each of which came to play a different and disfiguring role in
Africa's modern politics. The Westernised Africans, specifically Senegal and Sudanese
Nubians from urban centers such as Dakar and Khartoum, were used to serve as the
bulk of colonial troops against the rural Africans. Pastoralists were radicalised by the
wholesale confiscation of grazing lands in favour of plantations. Agriculturalists came
into conflict for land and water with pastoralists after the traditional sharing
arrangements had been destroyed by colonial policies
Religion
Africans profess a wide variety of religious beliefs and it is difficult to compile accurate
statistics about religious demography in Africa as a whole. Estimations from World
Book Encyclopedia claim that there are 150 million African Muslims and 130 million
African Christians, while Encyclopedia Britannica estimates that approximately 46.5%
of all Africans are Christians and another 40.5% are Muslims with roughly 11.8% of
Africans following indigenous. A small number of Africans are hindu, bahai faith, or
have beliefs from the judaism. Examples of are the beta Israel, lemba peoples and the
abayudaya of Eastern Uganda.
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The formation of the old kingdom of Egypt in 3000 BC marked the earliest known
complex religious system on the continent, and one of the earliest in the world. Around
the ninth century, carthage in Tunisia was founded by the Phoenicians, and went on to
become a major cosmopolitan center where deity from neighboring Egypt, ancient
Rome and the etruscan civilization were worshipped. Today, many Jewish peoples also
live in North Africa, particularly in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
The founding of the orthodox church of Alexandria is traditionally dated to the mid-first
century, while the orthodox church of Ethiopia and the orthodox church of Eritrea
officially date from the fourth century. These are thus some of the first established
churches in the world. At first, Christian Orthodoxy made gains in modern-day Sudan
and other neighbouring regions. However, after the spread of Islam, growth was slow
and restricted to the highlands.
Many Sub-Saharan Africans were converted to western christianity during the colonial
period. In the last decades of the twentieth century, various sects of charistimatic
movements rapidly grew. A number of Roman Catholic African bishops were
mentioned as possible pope candidates in 2005, the most prominent of those being
Nigerian Francis Arinze
Islam entered Africa as Arab Muslims conquered North Africa between 640 and 710,
beginning with Egypt. They settled in Mogadishu, Melinde, Mombasa, Kilwa, and
Sofala, following the sea trade down the coast of East Africa, and diffusing through the
Sahara desert into the interior of Africa—following in particular the paths of Muslim
traders. Muslims were also among the Asian peoples who later settled in British-ruled
Africa. During colonial times, Christianity had success in converting those who
followed traditional religions but had very little success in converting Muslims, who
took advantage of the urbanization and increase in trade to settle in new areas and
spread their faith. As a result, Islam in sub-Saharan Africa probably doubled between
1869 and 1914.
Islam continued this tremendous growth into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Today, backed by gulf oil cash, Muslims have increased success in proselytizing, with a
growth rate, by some estimates, that is twice as fast as Christianity in Africa.
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Chapter One
Modern practice: It comprises the colonial and post-colonial practice of the profession,
• Press Agentry.
• Public Information.
• Two-way Asymmetrical.
• Two-way Symmetrical.
Press agentry describes the model where information moves one-way from the
organization to its publics. ……… it is synonymous with promotions and publicity.
Public relations people operating under this model are constantly looking for
opportunities to get their organization’s name favorably mentioned in the media.
Public information differs from press agentry because the intent is to inform rather
than to press for sales, but communication is still essentially one-way. Practitioners
operating under this model respond to queries from their various publics and become
proactive when they believe their publics need to know something important.
The two-way asymmetric model is best described as scientific persuasion. It employs
social science methods to increase the persuasiveness of its message. Public relations
practitioners use polls, interviews, and focus groups to measure public attitudes that
gain the support of key publics. Although feedback is built into process, the
organization is much interested in having the publics adjust to the organization rather
than the reverse.
14
The two-way symmetric model represents a public relations orientation in which
organizations and their publics adjust to each other. It focuses on mutual understanding
and two-way communication rather than one-way persuasion.(James Grunig, 1992)
The practice of public relations in Africa can be traced to around 1700 BC in the ancient
Egypt.
Egyptian Life
Daily life in ancient Egypt revolved around the Nile and the fertile land along its banks.
The yearly flooding of the Nile enriched the soil and brought good harvests and wealth
to the land.
The people of ancient Egypt built mud brick homes in villages and in the country. They
grew some of their own food and traded in the villages for the food and goods they
could not produce.
Most ancient Egyptians worked as field hands, farmers, craftsmen and scribes. A small
group of people were nobles. Together, these different groups of people made up the
population of ancient Egypt. 1 (The British Museum)
Pharaoh: Lord of the Two Lands
The most powerful person in ancient Egypt was the pharaoh. The pharaoh was the
political and religious leader of the Egyptian people, holding the titles: 'Lord of the Two
Lands' and 'High Priest of Every Temple'.
As 'Lord of the Two Lands' the pharaoh was the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt. He
owned all of the land, made laws, collected taxes, and defended Egypt against
foreigners.
As 'High Priest of Every Temple', the pharaoh represented the gods on Earth. He
performed rituals and built temples to honour the gods.
Many pharaohs went to war when their land was threatened or when they wanted to
control foreign lands. If the pharaoh won the battle, the conquered people had to
recognise the Egyptian pharaoh as their ruler and offer him the finest and most valuable
goods from their land. 2 (The British Museum)
Writing
The ancient Egyptians believed that it was important to record and communicate
information about religion and government. Thus, they invented written scripts that
could be used to record this information.
The most famous of all ancient Egyptian scripts is hieroglyphic. However, throughout
three thousand years of ancient Egyptian civilisation, at least three other scripts were
used for different purposes. Using these scripts, the scribes were able to preserve the
beliefs, history and ideas of ancient Egypt in temple and tomb walls and on the papyrus
scrolls. 3 (The British Museum)
The Scribes
Two main duties of the scribes:
• Writing hieroglyphs that appeared on the tomb and temples
• Keeping government records and writing letters for pharaoh.
These scribes were the governments and the religious organizations public relations
executives, because they kept record and communicate information about religion and
government to the masses.
15
Joseph in the Bible was the PR executive to the government of Egypt of his time. To
avert famine at that time, he used PR campaign to educate the Egyptians for gathering
food for seven years of plenty and to distribute food for the other seven years of famine.
He demonstrated PR prowess by analyzing trends, predicting their consequences,
counselling Pharaoh (the head of the government) and implementing planned program
of action which served the government’s and the public interest. This collaborated with
the IPRA’s definition of PR: PR practice is the art and social science of analyzing
trends, predicting their consequences, counselling organization leaders and
implementing planned program of action which will serve both the organization’s and
the public interest.
There were different means of communication in Africa as earlier mentioned before the
advent of the colonial masters; these include using the gong by the town crier to call the
attention of the target audience and announcing the message of the ruler, elder
consultative forum, age-group forum, moon-light story telling, folk tales telling, talking
drums, village square gathering, sporting activities, etc.
16
Halim Abou Seif, public relations manager for RadaResearch, says, "There is not
enough understanding among Egyptian companies about what public relations can do.
Whatever growth comes will come from international companies."
He notes that the Egyptian culture differs from the Western experience and that business
practices, financing, retail distribution and consumer tastes may appear unusual to a
foreign company doing business in Egypt for the first time.
He adds that Egyptian culture often requires an approach quite different from accepted
practice in North America and Europe.
RadaResearch, founded in 1982, is an Egyptian company, independently owned and
managed by Loula Zaklama, a dynamic executive who frequently travels through the
Western world to meet with clients, being invited into their corporate planning sessions.
For example, in July she was in Germany to meet with top executives of Upjohn, one of
the firm's clients.
She has been a public relations practitioner for a dozen years, teaches the subject at
American University in Cairo, and has taken numerous courses in the U.S. and U.K.
Zaklama is well known in the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo as a member
of several international public relations associations that work to codify and uphold
ethical standards.
Understanding PR is rare
She says she is disturbed by the status of public relations in Egypt, which she
characterizes as a profession like engineering or architecture. She estimates there are
about 5,000 people in the country who have the title of public relations practitioner, but
they don't understand the concept of the profession at all.
In Zaklama's view there are no more than 50 skilled professionals in the country. Some,
she says, are employed by industry and hotels.
But, overall, she looks askance at the role of public relations in hotels.
"The hotels tend to dump public relations into the sales department or guest relations.
They do a lot of other things and it's just a side job."
Her firm employs 25 Egyptians, with five working on public relations. It is affiliated
with the international communication firms of Gallup International, Hill & Knowlton
and Charles Barker of London -- and its major clients include Boeing, Pepsi Cola,
Procter and Gamble and Glaxo, a British pharmaceutical firm.
RadaResearch -- which has done no advertising work for six years -- offers a classic
example of what a public relations agency can do for a client wherever the client is
located. Its wide range of professional services to help clients meet their corporate
relations and communication needs include these standard practices:
* Media relations, which includes issuing the news releases, following up with the
media on news releases, regular personal contact with media representatives,
preparation of media kits for news conferences and special events.
* Special events planning and coordination for inaugurations, seminars, open houses,
visits, exhibitions and conferences.
* Clipping and monitoring of Egyptian and Middle East media on matters concerning
clients. Articles are clipped daily and translated into English, Arabic and French and
faxed to clients on a regular basis.
* Marketing support of public relations programs including visits to factories and
offices and distribution of promotional material.
Market research a necessity for some
17
A major part of the company's overall operations is market research services which
handles both qualitative and quantitative research from small focus groups to national
surveys. These services are for attitude studies, new product development, product
testing, social research studies and market forecasting.
It is one of only several companies specializing in market research in Egypt.
Seif says that the media relations aspect of public relations in Egypt is "very tough."
"There is a big confusion among the news media people about advertising and public
relations. When we call on the media, they often think it's for advertising. For the media
to run a story based on a press release it has to be a strong, fantastic event.
"It's hard to get the name of your client printed. Our clients understand this. It takes time
to build an awareness of a product. In time, maybe you can get the name of the client
into the story rather than just 'pharmaceutical firm."
Seif recalls a major PepsiCo convention at Mena House, one of the five-star Cairo
hotels, attended by more than 300 company executives. The chairman gave a speech on
economics; some of the media mentioned the name of the company, some described
him as head of a "soft drink company."
Among the special events RadaResearch has worked on was General Motors Egypt's
official factory opening and Northrop Corporation's demonstration of its F-20 Tiger
Shark fighter aircraft to the Egyptian Air Force.
Seif says the best chance for publicity is via special events because of the "very difficult
reception" of news sent to the media in Cairo.
However, he notes that magazines are not as difficult as television, radio and the major
newspapers (which have severe limitations of space). Photos sent to the major daily
print media are "out of the question" whereas magazines will use a quality shot,
especially the business weekly Tissadi.
Technology lags, pace is slower.
A major difference between doing media relations in the Western world and Egypt is
that very little communication is done here via fax or telephone.
Seif says: "You have to go to the media person each time, explain, and follow-up in
person. There's a problem because many are only in the office one hour a day and the
trick is to find out what that hour is."
Another aspect of RadaResearch's media relations is having clients -- such as Boeing
and Upjohn -- invite Egyptian news reporters to their headquarters in the U.S.
There, they have an opportunity to learn some key aspects of public relations. These, he
says, include:
• Translating. Most executives do not excel at public speaking or writing in non-
business words -- so the public relations function is to translate the executive's
knowledge into intelligible information, without jargon, to an audience.
• Acquainting the client with public perceptions of that client so that information
disseminated is consistent with the real world.
• Preparing technical articles for what is called the "vertical" media (a term not
known in the Middle East).
• And, responding to "crisis" situations. The concept has not arrived in the Middle
East, with one exception, that when a disaster strikes, the public relations
practitioner's job, working with legal counsel, is to assess the situation, assemble
the facts, and organize the client's response. The exception was several years ago
when a Kuwaiti airliner was hijacked, and the Kuwaitis adopted a public
relations plan.
18
Seif, who has been with RadaResearch for two years, after working in market research,
says his section works closely with the public relations departments of its clients. For
example, he spent 10 days in Seattle, Wash., on a trip to the Boeing Company.
RadaResearch is planning now for two events this fall. One is prominent U.S. heart
surgeon Adel Matar's return to Egypt to perform several sophisticated operations and
participate in medical conferences and, the arrival of the new Boeing 737-500 for the
national airline, Egypt Air.
In summing up, Seif says the view of public relations by RadaResearch is remarkably in
sync with prevailing practice in the U.S. But, it's a loner in the Middle East.
Paul Spiers is a media consultant and freelancer in Cairo.
4 Source: International Association of Business Communicators
The development of PR practice is more advanced in South Africa than other countries
in the region. Although the practice is developing in Zambia, there is no PR association
in the country. Swaziland and Zimbabwe have national PR associations, while Namibia
is a member of the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa, PR practice is also
developing in Lesotho, although there is no national PR association.
The era of modern PR in South Africa could be traced to the colonial era, this led to the
establishment of PRISA.
PRISA - the Institute for Public Relations & Communication Management was
founded in 1957 by a handful of public relations practitioners. Membership grew over
the years - today membership stands at 3 510 including students. “The institute
represents senior practitioners and consultants as well as student members. It is
dedicated to delivering dynamic, value-added services to members and to ensure
continued growth and professionalisation of the industry”. 7 Source: PRISA
Public relations is evolving in South Africa, according to Kate Bapela (PRISA former
president) the vision of PRISA is “Recognition of public relations professionals as role
players of significance in Southern Africa and beyond”. 5 (Bapela, 2003). This is not
just on the paper, it is being pursued logically for actualization.
According to Jane Weaver on his experience of PR practice in South Africa (which
portrays the level of the development of PR practice in the country):
Gone are the days of public relations being a stand alone tool as the method of
communicating an organization's message to its target audience.
In order to survive in the media noise of today, companies must consider implementing
an integrated communications strategy. Such a strategy needs to encompass all elements
of the traditional or classical marketing mix in addition to other, more innovative
tactics.
19
The evolution in the "classical" marketing world has led to a blurring of boundaries in
terms of what each service provider offers to its client base. However, it is this very
blurring of boundaries that has spearheaded the revolution in what is generally referred
to as the public relations space. Public relations has evolved to being a service involving
strategic thought and implementation across all elements of the communications mix.
An early definition, coined by Edward Bernay, held that: "Public relations was a
management function which tabulated public attitudes, defined the policies, procedures
and interest of an organisation, which was then followed by the execution of a
programme of action to earn public understanding and acceptance."
Evolving
Modern PR approaches are required to be far more integrated and dynamic. Not only
are they compelled to keep pace with an industry that is continually evolving with the
changing media landscape, but they also have to ensure that they are tuned into the
concomitant revolution in the marketing arena. Today, any self-respecting
communications consultancy that offers public relations as a tool, acknowledges that
public relations is - as Robert Heath says - a set of management, supervisory and
technical functions that foster an organisation's ability to strategically listen to,
appreciate and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with
the organisation are necessary to achieve its mission and values.
Essentially, an organization that invests in PR is investing in a management function
that focuses on two-way communication and fostering of mutually beneficial
relationships between that company and its target audiences.
Because the essence of public relations, or rather - integrated communications - is so
deeply embedded in relationships (those between an organisation - its publics and the
media), a further enhancement to the modern approach is a focus on relationship
development and management. Communications is fast becoming an applied social
science where psychology, as well as knowledge of disciplines related to understanding
human behaviour is considered an essential skill for successful practice of the craft.
Strategic communications - PR - is no longer about disseminating press releases. It's a
'brave new world' which embodies a well considered strategic communications process
(which, by its very nature, must be dynamic and evolutionary). The thinking behind this
process has to go way beyond the perceived logical benefits of a traditional PR
campaign to a point where every customer touch point is optimised.
(Jane Weaver is client service director at HMC Seswa Corporate Communications).
6 Source: www.E:\allAfrica_com South Africa PR is Only One Part of Integrated
Communications (Page 1 of 1).htm
According to Margaret Moscardi (the executive director of PRISA) at the annual review
2003/2004.PRISA’ success can be summarized thus:
• Establishment of board for public relations and communication in the Business
chamber
• Representation on the Business Chamber of the services SETA Exco.
• Leadership within G/A and FAPRA
• ISO certification to new standard
• Positioning within Africa through EAPRA and FAPRA
• Hosting of 2006 FAPRA conference
• Launch of Progressions-CPD for the profession
• Expansion of skills development
20
• Benchmarked levels of practice
• Registration system aligned to levels of practice
• Expanded code of ethics and professional standards aligned with global protocol
• Standards generation
• Leadership development
8 ( Moscardi 2004).
The development of PR is more noticeable in Nigeria and Ghana being former British
colonies, couple with growth of civilization, industrialization and political development
in the two countries, although still at low ebb. Both countries have national PR
associations and have both hosted FAPRA’s conference, there are PR firms in the two
countries. There is no PR association in the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast,
Togo and other West African countries.
The development of modern public relations in Nigeria started in 1948 when the then
colonial administration set up a public relations department with offices in Lagos,
Ibadan, Kaduna and Enugu. In charge of the department was a public relation expert,
Mr. Harold Cooper, who successfully modernized government information services,
and initiated the policy of interpreting government policies to the people. The
department was designed to monitor the reaction of the people to official policies and
activities; serve as liaison between the mass media and the government and carry out
general public relations functions for the government.
---------- the activities of Mr. Cooper and his team of expatriates and Nigerians were
initially concentrated on publicity work dealing with problems arising from the second
world war such as shortages of goods, deprivation of the necessities of life and
imposition of an austere regime by the colonial government. A special section of the
department was engaged in publicizing and popularizing the work of the marketing
board which at time needed the support of the producers at the grass roots level.
Similar publicity activities were simultaneously taking place in such large organizations
as the Nigerian Railway which for example used the services of --- Ernest Ikoli, a
veteran journalist on a trainer basis.
In addition to ensuring a regular flow of information covering the facets of government
activities to the people and interpreting the prevailing policies, Harold Cooper
established contacts with selected leaders of thought whose views and attitudes were
calculated to be helpful to the overall communication efforts. One interesting novelty
was to address letter of welcome to all Nigerian returning from abroad offering them
assistance towards the finding of jobs or resettlement in other ways. Harold Cooper was
succeeded by his deputy, Mr.John Stocker, who was assisted by such Nigerian stalwarts
as Ayo Ljadu, and Mobolaji Odunewu consolidated and expanded government
information and public relations activities in the country.
The growing wave of nationalism which followed the end of the war, the emergence of
political parties, the fight for independence, ------ campaign for Nigerianization of both
the public and private sectors suddenly awakened the foreign firms which dominated
the economy of the country to the need for some form of public relations activities
21
calculated to meet press criticisms and misconception of their roles on the part of the
people. ----- the only form of pr practised by the trading firms consisted mainly in
occasional Hand-outs of specimen items of trade to customers directly or through
agents.
The next significant changes in the development of pr in Nigeria occurred between the
years 1950 and 1960.This period witnessed --- political, social and economical changes
in the country including the attainment of independence with all its implication s, the
discovery of oil and the shift of emphasis from general trading to industrialization...
Led by -------- Shell and U.A.C, the companies were compelled to launch planned
programmes covering government press and community relations.
They also helped to popularize the creation of pr departments in their various
companies, and the development of Nigerians to man such positions.
Simultaneously with these developments, the public relations group in the press club of
Nigeria in 1959 decide to organise its own separate activities beginning with lunches,
film shows, lectures, and such activities as are calculated to be in consonance with the
fundamental principles of public relations practice in a developing society.
Following these rapid and extensive spread of public relations activities during the
decade--------------, the activity gained professional identity in 1962 with the
establishment of the Public Relations Association of Nigeria under the leadership of
late Dr.Sam Epelle, a one time director of the federal ministry of information.
Association helped to draw together an increasing number of practitioners who over the
years had become members, associates of the British institute of public relations.
------- from the mid sixties to the mid-eighties, the association subsequently adopted the
more professional name of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
The evolution PR in Nigeria in the private and public sectors has resulted to the
establishment of public relations firms, this led to the formation of the Nigerian Public
Relations Consultants Association in 1983.
22
Development in East Africa
The wave of growth in PR practice is moving across the continent. To strengthen PR
practice in the eastern region of Africa, the Eastern African Public Relations
Associations (EAPRA) was established on December 13, 2002, comprising the
Public Relations Society of Kenya (PRSK), Public Relations Associations of Uganda
(PRAU), Public Relations Associations Of Tanzania (PRAT) and Rwanda’s association.
According to Peter Mutie “ With the birth of EAPRA, Public Relations practice in the
region is expected to take deeper root and cross-border consultation expedited. EAPRA
will be seeking observer status in the East Africa Community and the preliminary
indication from the community show no objection to this status. The association will
also be seeking to play a leading role in building the image of the region and
supplementing the EAC’s endeavours in projecting the true face of the region’s
economic, socio-political and environmental status”. 11 (Mutie,2003).
MISSION
23
The Association set out to achieve the following aims & objectives:
- To be the clearing house for public relations information in Africa
Focus of FAPRA
• Collaborating with the higher educational institutions in providing
education/training
• Conducting research on African Union (AU) on PR affairs in the continent
• Establishing a Public Relations Education Training (PRETFUND) to promote
public relations education, training and research.
• Publishing of the professional journal, ‘Public Relations in Africa’
• Re-positioning Africa’s image and reputation, correcting the misperceptions and
misrepresentations.
• Exploiting the power of the mass media, establishing a continental broadcasting
network and encouraging the exchange of news stories between journalists and
PR practitioners.
• Transparency, trust, honesty and integrity should portray PR practice in the
continent.
• Forging partnership with NGO, private and public enterprises and governments
to galvanise change on the continent.
• Making the practitioners to intensify training, change orientation, update
knowledge of current issues, engage in peer review mechanisms, self-critique
and assess their contributions to Afro-optimism beyond rhetoric.
• Making the national PR associations to become more active and add impact on
the activities and image of FAPRA.
24
Nigeria
Nigeria Institute of Public Relations
28/30 Ajanaku Street, off Opebi Road,
Ikeja , Lagos.
Tel: (234) 1 497 5444
South Africa
Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa
ProComm House, 108 Hendrik Verwoerd Drive Ferndale, P.O.Box 2825, Pinegowrie,
2123, Randburg
Tel: (11) 326 1262, Fax: (11) 326 1259
E-mail: info@prisa.co.za
Swaziland
Swaziland Public Relations Association
Box 5374, Mbabane
Tel: (268) 40 47977, Fax: (268) 40 47977
Uganda
Swaziland Public Relations Association
P.O Box 3206, Kampala
Tel: (256) 77 405 759, Fax: (256) 41 233 818
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe Institute of Public Relations
P.O.Box 445, Harare
Tel: (263) 4 795 031, Fax: (263) 4 792 516
Cameroon
Cameroon Public Relations Asociation
BP 7768, Yaounde
Tel: (237) 23 39 41, Fax: (237) 23 39 31
Egypt
Arab Public Relations Society
15, Emad Eldin Street,
P.O.Box821, Cairo
Tel: (20) 2 900 257
Email: rrpr@intouch.com
APRA Membership Network
Ghana
Institute of Public Relations In Ghana
No. 196/9 Fifth Estate Road,
Kanda. P.O.Box 15118,
Accra, Ghana.
Tel: (233) 21 228 337, Fax: (233) 21 225 879
25
Kenya
Public Relations Society of Kenya
99, Mucai Drive, Off Ngong Road, C/o Corporate Reflection Ltd. P.O. BOX 47711-
00100 Nairobi.
Tel: (254) 2 720014, 2 720670
Fax: (254) 2 723816
Email: prsk@prsk.co.ke
Mauritius
Public Relations Association of Mauritius
C/o Imagine Communications Ltd,
43, Ternay Street, Port Louis,
Tel: (230) 210 1631 Fax: (230) 210 5035
Email: imacom@bow.intnet.mu
26
References
27
PART II
CASE STUDIES
28
CASE STUDIES
PR campaigns have been used in many African countries, with outstanding results.
According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO):
Certainly among the best documented campaign examples were those launched in
Tanzania during the 70's, namely, the 1973 health campaign, Man is Health, which ran
for a 12 week period, and the 1975 nutrition campaign, Food Is Life, which extended
over an 18 week period. Both campaigns, conducted on a national level, were built
around organized, village-based study groups. About 70 000 such groups, with 15
people in each, were targeted in the first campaign and 75 000 in the second. Basic
elements included a weekly half-hour radio broadcast, an accompanying text book with
a specific chapter reinforcing each radio lesson, and trained group leaders supplied with
study guide manuals. Radio was also used in a variety of ways to encourage enrolment.
Songs written especially for the campaigns were promoted (one written for the health
campaign quickly climbed to the top ten in the national hit parade), and catchy
commercials were aired frequently. Several speeches were carried by the Prime
Minister calling for full participation. Additional promotion materials included posters,
press releases, and T-shirts and dresses bearing the campaign logos.
The target for the first campaign was one million participants, and 1.5 million for the
second. Both campaigns exceeded these targets with some 2 million initially showing
up for the sessions. As a result, a number of problems arose which were not initially
foreseen. Chief among these were the supplies of both study texts and group leader
manuals; and because of the burgeoning numbers, some of the group leaders which had
to be quickly pressed into service were inadequately trained. Some critics have also
questioned the length of each campaign as being too short to expect many behavioural
changes, with the length of time between campaigns, i.e., two years, dissipating the
effects of one before the next began. And while positive results were recorded during
the first campaign, in terms of knowledge of causes and prevention of common diseases
and improvement in some health practices, no Before-after' impact evaluation studies
were conducted in the second. The more compelling legacies of these campaigns thus
29
rested in the guidelines they provided for orchestrating action on a national level to
improve the quality of rural life, and lessons for doing it better.
The case studies in this book, except those on crisis management are intended to shed
light on outstanding examples of effective use of PR strategies/tactics in achieving
organizational objectives and goals. This book examines the types of PR and
communication strategies/tactics used in some African countries for development and in
particular the role of PR as a catalyst to organizational success. On this ground, the
book will be useful to project planners, government-level decision makers, practitioners,
organizations, researchers, lecturers and students.
As you are studying these cases, you need to ask yourself the following questions at the
end of reading each case to show your understanding of the case:
30
NON – GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs)
31
NON – GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs)
32
Chapter Two
BACKGROUND
The government of Ghana does not appear to have any coherent water sector policy of
its own. Basically, it has relied on the World Bank for policy direction. Two important
World Bank-backed policies have been key to setting the stage for the privatization of
water in Ghana: decentralization and separation.
Fiscal & budgetary decentralization
In 1988, the Government of Ghana began to implement this policy in order to devolve
certain fiscal, administrative and development responsibilities from the central
government to the district assemblies. Most rural districts have since indicated severe
distress, largely due to difficulties in raising sufficient revenue to address poverty in
these areas. The expectation that these rural communities will provide substantial
back-up funds for decentralized water projects has proved unrealistic. While
decentralization can increase participation, accountability and transparency,
World Bank-prescribed decentralization, at least in the case of Ghana, is driven
primarily by fiscal concerns – that is, the desire to reduce central government
expenditures and increase the revenue generation responsibilities at the district level.
The fundamental concern of the World Bank is to reduce the government’s deficits and
improve the government’s ability to pay back its loans. It has little, if anything at all, to
do with improving grassroots democracy and reducing poverty.
The decentralization process, therefore, set the stage not only for devolving to the
districts the responsibility for the provision of drinking water and sanitation services, but
also shifted some of the responsibility for the government’s international debt burden
repayment to the impoverished rural and semi rural areas.
Separation of rural and urban water services
In the 1993/4 fiscal years, the Government began to implement a World Bank-backed
policy to segregate the potentially profitable urban water supply systems from the
unprofitable rural water systems. The same policy also shifted responsibility for
sanitation and wastewater management to the impoverished local governments.
The World Bank prescribed the policy of separation or segregation [unbundling] in
order to create a segment of the water sector that would be attractive to, and profitable
for, foreign private investors. This process is sometimes called “cherry picking” or
“cream skimming.” Prior to the segregation policy, there existed an integrated water
and sewerage system, which ensured that drinking water and sanitation were managed
together. It also facilitated cross subsidies. The relatively better resourced metropolitan
and urban communities together with industry paid a small levy to support government
delivery of water to the relatively poorer rural
communities. The segregation policy has destroyed all that. The result is that less
endowed local governments are unable to meet the water and sanitation needs of their
people.
It is worth noting that the INFORMATION MEMORANDUM prepared for donors by
STONE & WEBSTER stipulates that the prospective investors will not be responsible
for providing water to low-income communities in the urban areas. This remains the
responsibility of the Government of Ghana. The privatization scheme is tailored to meet
33
the objectives of the multi-national corporations such Suez Lyonnaise, Saur and
Biwater who want profits without risks. Flipping through the memorandum it becomes
obvious that the urban poor are not likely to benefit from the expansion of water supply
in the urban area under privatization. Also, the segregation of rural water from urban
water ensures that the majority of the people who live in the rural areas will not benefit
from the expected “efficiency miracles” envisaged under privatization. This has been
made even more unlikely as a result of the imposition by the IMF of an automatic water
rate adjustment mechanism on the State regulator, the Public Utilities Regulatory
Commission (PURC), that ensures that water rates adjust automatically as the local
currency appreciates or depreciates against the US dollar. For quite obvious reasons
the rates have only been adjusting upwards since the process began. Therefore, it is
unlikely that the profit motives of the private operators, literally protected by IMF/WB
conditionality and anchored by the principles of full cost recovery, will be consistent
with the policy objectives of the Government to supply the poor.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The reform in the water sector must be aimed at achieving full protection of the rights of
all to potable water. The ultimate objective should be to achieve universal access. This
means that water must be identified primarily as a public good and a human right and
not simply as a commodity to be traded in the open market. In determining the
mechanisms of access, reforms must also take into consideration the gender inequities
and the power relations at the family, community, and state levels.
OBJECTIVES:
METHOD
34
public/community hands; (3) promoting public awareness about the privatization
process; and (4) developing and promoting alternative
solutions to the problems militating against universal access to water including
problems of public management and efficiency.
The Coalition has since been functioning quite vigorously and has accomplished
incredible success in reaching communities throughout Ghana within a short time. The
coalition has not only succeeded in compelling the suspension of the signing of the
privatization deal but has also compelled the revision of the contract documents to
include public/community options, the Bank to improve its disclosure policy in Ghana
and the creation of a unit at the Ministry of works and housing to look at the critical
issue of access for the poor.
Community mobilization
Once the information was put in the public domain and citizens began to relate and to
react to the issues, the next step was mobilizing the communities to demand safe and
affordable water as a matter of right. This naturally placed them against privatization,
which implies full cost recovery and high water rates. The direct result of this strategy
has been the emergence of Local Action Committees [LACs] as centers of mobilization
at the grassroots level.
Linking with organized labour
What is new in Ghanaian civil society engagement culture is the link that emerged
between community activists operating within the local action committees and
organized labour. This created the critical mass needed to engage other stakeholders.
Another important link has been the link with the faith -based organizations particularly
the Christian Council of Ghana who stated their opposition water privatization and the
Catholic bishops conference who issued a cautions statement in support of water for
all. This created the needed climate for us to reaching out to many more people.
Media Campaign
Articles for newspapers, Radio shows, Television shows
Lobbying Government and World Bank
The main thrust of this strategy has been to argue for greater transparency and public
participation thus challenging the WB to own declaration to full information disclosure,
transparency and participation. We therefore insist that documents such as the
Transaction Advisor’s report are put in the public domain.
We try to explain to the WB officials why in a poor country it is inappropriate water
privatization as conditionality for granting loans.
35
We constantly maintain contacts with government through the Water Sector
Restructuring Secretariat of the Ministry of Works and Housing to ensure that there is
always a corridor left open for dialogue.
Promoting International Solidarity
Together with our partners, collaborators and sympathizers we design and distribute
Sign-on letters to key persons in government, the WB, IMF and the UN bodies
demanding an end to the involvement of multi-national corporations in Ghana water
and the freeing of our government from privatization conditionalities. To facilitate this
we built international networks of communication through e-mails and tele-conferencing
and attend international conferences and meetings.
Credible Research
• Social Impact Assessments of water privatization in other countries
• Research in countries where WB claims privatization has been a success
• Surveys identifying basic obstacles to access to safe, potable water
• Research documenting public health, gender and other impacts of decreased
access to safe water
• Researching alternative models to water privatization.
RESULT
The Coalition functions well and has been able to reach communities throughout
Ghana within a short time. The coalition succeeded in compelling the suspension of the
signing of the privatization deal and also compelled the revision of the contract
documents to include public/community options, the Bank to improve its disclosure
policy in Ghana and the creation of a unit at the Ministry of works and housing to look
at the critical issue of access for the poor.
LESSON LEARNED
Difficulties/Challenges
• Misrepresentation and mis-information of our intentions
• Difficulties of translating key policy documents into local languages for mass
dissemination
• Difficulty of obtaining information from both government and the bank
• The reluctance of some CSOs to state their views publicly thus leading to
confusion in the minds of their constituents.
• Funding constraints
Conclusions
• A vibrant civil society is essential for the survival of democracy and for the
protection and promotion of Rights. There is the need for constant networking
among civil society in pursuit of human rights and the general well being of the
citizenry.
• There should always be enough space to facilitate dialogue among
stakeholders
• Consensus building should always be pursued
• There is the need for global solidarity on the commonalities
• Always be transparent, accountable and honest with your constituency.
• Listen to the voices from the grassroots particularly when it comes to the
alternatives.
36
QUESTIONS
37
Chapter Three
BACKGROUND
Ghana is located on the west coast of Africa and shares boundaries with Burkina
Faso,Côte d ’Ivoire and Togo. Ghanaian social structure is based on kinship, which also
determines the traditional political and social organization of many groups, and the
relationships and institutions around which social life is built.
The kinship system also determines, to a large extent, property rights as well as the
inheritance and succession system and residence patterns of many Ghanaians,
particularly in rural areas, and is key to understanding the rules, duties and obligations
of individuals in a variety of social settings.
Available data on poverty indicate that 60 per cent of Ghanaians in four out of ten
regions live on less than $1 a day. In general, inhabitants of the northern savannah are
poorer than their counterparts in the south, and women are generally poorer than men.
This is due to a variety of factors, among which are the low literacy levels of women
and the limited range of employment opportunities available to them. According to the
Ghana Living Standards Survey of 2000,65 percent of Ghanaian men are literate,
compared to only 37 percent of Ghanaian women.
Women dominate the informal sector of the urban economy, but are underrepresented in
the formal sector, where incomes are generally higher and more secure.
Violence against Women in Ghana
In 1999,the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre, a non-
governmental organization (NGO),published findings of a nationwide study on violence
against women and children in Ghana.
The study revealed high levels of gender-based violence, including physical
psychological, economic and sexual violence. One in three women reported that they
have suffered physical abuse most often inflicted by an intimate partner.
Marriage provides an added level of social status for women in Ghana among almost all
ethnic, social and economic groups and classes. According to the Ghana
Demographic and Health Survey of 2003,about 23 per cent of marriages in Ghana are
polygynous. While younger and better educated women are less likely to be in
polygynous unions, t is also likely that because of economic hardships and greater
personal insecurity, many women may be involved in informal unions with married men
to gain access to resources.
The division of labour within the family unit in Ghana means that men usually provide
for the larger expenses and women take care of daily provisions for the family. They do
this with financial support from their husbands, known as ‘chop money ’,which may
range from a lump sum per month to a weekly or daily amount. The refusal of men to
provide an adequate household allowance to their partners can lead to altercations and
violence against women. This in fact, constitutes one of the major complaints presented
at family tribunals and other adjudicating bodies in communities around Ghana.
38
GHANA AND CEDAW
Since 1975, attention to women issues has been institutionalised in Ghana —initially
through the National Council on Women and Development, which played an advisory
and advocacy role on gender issues .In 2001,a Ministry of Women ’s and Children ’s
Affairs was established, headed by a female minister with full cabinet status.
The 1992 Constitution guarantees fundamental human rights. In theory ,men and
women in Ghana are equal before the law. However, Ghana ’s legal system is
pluralistic, and consists of laws and statutes inherited from British colonial rule,
legislation passed by successive Ghanaian parliaments, as well as the customary laws of
various Ghanaian communities. Exemptions and discrimination based on customary or
personal laws are held not to contravene the non-discriminatory clause in the
Constitution. The consequence of this provision is the continuation of a number of
gender disparities in women ’s access to a range of personal, public and productive
resources. This is reinforced by neo-traditional customary systems and practices,
religious doctrines, socialization and education processes that define women as having a
lesser status than that of men.
As a result of women ’s activism and some compliance with international conventions
that Ghana is party to, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),signed by Ghana in 1980,and the Beijing
Platform of Action, amendments were made to the Criminal Code in 1998
to criminalize harmful traditional practices. These include cruel and degrading
widowhood rites, female genital mutilation/cutting and ritual servitude or bondage,
known as the trokosi system .In addition, the Women and Juvenile Unit of the Ghana
Police Service was established to deal with abuses of women and children occurring in
the domestic arena. However, as pointed out in a ‘Women ’s Manifesto ’ developed by a
coalition of civil society organizations, here are several areas where there is strong need
to follow up closely the implementation of the country ’s commitments under
CEDAW,the Beijing Platform of Action and other international conventions.
Since 1985,UNFPA has been working with the Government on reproductive health,
gender equality and sustainable development. Over the last decade, UNFPA ’s work has
been guided by the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population
and Development (ICPD).A key ICPD achievement was creating a consensus on the
links among poverty, women ’s rights and reproductive health, and population and
sustainable development. The Programme of Action advocates the enjoyment of good
physical and mental health by men and women, which presupposes the absence of
gender-based Violence .It is premised on a holistic platform that makes gender equality
and equity central to human development generally and ,in particular ,to those aspects
related to sexuality and reproduction.
The first three UNFPA Country Programmes for Ghana focused on integrating
population issues into the development planning process, and the re-formulation and
implementation of the 1969 population policy. The ICPD document influenced the
content of the population policy, which was revised in 1994,and the manner in which it
was implemented. Thus, since the ICPD advocated that reproductive rights are part of
women ’s rights, spousal consent was no longer required for a woman in Ghana to avail
39
herself of family planning services In addition, after the Beijing conference, women ’s
rights were recognized as fundamental human rights and programmes were designed for
women ’s empowerment, mainly through micro-credit schemes.
Work on eliminating female genital mutilation/cutting in Ghana also became central,
since it was seen as an abuse of women ’s fundamental human rights. There was also
dialogue with the Ministry of Education to extend the focus of girls ’ education beyond
basic education and also to revise the curriculum in population
and family life education to include components on sexual and adolescent reproductive
health.
The Fourth Country Programme (2001-2005)has two components: population and
development, and reproductive health. In addition, gender concerns, which are seen as
cross-cutting, were integrated as far as possible into each of these components. Funding
was provided to a variety of organizations working on the reduction of gender-based
violence in the country.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
OBJECTIVES:
METHOD
PARTNERS
In the area of gender-based violence UNFPA has worked with the following agencies:
the National Population Council; the UN System Gender Programme; African Youth
Alliance/Federation of Women Lawyers(AYA/FIDA);Ghana Association for the
Welfare of Women ;International Needs-Ghana; Rural Help Integrated; and the Women
and Juvenile Unit of the Police Service.
National Population Council
The National Population Council (NPC)works with UNFPA to decide on the strategies
to be adopted to achieve the specific goals of the National Population Policy. UNFPA
provides financial support to ensure that the strategies are implemented. In this manner,
UNFPA and the Council have collaborated on a number
of gender-based violence projects. In 2001,the NPC, in collaboration with UNFPA and
with funding from DANIDA, conducted an in-depth study of the practice of ritual
40
slavery. The results of this study led to UNFPA support of International Needs-Ghana,
whose work is described in Part I of this chapter. UNFPA has also provided funding
through the NPC to build the capacity of staff at the Women and Juvenile Unit of the
Ghana Police Service.
Women and Juvenile Unit of the Police Service
A major problem confronting this unit has been the lack of police personnel
knowledgeable about gender issues and sensitive to issues related to gender-based
violence. Funding was therefore provided by UNFPA for training on these issues, along
with human rights, drawing on resource persons from NGOs working in
these areas. Beyond the training, UNFPA provided the unit with about $3,000 on a
quarterly basis to run an awareness campaign in markets, lorry parks, hospitals, schools
and churches in ten regions. The Unit ’s success is due in no small measure to its
collaboration with civil society organizations and the networks they
have jointly created, which include professionals in various fields, such as medical
officers, psychologists and counsellors.
41
UNFPA has worked with implementing partners that offer both kinds of services.
Two of the activities undertaken by implementing partners were explicitly included in
the Fourth UNFPA Country Programme for Ghana.These were projects undertaken by
the African Youth Alliance/Federation of Women Lawyers and Rural Help Integrated.
The AYA/FIDA project sought to broaden access to legal aid, which was previously
confined to individuals residing in and around Accra and Kumasi, where the two FIDA
offices are located. The project provided paralegal training to 800 individuals selected
from 100 communities in 20 districts across the country.
In each community ,the individuals selected included two traditional authorities (a chief
and queen mother), two religious leaders (one Christian and one Muslim), an
assemblyman/woman, a teacher, a health service professional, a youth activist and one
young person. Paralegal training covered the following areas: knowledge of adolescent
sexual and reproductive health issues; skills in communication, counselling, mediation;
human rights conventions at the global level and legalconventions at the national and
regional level.UNFPA also provided funding to Rural Help Integrated,an NGO located
in the Upper East region that conducted IEC campaigns around reproductive health. As
part of its community sensitization programmes, the NGO leads discussions on the
harmful effects of female genital mutilation/cutting.
Both of these projects had UNFPA personnel working closely with them. UNFPA ’s
work with other organizations, such as the Ghana Association for the Welfare of
Women, which conducts IEC campaigns, and International Needs-Ghana, which is a
direct service provider, was covered through UNFPA ’s contribution to the UN system
’s Gender Programme. These organizations did not have a close working relationship
with UNFPA. Moreover, these two organizations focused on the more flagrant forms of
gender-based violence (that is, female genital mutilation/cutting and ritual slavery).
ENSURING CULTURAL SENSITIVITY
To change attitudes towards gender-based violence in Ghana, organizations take the
local context into consideration. Local languages are used to ensure that organizations
are not seen as elitist and that the message is understood by both those literate in
English and otherwise. Organizations gain entry into the communities in which they
work by seeking the permission of the chiefs. In addition ,durbars are held with the
consent of community leaders such as chiefs and queen mothers, who are seen as the
custodians of culture. This serves to legitimize the organizations ’ messages.. Finally, as
far as possible, perpetrators of gender-based violence who have come to acknowledge
the inhumanity of their actions are used as spokespersons in these campaigns. This
serves to make the message more credible because the spokespersons are recognized
and accepted members of the community. Organizations use different mechanisms to
get communities to condemn all forms of gender-based violenceand to commit to
working to eliminate it. This process is outlined in the analysis of the work of the Ghana
Association for the Welfare of Women below.
Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting
The Ghana Association for the Welfare of Women is working towards the elimination
of female genital mutilation/cutting. With support from UNFPA, the association
conducted an educational campaign in the Upper West region that sought to sensitize
the community to the harmful effects of the practice and the law that prohibits it. The
Upper West region was chosen because of the prevalent nature of the practice in most
parts of the region. The campaign was carried out in two phases. The first phase
consisted of training programmes for targeted groups of people:178 health personnel,95
42
traditional birth attendants,35 school health teachers, and a one- day seminar each for
the following groups: police and other security personnel, media representatives,
religious leaders ,youth leaders and women ’s groups .Behaviour change materials,
Including posters, fliers and question-and-answer booklets were provided to the trainees
for distribution in their communities.
Training took the form of lectures, discussions, videos, group work and demonstrations
using a model. The training was conducted in collaboration with various state and non-
state agencies, including the Ghana Health Service ,the Ghana Education Service ,the
Ghana National Commission on Children, he National Council on Women and
Development and the Regional House of Chiefs. The second phase was targeted at the
community at large. It took the form of radio programmes and jingles in the local
languages, which were aired for a six-month period (December 2003 –May 2004)and
community durbars that were held in all five districts in the Upper West region: Jirapa,
Lawra, Nadowli, Tumu and Wa.
These durbars were held under the auspices of the chiefs of the various communities.
Support from these
custodians of culture was crucial since they served as a legitimizing force for the IEC
campaign message.
The two phases of this educational campaign were extremely useful because they raised
awareness of the issue. In addition, they convinced various members of the community
to acknowledge that since female genital mutilation/cutting was a harmful practice, they
would resolve to help eliminate it.
A nurse who was participating at the Wa workshop and worked at the Loggu Health
Centre announced that a village health volunteer had informed her that genital cutting
had been performed on three children in Billiuu. Officials from the Ghana Association
for the Welfare of Women, together with four police officers, took the issue up, traced
the children to their home and eventually located the woman who performed the
circumcision.
The woman was detained and put before the court, where she was found guilty upon her
own plea, and sentenced to five years ’ imprisonment.. The case was discussed
extensively in the electronic and print media, which served to further increase
awareness about the law on genital cutting. The case also highlighted the limits to the
law, since it only allows for the prosecution of the cutter, but not the parents who
request the circumcision and/or the community members who witnessed it —a point
that was raised by various callers to the radio stations. This suggests that some members
of the community are willing to see a much more concerted attempt on the part of the
state to stamp out the practice.
RESULTS
Cultural
Despite cultural norms, people are beginning to recognize that violence against women
is unacceptable.
This has come about largely through IEC campaigns. Even some perpetrators, such as
the priests who enslave young girls in their shrines, have come to acknowledge that
such a practice has no place in Ghanaian society.
43
Legal
There is now general recognition that ritual slavery and female genital
mutilation/cutting are violations of women ’s rights and a form of violence against
them. The state has gone so far as to criminalize these acts.
Individuals also acknowledge that the formal legal system is best suited to address
certain acts of violence against women, such as physical violence that results in injury.
The paralegal training project undertaken by AYA/FIDA has broadened the access of
people living in rural areas to legal redress. The fact that paralegals are people of some
standing in the community who have an understanding of both the human rights
dimensions and specific forms of gender-based violence makes it easier for individuals
to trust them and to come to them with their legal needs.
Some organizations that provide legal aid have helped to avert gender-based violence
.For example, between 2003 and 2005,the 800 paralegals trained under the AYA/FIDA
project handled a total of more than 2,500 cases, of which more than a third involved
child maintenance/neglect —an area of family controversy that often leads to physical
or psychological abuse of the wife .The work of these paralegals has helped stem the
tide of domestic violence, although more remains to be done.
Social
Many more people are now aware of the opportunities for redress that are available to
women survivors of violence beyond traditional forums (such as family tribunals and
other adjudicating bodies or resorting to pastors and other religious leaders).The Police
Service ’s Women and Juvenile Unit, for example, known as WAJU, has become a
household word, and its existence provides victims of violence with a legal option for
addressing their grievances. The provision of training for community leaders who
traditionally settle cases has raised awareness about the ways in which customary laws
may infringe on the rights of girls and women. In some cases , the victim might be
appeased with a token gift of restitution and asked to forget about the whole incident .In
other cases, where more severe sanctions are imposed, the fines paid by the perpetrators
are offered to the parents of the victim, especially if the victim is a child. As a result of
training, it is claimed that traditional rulers in some communities now acknowledge
their limitations in settling gender-based violence cases and refer them to the
appropriate agencies for settlement instead .In the Effiduase Sekyere district of the
Ashanti region, for example, we were informed that a chief, after undergoing paralegal
training, referred a defilement case to the courts. Eventually it led to the prosecution and
imprisonment of the teacher involved.
To some extent ,the IEC campaigns conducted by both the Ghana Association for the
Welfare of Women and International Needs-Ghana have been successful. The
IEC campaign against female genital mutilation/cutting ,conducted with funds from
UNFPA, has led to awareness that the practice is a violation of the law that can result in
the arrest and imprisonment of those who perform circumcision. International Needs-
Ghana has also conducted awareness campaigns in communities in five districts (Ketu,
Akatsi, South Tongu, North Tongu and Dangme East)that practise the
trokosi system.In addition, Instructors at the vocational centre run by the organization
have been provided with information on violence against women so they can better
understand and support the population with whom they work.
44
LESSONS LEARNED
National and district authorities must understand and accept UNFPA-supported
programmes if they are to be effective. This will avoid the frustration and waste of
resources that typically accompany programmes developed without liaising with
structures at the national or district level ,and ensure that coordinating and
implementing agencies are able to do their work properly. Both traditional and modern
authority figures in Ghana are yet to publicly commit to the creation of a country free
from gender-based violence. The Domestic Violence Bill has been subjected to one of
the most intensive consultation processes involving legislation ever witnessed in Ghana
.After two years of consultation ,it still has not been passed into law .A similar lack of
commitment prevails at the level of traditional authority. For four years now, the
National Population Council has been trying without success to have a seminar on
domestic violence with the National House of Chiefs.
PRACTICES THAT WORK
Using audiovisual aids to combat the more flagrant forms of gender-based
violence,such as female genital mutilation/cutting.
Such aids are an especially effective communications tool, and make the harmful nature
of the act apparent without verbal description. Personnel from the Ghana Association
for the Welfare of Women have noted that it is not uncommon for men to walk out of
sessions where a film on genital cutting was being shown because they found it so
painful to watch. Encouraging networking among civil society organizations working
on gender-based violence.
This allows organizations to harness the strengths of individual partners and save
money by not duplicating the efforts of other organizations. Already there is
considerable sharing, on an informal basis, of information and resources (counsellors,
health personnel)among the Ark Foundation ,Women ’s Initiative for Self-
Empowerment and the Women and Juvenile Unit of the Police Service.
Source: UNFPA
QUESTIONS
45
HEALTH CAMPAIGN
46
HEALTH CAMPAIGN
Health is wealth, every human being needs good health to survive and enjoy life while
alive. The PR’s role of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) in health
delivery cannot be undermined, if any society wants to enjoy good health.
The two case studies are examples of the important role PR plays in health programmes.
47
Chapter Four
BACKGROUND
The Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) and Ministry of Information
(MOI) are showing the world how to put quality of care at the top of the national health
care agenda.
The Gold Star Quality Program is the largest public sector family planning (FP) quality
improvement program in the world.
It aims to upgrade the quality of Egypt’s family planning services while creating
among the public and service providers an expectation that services will meet the
new standard of higher quality.
It stimulates the supply of quality services through better training and supervision of
health care providers and it stimulates demand by promoting these higher quality
services to the public.
This USAID-supported Quality Improvement Program (QIP) helped increase the public
sector’s role in providing family planning services from 30% in 1992 to 40% in 1997.
Between 1995 and 1997 the country’s overall contraceptive prevalence rate increased
from 47.9% to 54.5%.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The public sector’s role in providing family planning services is a little below average.
It needed to be improved.
OBJECTIVES:
METHOD
48
(3) Associating these high-quality sites and services with an easily recognized symbol.
Linking two important ministries, the innovative Gold Star Program partnership
combines the extensive FP service delivery capacity of the MOHP with the strong
communication skills of the MOI’s State Information Service (SIS).
The MOHP offers a national network of over 3800 outpatient service units, ranging
from one-room rural units to multiple-room complexes in large urban hospitals.
The MOHP system provides service access to the least well served, the poorest of the
poor. Providers include nurses as well as physicians who may range from general
practitioners to gynecology specialists.
The MOI’s SIS is recognized as a leader in family planning Information, Education, and
Communication (IEC).
It conducts campaigns using an effective mix of communications, ranging from
counseling support materials at the clinic level, to spot advertising and entertainment
formats in the mass media, to community outreach programs conducted through its
national network of 62 local information centers.
49
RESULT
Impact
The success in the MOHP quality initiative to date can be measured in at least six
different ways:
• by the number of certified Gold Star clinics —1,450 by early 1998 .
• by the increase in the proportion of users of MOHP FP services from 30% of all
FP users in 1992 up to 40% in 1997;
• by contributing to the increase in contraceptive prevalence from 47.9% to
54.5%, over a two year period, for the first time exceeding half of the eligible
population;
• by the high levels of client satisfaction, especially with regard to waiting time,
staff courtesy, and the amount of FP information provided (El Zanaty
Associates, in press) ;
* by the high levels of exposure to the campaign after eight months, as reported
by87% of women ages 15-49 and by recognition of the Gold Star logo by 45%
(Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics—CAPMAS,
Egypt,1998);
* by the high levels of understanding among women (70%) and men (90%) that
the Gold Star represents high-quality services and well-trained providers.
In addition to these quantitative measures, the success of the Gold Star approach
is anecdotally confirmed at the political and community levels.
State governors increasingly want to be involved as keynote speakers at the high profile
Gold Star certifications and ceremonies. They too want to participate in the media
coverage, movie star appearances, and performing arts celebrations that have made
Gold Star clinics a source of community pride. And, in the few cases where clinics have
lost their Gold Star status, village elders reportedly demanded an explanation from local
health officials and clinic personnel for this decertification and insisted that their clinics
be brought back to the high-quality levels of a Gold Star clinic.
From every point of view—clients, communities, health care providers, and
policy-makers—the MOHP Gold Star program is a win-win story for quality of care.
LESSON LEARNED
A well planned PR campaign with a set of workable goals and objectives based on
thorough research of the audience and the stakeholders, method and media of reaching
them and effective qualitative and quantitative evaluative method will produce a good
result as this Gold Star Project does.
The Ministry of Information’s(MOI) State Information Service(SIS) conducts
campaigns using different communication mix ranging from counselling materials at the
clinic level, to spot advertising and entertainment formats in the mass media, to
community outreach programs conducted through its national network of 62 local
information centres.
50
For any PR campaign to succeed, it is essential for the practitioner to identify relevant
effective communication mix that will breed the achievement of the set goals and
objectives of the campaign.
Clinics are supervised and rated each quarter according to a comprehensive checklist of
101 quality indicators. A clinic earns a Gold Star by attaining a 100% quantity standards
certification score for two consecutive quarters and retains its Gold Star by maintaining
that score at successive quarterly evaluations. An MOHP clinic that earns and displays a
Gold Star is considered among the best of the best.
The success in MOHP quality initiative can be measured in at least six different ways.
In addition to these quantitative measures, the success of the Gold Star approach is
anecdotally confirmed at the political and community levels.
The evaluative methods used are result oriented, therefore practitioner should set
effective evaluative method that will help in determining the success of a campaign.
.
SOURCE: COMMUNICATION Impact! ( Johns Hopkins University Center for
Communication Programs)
Appendix I
QUESTIONS
1. What are the reasons for the success of the Egypt’s Gold Star Project?.
2. What are the communication mix used by MOI’s State Information
Service(SIS) in the campaign ?.
3. What are the evaluative methods used?.
4. How will you rate the communication mix and the evaluative methods
used by MOI’s State Information Service?.
51
Chapter Five
52
PROBLEM STATEMENT
OBJECTIVE:
To reduce the impact of malaria on employees, their families and the communities in
which they live.
METHOD
53
distributed, which corresponds to one ITN for every six employees. This
estimate does not include ITN’s purchased by employees prior to this agreement
and/or through other sources.
• If CNL observes a sudden increase in malaria cases in a particular
neighbourhood, the company dispatches a health practitioner to suggest and
implement additional preventative measures. These measures often include
domicile spraying, elimination of potential mosquito breeding spots and
preventative behavioural counselling.
54
Tested) Tested) Tested)
RESULT
CNL treated 3,436 patients for malaria in 2002, which is up from 2,115 in1999.
Approximately 20% of the diagnosed malaria cases required a hospital stay. During the
same time period, CNL experienced no malaria-related mortalities. CNL believes that
the sharp increase in diagnosed and treated malaria cases is driven by a combination of
factors: (1) improved definitive diagnosis availability: longer laboratory operating hours
and the option to use a ‘rapid test’; (2) increased employee awareness; (3) increased
physician awareness.
In the future, CNL plans to extend its activities into the community and integrate its
programme more closely with Texaco Nigeria. CNL is developing a pilot project to
partner with school teachers in the Lekki area, Lagos to raise malaria awareness. In
collaboration with Roll Back Malaria, CNL recently developed project proposals
focusing on community prevention in the Niger Delta area.
LESSON LEARNED
Public relations is a catalyst, when properly used by any organization in providing
solution to any organizational problem, there will be solution. Although medical
programmes are planned for the employees and the physicians, there would not have
been the sharp increase in diagnosed and treated malaria cases.
55
QUESTIONS
56
PUBLIC SECTOR
Private sector intervention case example
57
PUBLIC SECTOR
The three case studies are examples of the sensitive role of PR in governance.
58
Chapter Six
BACKGROUND
From 1995 to 1998, GreenCOM assisted USAID and Egypt’s Ministry of Public Works
and Water Resources (MPWWR) in initiating a participatory communication program
to educate different segments of the public about water conservation and water pollution
prevention. The MPWWR is responsible for managing the waters of the Nile, including
irrigation canals, drains, and groundwater. Its mandate is of the utmost importance, as
water sustains the social and economic well being of Egypt. In the mid-1990s, however,
the country’s limited water supply was under great strain from population growth,
increasing use of intensive agricultural practices, and industrial development
Although the MPWWR traditionally focused on the engineering issues related to water
delivery, the late minister Dr. Mohammed Abdel Hady Rady recognized that
engineering expertise had to be matched by careful consideration of people’s needs and
behaviors. He requested USAID’s help to build his ministry’s ability to involve water
users in formulating and implementing new policies promoting efficient delivery, use,
conservation, and protection of water resources.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
In the mid-1990s, Egypt’s limited supply was under great strain from population
growth, increasing use of intensive agricultural practices and industrial development.
Although the Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources traditionally focused on
the engineering issues related to water delivery, the minister of Public Works and Water
resources recognised that engineering expertise had to be matched by careful
consideration of people’s needs and behaviours.
OBJECTIVES :
59
METHOD
GreenCOM’s first step was to develop a water communication strategy for the
MPWWR. Included in this strategy was a recommendation to create a special
department within the ministry that would be dedicated solely to communication. One
month Establishment of the Water Communication Unit after GreenCOM’s strategy
was presented to the minister and his senior staff, a ministerial decree was issued to
launch the MPWWR’s new Water Communication Unit (WCU). The decree
encouraged all departments of the ministry to cooperate with the WCU.
.
One of GreenCOM’s primary objectives was to build the WCU’s capacity to carry out
its critical mission within the ministry. A two-week training course was designed for
unit staff and introduced them to development communication in theory and practice.
Specific topics included:
* Development communication for behavior change
* Tasks of a development communicator
* Assessment of MPWWR communication needs
* Planning and implementing communication campaigns
* Project and personnel management
* Producing communication materials
After the WCU was established, its staff members collaborated with GreenCOM on a
pilot research activity in the village of Manshat Essam in the governorate of Menoufia.
Research was focused on mesqa (irrigation canal) clean up and consisted of focus group
discussions and in-depth interviews to determine the issues facing village farmers.
Following this initial practicum, GreenCOM and the WCU expanded their research to
three other governorates—Aswan, Fayoum, and Damietta— before developing the
WCU’s first national public awareness campaign.
Research indicated that many people did not realize the gravity of Egypt’s water
shortage, nor did they trust the MPWWR because they perceived past experiences with
the ministry in a negative light. Despite their lack of awareness about water quantity,
they were very anxious about quality,
voicing a high level of concern about pollution in the mesqas and other sources.
Research indicated that many people did not realize the gravity of Egypt’swater
shortage.
After GreenCOM helped the WCU staff conduct formative research and learn basic
development communication skills, they were ready to implement their first national
public awareness campaign on water scarcity. This campaign concentrated on four
themes:
* Egypt’s water comes from other countries and a treaty limits the amount Egypt can
use.
60
* As the population increases, the amount of water available per person will decline.
* Farmers use the most water and can conserve the most.
* MPWWR field staff are in frequent contact with farmers and play an important role in
shaping farmers’ water conservation behaviors.
Target Audience
Farmers were the main target audience of this campaign, but GreenCOM and the WCU
also targeted MPWWR field staff and the mass media.
Campaign tools and products included:
* Media Exposure
The WCU arranged 19 radio or television appearances for senior MPWWR staff, who
were interviewed about the campaign. As relationships were built between the WCU
and major media outlets, the two groups began to work together, identifying key
MPWWR officials to be interviewed, developing interview questions, and preparing
ministry staff for their television appearances. The WCU also arranged workshops in
Cairo, Port Said, and Alexandria to brief media representatives about the campaign and
introduce them to the roles and responsibilities of the ministry.
Products included a special issue of the WCU monthly newsletter for field engineers to
highlight the awareness campaign and a briefing folder for fact sheets, reports, and other
written products for ministry field staff and media representatives. For schools, the
WCU created a teacher guide on water scarcity issues and a wall chart to illustrate
proper and improper uses of water. Students also received a colouring book calendar
and an irrigation calendar to take home to their parents.
61
specific objectives for this next phase. The first was to increase water users’ awareness
of the need for water conservation and pollution prevention. The second was to build
better relationships between water users and the MPWWR field staff, especially
the district water engineers .To design appropriate training interventions,
GreenCOM conducted a knowledge, attitudes, and practice study with more than 1,000
farmers and their wives. The objective of this study was to help the MPWWR
understand the concerns and perspectives of this critical segment of the population.
Allowing the research was a remarkable step for the ministry, which was used to
operating in a highly centralized, top-down manner, dictating from Cairo how much
irrigation water each farmer received and even which crops the farmers could plant.
* Demand for the resulting research report was so high that a second printing was
required.
The research found that farmers were distrustful of the MPWWR and its district
engineers, who worked in the field on managing irrigation water. Likewise, a survey of
183 district water engineers revealed that they perceived the farmers as ignorant and
tended to blame them for all water problems. Thus, GreenCOM and the WCU’s main
task was to help each group appreciate the perspective of the other, build trust and open
communication channels between farmers and engineers, and demonstrate the potential
benefits accruing to each side from greater collaboration through such innovations as
water user associations.
GreenCOM and the WCU implemented a comprehensive communication training
program for district engineers and other MPWWR employees. By the end of this
program, 180 engineers had been trained in communication and customer service
skills and 125 senior and mid-level ministry staff had taken part in seminars on
management and problem solving. Eighty ministry inspectors also received
management training. In addition, WCU representatives made nearly 20 visits to district
engineer sites to help the engineers facilitate partnership meetings with farmers. The
WCU staff and engineers also hosted four educational meetings with about 5,000
schoolchildren.
To complement the district engineer training, GreenCOM continued to strengthen the
skills of WCU staff to enable the unit to support both the engineers and farmers as the
MPWWR implemented new policies. GreenCOM provided training for the WCU in a
variety of areas including technical writing, graphics software, video production,
materials pretesting, evaluation, and customer service.
For example, GreenCOM purchased video and audio production equipment and trained
staff members in producing short videos. One product was a14-minute video illustrating
aspects of field engineer staff training and meetings with farmers. Other videos
documented the implementation of MPWWR policy initiatives such as the formation of
water user associations. Staff members also gained experience by videotaping all
training events during the first six months of 1999 and covering the MPWWR’s Nile
2000 Conference.
During this phase of the project, GreenCOM not only engaged in capacity building
activities for ministry staff but also developed a second public awareness campaign on
water scarcity.
62
Selected national and regional stations aired them more than 300 times per month for a
total of 1,028 airings. It is estimated that the spots were seen at least once by 90 percent
of the rural population (or 13,310,000 people) and by 87 percent of the total population
(or25,838,000 people).
A follow-on campaign of twelve television and radio spots was produced to exemplify
the theme of government and farmers as partners, joined in a common endeavor to
confront water scarcity. In this series, farmers were portrayed as successful businessmen
who recognize that water is an essential resource upon which their prosperity depends.
The benefit/rationale for behavior change was financial security and increased income
for farmers who adopt recommended water management practices.
*Documentaries
Two 15-minute video documentaries were produced as part of the campaign that
focused on specific water conservation practices in certain geographical areas and
particular agricultural sectors. These documentaries were designed for use in farmer
meetings conducted as another part of USAID’s Agricultural Policy Reform Project.
The first featured a water saving method for sugar cane irrigation. The second
encouraged farmers to plant a new variety of rice that consumed less water due to a
shorter growing season. The need for such a video was underscored by data from the
KAP study of farmers, which revealed that only 36 percent of farmers believed they had
sufficient information to select new, water-saving crops.
WCU media personnel cooperated with a commercial producer to create the videos,
which provided additional on-the-job training.
*News Programs
Twenty-six episodes of a 10-minute television show called Water News for Farmers
were produced with the cooperation of a television station that covered the entire Delta
in Lower Egypt, where agriculture is intensive.
Viewership for that channel was estimated at more than three million. The program
featured news about water developments, recommendations and schedules for irrigation
water delivery, and interviews with local farmers. The program was very useful for
disseminating water messages and also served as a model for future co-production with
regional broadcasters.
*Print Materials
GreenCOM and project partners produced an extensive library of print materials,
including fact sheets to convey core campaign messages to a wide variety of groups
including senior staff of the MPWWR, donor agencies, water specialists, and
journalists. Such widespread information sharing was not a standard practice
in Egypt, so it was a very significant part of the campaign.
63
Other print and electronic materials (posters, booklets, leaflets, brochures,
wall charts, calendars, notebooks, coloring books for children, t-shirts, and an
assortment of promotional giveaways) were also produced after extensive pre-testing
with target groups to ensure message comprehension. Post distribution reports from
field staff, trainers, and farmers confirmed the appeal and usefulness of WCU print
materials, and in many cases, the MPWWR provided funding to increase print runs.
*Community Mobilization
In addition to the materials produced with GreenCOM, WCU representatives made
visits to meetings organized by district engineers to build partnerships with
approximately 500 farmers. The WCU staff members helped engineers distribute
educational materials and collaborated with them on educational sessions with nearly
5,000 school children.
RESULTS
From 1995 to 1998 GreenCOM played a significant role in helping USAID and the
Egyptian government reshape the relationship between a major water user group—
farmers—and the Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources. One important result
was the formation of the MPWWR’s Water Communication Unit, which reflected the
ministry’s commitment to a better relationship with farmers.
Through training in research and a wide variety of communication tools, GreenCOM
also sharpened the professional skills of ministry staff. The WCU, for example, gained
the ability to implement research based communication interventions to help other
MPWWR departments carry out their work more effectively. One concrete result was
the creation of Egypt’s first national communication campaign on water scarcity. The
WCU participated in all stages of this campaign, from the formative research to
message development and materials production. WCU staff also began to make regular
visits to the field to meet with district engineers, a necessary step for improving internal
ministry communications.
Another major outcome for GreenCOM and project partners was an increase in district
engineers’ knowledge about water-saving techniques and the importance of water user
associations. An evaluation at the end of the project found that engineers’ knowledge of
water-saving techniques for farmers increased by more than 100 percent; the percentage
of engineers who could define a water user association jumped from 53 to 100 percent;
and the percentage of engineers who could cite at least two reasons why a farmer would
join a water user association increased from 51 to 76 percent.
After participating in GreenCOM’s training workshops, the engineers began to hold
community meetings with farmers to discuss water scarcity issues (representing an
almost 200 percent increase in the number of meetings held) and built a framework for
creating water user associations in the future, a long-term goal of the MPWWR.
LESSON LEARNED
USAID and Egypt’s Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources used GreenCom in
providing solution to the masses’ needs. This shows the importance of using a PR firm
(external practitioners) in providing solution to PR problems.
Engineering expertise of the Ministry of Public Works and Water Resources was to be
matched with careful consideration of people’s needs and behaviour.
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Research indicated that many people did not realize the gravity of Egypt’s water
shortage. It points to the importance of research as a public relations tool, which should
be used in diagnosing the organizational problem before the prescription of a solution.
Relevant PR strategies were used by GreenCom which led to the success of the
campaign.
Source: GreenCom.
QUESTIONS
65
Chapter Seven
This case study is on government public relations and the role of institutionalising PR in
governance.
BACKGROUND
PROBLEM STATEMENT
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view their jobs how they share information between departments, with businesses with
citizens and with their own employees It requires re-engineering the government’s
business processes, both within individual agencies and across government.
E-government and ICT are seen as elements of a larger government modernization
Program. Focusing only on the computers will not make officials more service-oriented
toward government’s “customers” and partners. Leaders should think about how to
harness technology to achieve objectives for reform. ICT is an instrument to enable and
empower government reform.
OBJECTIVE:
To determine the level of success of the South Africa government in the implementation
of the The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) plan of action that foresees
the formation of a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information
Society, where everyone can access, utilise and share information and knowledge.
METHOD
2. What is E-government?
Defined broadly, e-government is the use of ICT to promote more efficient and
effective government, facilitate more accessible government services, allow greater
public access to information, and make government more accountable to citizens.
Egovernment
has emerged beyond electronic service delivery and is part of the ongoing
reform and transformation of government enabling participatory governance and
partnerships to improve efficiency and effectiveness [1].
E-government is about transforming government to be more citizen-centred.
Technology is a tool in this effort. E-government successes require changing how
government works, how it deals with information, how officials view their jobs and
interact with the public. E-government is also within the South African context split
up into different sectoral areas such as e-health, e-education, SMME (Small and
Medium Enterprises) and local content.
Achieving e-government success also requires active partnerships between
government, citizens and the private sector. The e-government process needs
continuous input and feedback from the “customers”— the public, businesses and
officials who use e-government services. Their voices and ideas are essential to
making e-government work. E-government, when implemented well, is a
participatory process.
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planning, managing and measuring e-government. The Roadmap Working Group
suggests that e-government officials ask themselves these ten questions before they
embark on the e-government path.
The 10 Questions:
1. Why are we pursuing e-government?
2 Do we have a clear vision and priorities for e-government?
3. What kind of e-government are we ready for?
4. Is there enough political will to lead the e-government effort?
5. Are we selecting e-government projects in the best way?
6. How should we plan and manage e-government projects?
7. How will we overcome resistance from within the government?
8. How will we measure and communicate progress? How will we know if we are
failing?
9. What should our relationship be with the private sector?
10. How can e-government improve citizen participation in public affairs?
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affordable access to information and knowledge that will enable them to participate
meaningfully in the community and economy [2].
The Vision further aspires to move the country from being a consumer of ICT
products and services to being a major player in the production and innovation of
these products and services. The cornerstones of this Inclusive Information Society
are a vibrant and thriving ICT sector, an enabling policy and regulatory environment,
accessible ICT infrastructure and broadband connectivity, and an appropriately skilled
and knowledgeable citizenry.
The vision for e-Government expressed in the approved E-Government
Discussion document entitled, “Electronic Government, The Digital Future: A Public
Service IT Policy Framework”, published in 2001 by the Department of Public
Service and Administration recommended that an e-Government initiative should
address three main domains:
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The e-government vision is informed by the growth and development
priorities expressed in Vision 2014 as well as the Millennium Development Goals
whereby ICT’s are regarded as an enabler for the achievement of these goals within a
broad and integrated developmental approach, rather than just as an infrastructure.
E-government is firmly seen as an integral pillar for developing a South African
Information Society and within this, e-education, e-health, and the development of
small and medium enterprises within the ICT sector.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has developed an e-procurement
system that allows for open and transparent bidding of government tenders aimed at
preventing corruption.
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The ICT responsibility for national and provincial government resides with
the Minister of Public Service and Administration and the necessary legal framework
and functional bodies were created including the State IT Agency (SITA), formed as a
central, shared service provider to government departments and provinces, the
Government IT Officer’s Council (GITOC), formed to encourage and facilitate a
forum for consultation and deliberation of ICT related issues by the then newly
appointed Government IT Officers (GITOs). The GITOC is an advisory body to the
Minister of Public Service and Administration of ICT related matters, the Office of
the Government CIO was created within Department of Public Service and
Administration. (DPSA) to act as a policy making, regulating and strategy
formulating body with the specific purpose of coordinating E-government activities
across government and The Department of Public Service and Administration was
also tasked to ensure proper measurement of ICT effectiveness in Government
working together with National Treasury.
4.3.2 Infrastructure
Although the telecommunications landscape is dominated by the Telkom monopoly,
government, through a process of managed liberalisation, is now introducing
competition through the Second Network Operator (SNO) and a third cellular
operator was licensed in 2002. Despite this, broadband access is limited and according
to the ITU 2003 comparative study, South Africa performs poorly in this vital
indicator of preparedness for e-commerce.
Mobile penetration has risen to over 50% of the population increasing
opportunities for multi-access to information. South Africa has leveraged the tools of
multi-access government to promote “free and fair” national elections in 2004. The
Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) developed partnerships with cell phone
service providers, which enabled voters to short message service (SMS) their identity
number and in return receive a message back indicating their eligibility to vote and
voting station details. Custom-designed handheld scanners captured information from
bar-coded ID books and greatly streamlined the process of voter registration. (is there
a role of Sentech and USA in infrastructure)
A further strategy employed to increase affordable universal access is that of
granting Under-serviced Area Licenses (USALs). The licensees are Small Medium
Enterprises (SMEs) that provide telecommunication services in areas designated as
under-serviced
71
very few graduates (12 % in 1999) obtain postgraduate qualifications and that has
serious implications for the supply of high-level ICT workers.
72
Project (IFMS). The case management systems used by the Police, the motor vehicle
registration systems used by Transport, the pensions and unemployment insurance
systems used respectively by Welfare and Labour, and the subsidy management
system used by housing are all examples of transversal initiatives within government.
The Batho Pele Gateway Portal was launched in 2004 and is in its first phase as an
information portal providing information on government services and other
information such as legislation, policies and all other information of government. At
present it is undergoing enhancement by translating information on the portal into all
11 languages.
The South African Post Office’s Paymaster to the Nation project promises to
make life considerably easier for recipients of pensions, particularly those who live in
remote rural areas. Under the scheme, welfare grants and pensions are paid into a
Postbank account that is linked to a smart card containing a magnetic strip and a chip,
which contains the beneficiary’s fingerprints and photo to eliminate fraud. In the
government to business (G2B) domain the South African Revenue Services (SARS)
e-filing already provides a means to conduct transactions related to tax returns on the
internet
4.6. How should we plan and manage e-government projects?
The approach outlined by the E-government framework proposed by the DPSA
includes the management of all e-government projects to be managed by a systems
development life cycle which requires that all application implementation have to go
through a process from conception, through design and development phases and final
implementation. A monitoring and evaluation capability will be implemented to
ensure that best practices and lessons learnt are shared.
An e-government governance framework has been proposed by the DPSA and has
recently undergone extensive government-wide consultations to achieve approval and
buy in from senior officials. The ICT governance structure consists of the DPSA, the
State Information Technology Agency (SITA), the National Treasury and the
Government Information Technology Officers Council (GITOC). These three
interrelated entities are in the main responsible for government’s ICT responsibility
and service improvement using ICT’s.
The governance model also recognises an inter-departmental forum consisting of
relevant government stakeholders, specifically those who are at present managing
transversal e-government projects that will impact on the efficiency and effectiveness
of government as well as have the necessary effect of improving service delivery to
citizens. These projects include the Home Affairs National Identification System,
(HANIS), Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS), South African Social
Security Agency, and the Integrated Justice System (IJS).
The Governance framework outlines the responsibilities of specific committees
responsible for e-government data-related projects, specifically citizen-data,
application-related, access channel projects such as service centres, etc.,
infrastructure-related matters. It is envisaged that a programme office, namely that of
the Office of the Government CIO, based at DPSA will play a coordinating role to
ensure that large e-government projects are well planned.
Criteria for identifying ICT projects include increased productivity in terms of
quantity and quality of ICT implementation, better cost effectiveness in terms of
duration, complexity and possible reduction or duplication of tasks, and improved
73
service delivery. All these are measured by interoperability standards, security of
documents and systems, economies of scale in supporting the accelerated growth
strategy in supporting the development of a vibrant ICT sector and Open Source
Software usage and development, elimination of duplication of ICT functions,
projects and resources, thus ensuring that access to ICT infrastructure is paramount.
E-government management is more than implementing projects; it means
planning for capacity-building. The E-government strategy has raised a number of
relevant issues to capacity building. These include the necessity for skills transfer
from ICT vendors during system implementation. That ICT re-training and reorientation
should be a continuous part of the development plan for public servants
and that ICT literacy has to be part of the general education curriculum. Digital
inclusivity must permeate solutions formulated as part of the e-government
programme. An example would be that citizens will get general ICT training at
general service centres, such as a Multi-purpose Community Centre (MPCC’s).
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4.9. What should our relationship be with the private sector?
In South Africa there are a number of examples of Public Private Partnerships in ICTs
for development. The corporate sector plays an important role in providing support to
community programmes. However, the relationship with vendors remains problematic
and government must remain vigilant in not getting “locked in” to proprietary
solutions from a single vendor. For example, government is promoting the use of
nonproprietary solutions such as Open Source Software.
RESULT
75
between outcomes and cost-benefit but formal monitoring and evaluation procedures
need to be put in place. Emphasis should be placed here on the impact on service
delivery and the customer. There are issues regarding implementation of the public
service regulation in terms of ICT which are being addressed with further
amendments to the Act requiring reporting mechanism to be put in place to report
back on ICT spending and project implementation to the Public Service Parliamentary
Committee.
Change always brings with it the possibility of unexpected outcomes and
difficulties. Some which have been experienced in the e-Government arena include a
high turnover of staff, inadequate resourcing, underachievement of project work, lack
of leadership in terms of financial planning, lack of ICT expertise, a ‘relatively’ weak
ICT industry, poor recognition of the emerging Information Society and a weak
educational system.
E-government in South Africa needs to develop service and customer maturity.
Service maturity measures the level to which a government has developed an online
presence—the most critical service delivery channel in terms of driving down
delivery costs. Service maturity takes into account the number of services for which
national governments are responsible that are available online (service maturity
breadth), and the level of completeness with which each service is offered (service
maturity depth). Service maturity overall is the product of service maturity breadth
and service maturity depth.
Customer service maturity measures the extent to which government agencies
manage interactions with their customers (citizens and businesses) and deliver service
in an integrated way. Important measures of customer service include customer
relationship management, citizen-centered strategies, multi-access for services,
crossgovernment
service delivery and creating awareness and educating customers .
6. Conclusions
E-government in South Africa is in the formative stage of development. Key
challenges facing government include creating access, internal efficiency and human
resource development. With advances in technology improved access needs to be
created for citizens, particularly in rural areas and a supportive telecommunications
policy needs to be in place. Internal efficiencies need improvement not only from a
technological point of view but also from a people perspective. Training and creating
a common purpose are key issue. Government has already added G 2 E (Government
to Employee) in its strategies
Key policies and governance frameworks have recently been developed and the
role of leadership, amongst its many agencies, has been defined. South Africa has
taken the first tentative steps in creating on-line access but its breadth and depth of
services requires significant development. This needs to be seen in the context of
relatively low tele-densities, especially in rural areas, and high telecommunication
costs.
Government’s current plans include revamping the E-government portal to
improve public access to government services, through public information terminals
in post offices and multi-purpose community centers, and to provide streamlined
government services online to present government as a single entity to consumers of
its services. These plans point to a positive movement in customer service for the
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country
A consultative process has been followed in developing E-government in South
Africa but achieving buy-in, particularly within the ranks of government departments,
remains a challenge. The next phase of E-government should focus on
implementation guided by the citizen focused Batho Pele principles in terms of online
service delivery and customer service.
LESSON LEARNED
1. Communicating with the public: With the web you can bypass the media . The
website can supplement your media relations efforts and may eventually replace
much of the media effort.
2. Communicating with the researchers, activists, specialists, and journalists.
People will use your site for information they need.
3. Distributing large volumes of information. Web users can pick and choose what
they want from the information provided. A good website, though, routes users
to information that interests them.
4. Publicising anything from a new policy to an upcoming event. A website is
accessible all over the world, and it can be updated easily. You can also use
other media to invite the public to your website.
5. Soliciting public comment. The web provides a two-way communication
medium. You can build in an e-mail option with a click of the mouse. (Otis
Baskin et al, 1997).
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QUESTIONS
1. What is e-government?
2. What is the use of e-government in governance?
3. I f you are the PR executive of the government, how will
you institutionalise PR on the government’s website?
4. Design the features of the government’s websites as the
PR executive of the government
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References
[1] The Working Group on E-Government in the Developing World, “Roadmap
for E-government in the Developing World, 10 Questions E-Government
Leaders Should Ask Themselves”, April 2002.
[2] Presidential National Commission on Information Society & Development,
“Towards An Inclusive Information Society for South Africa, A Country
Report to Government”, November 2005.
[3] Department of Public Service Administration, “South African E-government
Conceptual Framework”, 31 October 2005.
[4] Department of Public Service Administration, “South African E-government
Governance Framework”31 October 2005.
[5] Department of Public Service Administration, “South African E-government
Policy Framework”31 October 2005.
[6] Accenture, “Leadership in Customer Service: New Expectations New
Experiences”, April 2005.
[7] Gillwald, A, Esselar S, “South African 2004 ICT Sector Performance
Review”, December 2004.
[8] http://www.home-affairs.gov.za/projects.asp
[9} http://www.gcis.gov.za/mpcc/index.html
[10} http://www.dpsa.gov.za/
(11) Public Relations: The Profession and the Practice, Otis Baskin et al, 1997, USA.
Appendix I
79
Chapter Eight
BACKGROUND
80
Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) who also had some immeasurable
input to the voter education curriculum.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
There was a high level of voters apathy during the by elections leading to the 2001
election. This led the Electoral Commission of Zambia to establish the committee
called the National Voter Education Committee (NVEC) in May 2001. To
sensitize the electorates on the importance of exercising their right to vote.
OBJECTIVES:
METHOD
It also helps to build and maintain voter confidence through the dissemination of
relevant information at every stage of the electoral process.
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The Committee also realises the need for gender balance in the electoral
process. It encourages women’s independent participation in voting for
candidates of their choice without being influenced by anyone e.g their spouses.
During the campaigns the Committee also ensures that it makes the
electorate aware of corrupt practices and educates them on electoral offences.
RESULT
82
LESSON LEARNED
Conclusively, voter education has proved to play a key role in the capturing of a
large number of potential voters, which is one of the key factors in the
successful conduct of elections.
Therefore, it is ideal that countries adopt or enhance their voter education
programmes to promote wider participation in elections by the electorate.
QUESTIONS
83
MEDIA CAMPAIGN
84
MEDIA CAMPAIGN
The strategic role of the mass media in PR campaigns can not be overemphasized .
Mass media are tools, when properly used, their could be change in the attitudes of the
target audience and the stakeholders, as deliberately planned by the practitioner before
the execution of the campaign.
The two case studies are examples of the use of mass media in achieving PR goals and
objectives.
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Chapter Nine
BACKGROUND
African countries are developing countries with lower per capital income. Most of them
are ravaged by poverty, hunger, unemployment and diseases. One of the banes of Africa
is the bad leadership of her leaders, many of them are corrupt. Corruption has eaten
deep to the fabric of African lifestyles. This has affected the economy and socio-
political operations of the continent.
Some African believes that it is better to seek greener pasture in the western world. This
has prompted many of them to immigrate to the western nations either legally or
illegally.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Some Africans are entering. Europe illegally, while some notorious human traffickers
are trafficking children and women for cheap labour and prostitution, likewise men also
are being brought also for cheap labour.
Most of these people are being brought o Europe on the premise that they are offering
them good jobs. Some of these African migrants pay thousands of dollars to smuggling
networks who promise them that life in European countries will be easy, without
warning them of the risks of exploitation, poverty and deportation they will face. Many
others die in their attempts to flee African countries by water.
OBJECTIVE:
METHOD
Introduction
The European Union and Switzerland have started a television, radio and poster
campaign in African countries to keep potential illegal migrants from trying to
immigrate to Europe.
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Switzerland’s migration authority initiated and directed the campaign, which has
included producing a promotional film during the past few months meant to scare away
potential illegal immigrants, It was reported by a German newspaper on
November 26,2007.
The Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) said it had actually
produced the campaign, which was funded by the Swiss migration office.
Purpose
People-Smuggling Networks
The aim of the campaign is to “give a more balanced view of irregular migration
networks,” IOM spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy told AFP news agency.
Some African migrants pay thousands of dollars to smuggling networks who promise
them that life in Switzerland or other European countries will be easy, without warning
them of the risks of exploitation, poverty and deportation they will face, Chauzy said.
Many others die in their attempts to flee African countries by water.
METHOD
Message
“Stay home, since Europe is not the continent of milk and honey. No one’s waiting
for you there,” Handelsblatt summarized the message of the film to be. “Fleeing does
not mean starting a new life,” the last sentence of the film states.
Bleak outlook
A sequence of images in the film includes a telephone ringing with an older, black man
in a cozy apartment picking it up to hear his son on the other end. The father asks his
son if he’s found a home and how his studies are going. The son is then shown in a
grungy camp under a bridge, but answers that everything is fine. More images appear,
showing him sitting on the side of the street and begging, and then later being picked up
by police.The film continues along the same vein for almost two more minutes.
Handelsblatt reported that the film is part of a 250,000-euro ($371,000) campaign by the
European Union and Switzerland to stem illegal emigration where it starts.
The film is to be shown on the TV and at special events.
Film shown during soccer games
The film was shown on Nigeria’s state television channel during half-time of an
international soccer match between Nigeria and Switzerland last week. There are a huge
number of potential immigrants in these countries and we want to show them that
Europe is no paradise,” the spokesperson for Switzerland’s Migration Office told
Handelsblatt.
The IOM has produced similar campaign in Senegal and Niger, funded by Spain and the
European Union respectively, Chauzy told AFP.
He also said such campaign were a “useful tool” in trying to combat people-smuggling.
87
Switzerland’s right-wing justice minister Christoph Blocher, whose ministry controls
the Migration Office, supports the campaign. He, too, told the Swiss paper
SonntagsBlick that “we must show the Africans that Switzerland is not paradise.”
RESULT
10 Responses to the TV Campaign in Nigeria and Cameroon,
I think every government has the right to do whatever it feels to protect its
interest. But whether the campaign is effective, only time will tell.
I just wonder why it’s only Switzerland that is leading the campaign with EU.
Why not other countries like Germany and others where people dream to go?
However big the campaign of African illegal immigrants through any media
heading for promised lands- Europes, America, anywhere.
African have began to realize what they will go through in their sojourn, could
they be stopped? A hungry man could go miles in search of keeping his mind
and soul together, do not forget Africans have responsilities and they need to
account for what they are leaving behind, some year behind was to escape
poverty, but today is to be on the hideout somewhere, that’s why many African
still believe of employing such trip with risks.
Anyhow, Swiss and other Europeans countries might embark on any means for
combatting the illegal attrocities they believe the Africans are committing, not
their fault, I put the blames on my fellow entire Black African Nation.
Somehow, someday, LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURN might apply. Strenght
of Europe nations and others are increasing while Africa still at slumber.
Good, having said all- mother AFRICA and PAPASLAND might shine come
rain or high water.
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Keep calm and your fingers crossed. Pray for our Motherland and very soon we
might soon leave European and others alone.
As long as going home with empty hands is a shame for those “lost” young
people who spent such a lot of money and risked their live to come in the so
promised Eldorado it might be might be part of a strategy to show that kind of
videos to avoid illegal immigration. But I am still missing the other part: The
serious trial to balance out the welfare on earth in a way that young people have
a real and sustainable perspective by staying at home!
As long as Europe, America and more and more Asia take economically profit
out of the bad governance in most African countries by exploiting their raw
materials this kind of anti propaganda has the smell of hypocrisy!
Mr. Suma John have said it all: “why are they particular about the blacks
alone?”… Let the Swiss tell us how many Black Africans are in their country.
This news was just about the topic I was discussing with a working colleague (a
British man)at the office today, that: Britain and Nederland are the the most
lenient countries in Europe, where freedom thrived and discrimination was very
minimised.
Switzerland must always remember that they have also migrated to some
European countries before (especially Poland), let any Swiss man countered this,
if he or she is well versed in history.
What goes around, comes around. Africa will soon be well o.k. and God willing,
some Europeans will come there also to work (looking for Eldorado in Africa)
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and even to seek for assylum. It is not a joke, it will happen by the special Grace
of God.
Thank God we have so many representatives in Europe that are making the eyes
of our leaders become open on many wrong things.
Every day and night, my thinking is to get out of Europe. I`m tired of living here and as
a matter of fact, I don`t belong here. I believe so many of you thinking the same way
and if so what are we waiting for? Some of our mates in Africa are making it down
there. Isn`t it?
Let them also make adverts targeting those who steal government money, telling
them that any money brought to Swiss and EU banks will be seized and returned
immediately to the African Governments. It’s a big pity,guys never give up
hope, now it is the Asians who are shining, soon it will be the Africans for sure
nothing last for ever. I know they will soon come knocking on Africa like they
do now in Asia.May God help us.
Hmm, even though I read this new with mixed reactions, let me start by using
aliteral conotation for this piece, which is a good music made popular by a
musician with bad voice, so they are doing adverts to discourage people from
coming abroad, why have they forgotten to do adverts that will stop people from
bringing our stolen monies to their banks , or they don’t know that poverty is the
root cause of the migration, and curruption causes poverty, at least we are still
vast with the ABACHA loot from Nigeria.
Also, these people called Europeans should not forget that they raped us of our
manpower through slavery, colonialism, neo colonialism and imperialism and
today they want to avoid us …ha ha ha ha !, interesting , I live the rest to history.
Lastly , only irrational governments , and radio and T.V outfits will allow their
citizens or their race to be humilated on their own Tv stations . America will
never allow such, besides there are beggers every where , did we not see it in
the hurricane Katrina experience?
The fact of the matter is that the answers to most of our questions and
arguements lies in the hands of our so-called leaders of Africa, e.g brothers and
sister, take your minds back to the 70`s,how many people do u know left the
country for better life in Europe or America?. Like I said before, the solutions to
our problems is just in front of us. We can say what ever we like, but the fact
still remains that this is their Europe and it belongs to them.
LESSON LEARNED
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The campaign is okay, such campaign should not only be for the urban dwellers
who have access to TV but should also target the audience in the rural areas
where majority of the people live . Also identified relevant stakeholders should
be properly targeted in-order to achieve the aims and objectives of the campaign.
Evaluation by quantitative assessment of reduction in the rate of migration from
Africa to Europe should have been put in place to enable the campaigner
evaluate the success of the campaign.
QUESTIONS
1. What are the causes of African illegal migration to Europe?, could there
be solutions to these causes?, discuss.
2. Design a PR plan for averting African illegal migration to Europe .
3. Some Africans are against using their mass media for the campaigns, do
you agree with such view?. What are the benefits and limitations of using
the mass media for such a programme?.
4. Enumerate other means or media of reaching the targeted audience and
stakeholders.
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Chapter Ten
BACKGROUND
Kenya is a developing country with a low per capital income and with a high level of
poverty.
The cities of Kenya have been growing partly because of emigration from the
countryside. Most salaried jobs in the cities are in the government bureaucracy, in
industry, and in occupations such as sales and domestic services. Kenya's industries
include food processing, brewing, clothing and textiles, transport equipment, and
refined petroleum and petrochemicals. The majority of companies are located in or near
Nairobi, but the government is encouraging new firms to locate in other towns so that
more of the country can benefit from industry. Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, is
located on the railway line at the junction between the lowlands and the highlands.
More than 60 percent of Kenya's salaried workers live in the city, which dominates the
nation's economy. It is an important commercial center and many foreign firms base
their east African operations there. Most government employees also work in Nairobi.
The Kenyan economy is supported by one of the best transportation systems in Africa.
The railway links the main towns and paved roads reach all but the most inaccessible
towns. The main roads to Tanzania and Uganda are paved and the one to Ethiopia is
almost completely paved. Nairobi's modernized airport is one of Africa's busiest. Flights
connect the city to other African cities, and to Europe, the United States, and Asia.(
encyclopedia: Britannica 2003) .
PROBLEM STATEMENT
There is a high level of poverty in Kenya, it is a country with a low per capital income.
She is one of the countries being targeted for the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals.
OBJECTIVES:
METHOD
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eight MDGs and on October 17th, the station interrupted normal transmission to read
the Stand Up Pledge at exactly 12 noon. In addition, Citizen Television and the
government owned Kenya Broadcasting Station (KBC) carried several mobilisation
stories for Stand Up. Two leading newspapers Nation and East African Standard carried
editorials on Stand Up.
A host of radio stations targeted at grassroots communities among them KBC radio,
Kameme FM, Mulembe FM and Musyi FM stations carried in-depth programmes to
demystify the Millennium Development Goals to ordinary Kenyans. Even the faith-
based radio stations such as Iqra FM, Waumini FM and Family FM participated in the
campaign.
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“As we stand tall against poverty today we want to urge the government to begin
listening to slum dwellers, needs particularly with respect to the allocation of resources
towards the improvement of the living conditions in slums. Father Daniel Moschetti, a
Catholic parish priest in Korogocho said.
Father Daniel who hosted a Stand Up concert attended by over 7,000 people, noted that
the Millennium Development cannot be achieved without addressing the challenges
faced by slum-dwellers. During the event whose theme was “Artists United for a New
Kenya”, he called for a radical change in government policy and attitudes when dealing
with slum-dwellers.
Speaking at the event, UN Communications Coordinator, Ms Sylvia Mwichuli said.
“Poverty is savagely biting thousands of people who live in squalid slum conditions in
Kenya. We must all rise up and combat poverty with by developing and implementing
realistic policies and programmes and allocating sufficient resources.”
Kora Award winner Eric Wainana joined other leading Kenyan musicians Gidi Gidi
Maji Maji and Ras Luigi in reading the Stand Up Pledge and signing the song “One
Love” by Bob Marley in solidarity with the poor.
“By standing here today, we are sending a strong and clear message to our policy
makers that the poor can no longer afford to die needlessly. We want to go to bed
knowing that our leaders cannot ignore us and there is more to life not just survival,”
Eric said.
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RESULT
After final counting the number was adjusted to 43.7 million. About 700,000
Kenyans participated in breaking the Guinness World record during the 24-hours of
Stand Up. Among them were slum dwellers, prisoners and journalists, who raised
their voice against poverty. The final figure of people Standing Up is a massive total
of 43,716,440 participants in at least 6,540 events around the globe spanning 127
countries. They broke the world record - set last year at 23.5 million - for the largest
number of people to “Stand Up Against Poverty” in 24 hours. A number of 38.8
million was announced in an online press Thursday with Mary Robinson, President
Realizing Rights, the ethical global initiative, Salil Shetty, Global Director of the
UN Millennium Campaign and Kumi Naidoo, Chair of the Global Call to Action
against Poverty (GCAP).
LESSON LEARNED
Mass media are powerful tools of communication , their effects on audience and
stakeholders is noticeable in this campaign. Getting relevant stakeholders involved
in a PR campaign will breed success.
Source: Guinness Book of World Records Global Call to Action Against Poverty End
Poverty 2015
QUESTIONS
95
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY (CSR)
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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY (CSR)
For any organization to stay strong and efficient in order to achieve its corporate goals
and objectives, it must show itself as a good citizen and a good social leader .Which is
not out only to make profit out of the community but to contribute to the development
and survival of the community of operation, this is the essence of Corporate Social
Responsibility ( a PR programme).
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Chapter Eleven
Case Study
Development in Kahama District, Tanzania
Location …Tanzania Operator …Kahama Mining Corporation Limited
Investment …Unknown Partnership …Infrastructure Providing safe, reliable and
affordable water supply to the Kahama District.
BACKGROUND
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and has used its competencies in contract and project management to oversee
contractors.
The steering committees have now shifted their emphasis towards building the capacity
of local government, communities and NGOs to take over the long-term management
and maintenance of the infrastructure facilities. With many of the facilities to be
managed on a ‘user-fee’ basis, and with the anticipated improvements in the capacity of
the district government to manage public services, there is every prospect that KMCL
will be able to stand back from the leadership role it has taken to now, and contribute to
local society on a more equal and sustainable footing with its government and civil
society partners.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Social Context
Approximately 21,000 people live in the vicinity of the Bulyanhulu mine. The quality of
life of local communities is low, as a consequence of poverty, low levels of education
(see Box 1), and chronic ill health. The majority of households in the area are involved
in subsistence crop farming. The common sources of water for domestic use are open
wells, some fitted with hand pumps. Most wells are considered ‘unsafe’ and have low
and unreliable yields, especially during the dry season. The key medical concerns in the
region are the high incidence of diseases such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, anaemia,
malaria and HIV/AIDS. Health infrastructure is poor, with shortages of medical staff
and equipment.
Business Context
The Tanzanian government has recently amended its legislation to promote Tanzania as
an attractive investment location to the global mining industry. Barrick Gold hopes to
establish a regional mining zone in Tanzania, and the Bulyanhulu mine is viewed as the
first in a series of such operations. The increasing involvement of the private sector in
the mining sector, has led to public demands for communities in the vicinity of mining
operations to gain from the granting of mining concessions. As a consequence, the
Tanzanian mining industry is increasingly expected to make a positive contribution to
local community development. A further issue for KMCL is that KMCL wishes to
reduce the number of expatriates at the mine by 70% within five years. KMCL’s
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experience has been that Tanzanian managers will be unwilling to move their families
to such a region unless infrastructure such as schools, health and housing matches that
available elsewhere in Tanzania.
KMCL could have elected to implement a development programme alone, or through
establishing a local company-managed foundation. Instead, KMCL chose to adopt a
multisector partnership approach, involving not just different parties, but the pooling of
their resources and competencies. The partnership approach was adopted for a number
of reasons, as follows:
*To enable KMCL to focus its efforts on those areas where social needs were greatest
and where KMCL could provide maximum value to community development;
* To enable KMCL to work with potential partners, and through this to develop trust
and understanding and a more secure social license to operate;
*To manage community expectations of KMCL for local development, through clearly
defined and agreed goals and work plans that engage all sectors of local society in
taking actions and assuming responsibilities; and
*To enable KMCL to ‘hand over’ the long-term management and maintenance of
infrastructure and other projects to communities and government.
Governance Context
The aim of the Tanzanian Local Government Reform Agenda is to enable local
government authorities to be more autonomous. Kahama District Council issued its first
District Development Plan in 2001. The aim of the plan is to improve the welfare of the
population, by enhancing food security, rural income and improving social services in
the district. The participation of local communities in both planning and implementation
of the plan is seen as essential to strengthen the responsibility and capacity of
communities to solve their own development problems. This approach reflects the
‘bottom-up’ focus of the Local Government Reform Agenda, where there is an
emphasis on the delegation of authority and responsibility to the lowest practicable level
of governance. At the time of preparing this report, the processes of planning and
implementing the District Development Plan were still relatively new, and there were
significant limitations in the resources available to communities and government to
effectively implement the Plan.
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Water Programme
13. Provide safe, reliable and affordable water supply to local communities
Other Programmes
14. Local enterprise development and local housing.
OBJECTIVE:
METHOD
Partnership Activities
At the time of the SDP development, community and government capacity and
resources were extremely limited, not least in the techniques of community
participatory planning, and there was a general lack of understanding of the role that
could be played by the private sector in community development. While KMCL’s
original intention was that the SDP implementation would be based on principles of
equal contributions and responsibilities, the practical limitations meant that, while the
direction of each of the projects was defined by all partners KMCL was compelled to
take a leadership role by providing the bulk of the funding as well as contributing
contract and project management skills. Despite this, the partnership principles of joint
design and decision-making, shared risks and responsibilities, and a pooling of
resources and competencies, were adhered to, through the establishment of a series
of multi-party committees for each of the main programme components. Each steering
committee comprised representatives from local and district government, NGOs,
KMCL and the affected local communities. The committees provided a means for
ensuring that KMCL focused its resources on those areas where there was a need to
bridge resource gaps (ie specific activities or projects that could not be implemented by
others due to a lack of resources or capacity). Where these resources already existed,
KMCL encouraged the relevant communities, NGOs or government agencies to
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mobilise. In practice this meant that KMCL assisted principally with technical know-
how, financial support and capacity building in infrastructure management and
maintenance.
Division of Roles
The resources and competencies committed by the partners are summarised in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Division of Roles and Competencies in the SDP
Partnership Partners
Education Health Housing Water
KMCL
* Project management
*Financial resources
*Construction of classrooms
*Project management
*Financial resources
*Rehabilitation of dispensary
*Project management
*Financial resources
*Facilitate employment of local community
*Project management
*Financial resources for construction and community education
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*Contribute to design of water system
Village Government & Local Communities
*Contribute labour and land for construction work
*Explore community’s potential financial contribution to education
*Mobilise community to participate in adult education
*Provide feedback on the education programme
*Facilitate the identification of peer educators
*Assist peer educators with awareness campaigns
*Provide feedback on the health programme
*Assist KMCL in the payment of compensation
*Prepare land use plans
*Provide advice on the required social facilities
*Mobilise communities to assist in building facilities
*Contribute to the identification of water points
*Build water points
*Participate in water user groups
*Take long-term responsibility for the operation and management of the system
RESULT
For all parties, the pooling of competencies and sharing of responsibilities provided
measurable benefits. Box 3 summarizes the ‘added value’ of the partnership from the
perspectives of business, community development impact and public sector governance.
Business Benefit
Access to new mineral resources in Tanzania
*Enabled KMCL to demonstrate its commitment to community development as an
integral part of mine operations.
*Enhanced community and political support (as evidenced by strong public statements
of support for KMCL and the active involvement of community and government in the
CDP implementation).
Recruiting and retaining high quality employees
*Expedited land acquisition and minimised delays to the construction of the housing
scheme.
*Increased the likelihood of the successful integration of mineworkers into the local
community, as a consequence of the good relationship between KMCL and the local
community.
Management of community expectations and reduced community dependency
*The SDP is understood by all parties to define the scope of KMCL’s community
development activities, thereby enabling KMCL to manage community expectations.
Cost-effectiveness of community development expenditures
*Leverage of contributions (labour, materials) from the local government and
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communities for the construction of school classrooms and other buildings.
* Transferred the longer-term responsibility for infrastructure management and
maintenance to communities and local government.
*Ensured that local government is committed to adequately staffing
schools and health facilities (with these costs to be met from the district council’s
budgets).
Corporate Reputation
*Communities, NGOs and government see KMCL as trustworthy and committed to
community development.
Community Development Impact
Improved Infrastructure
*Access to a reliable water supply for the 5,000 residents of Bugarama and Ilogi
villages and the 30,000 people that live along or in close proximity to the Lake Victoria
pipeline.
*Improved local infrastructure (eg shops, community centre, school buildings),
designed in accordance with the community’s needs.
*Development of community capacity (eg management skills, implementation of
revenue earning systems) to effectively manage the provided infrastructure.
Educational Security
*Increased rates of enrolment in primary schools (in Standard 1, the enrolment and
attendance rates are close to 100 per cent, compared to historic levels of 60-80 per cent).
Health Security
*Increased community knowledge of HIV/AIDS and malaria and the
adoption of improved health practices to prevent the spread of these diseases.
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*The partnership process actively sought contributions from a range of stakeholder
(different levels of government, local communities, NGOs), thereby creating a
collective ownership of the projects and ensuring that different resources and capacities
were brought to the implementation of the SDP; and
*KMCL’s core competencies were brought into the SDP, namely: its contract
management, quality control and project management skills. KMCL is now using the
SDP to develop these and other competencies in its partner organisations, thereby
enabling communities and the district government to take over the longer-term
management and maintenance of community infrastructure.
LESSON LEARNED/CONCLUSIONS
Through the SDP, KMCL has acted as a catalyst for community development in the
vicinity of the mine by (a) overcoming a major barrier to providing basic infrastructure
(ie a lack of financial capacity), and (b) developing community and government
capacity to take over responsibility for infrastructure management in the long-term.
Pressures to provide additional social benefits, combined with limited financial and
management capacity in local government, is a common scenario in the global mining
industry. KMCL’s approach to community development (ie convening multi-sector
steering committees and focusing on community infrastructure that draws on the core
competencies of the business and contributes to the business-case for staff recruitment),
perhaps offers a framework by which others can think through how social issues might
best be managed in the vicinity of mining operations.
APPENDIX
Contributors Authors: Rory Sullivan & Michael Warner of the Secretariat of the Natural
Resources Cluster, BPD. With: Aida Kiangi, KMCL.
Source: Natural Resources Cluster, Business Partners for Development, c/o CARE
International.
QUESTIONS
105
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
106
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
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Chapter Twelve
BACKGROUND
Tanzania is rich in natural resources, including timber, gemstones, fish and minerals.
Tourism and gold exports are the top two foreign exchange earners for Tanzania which,
together with traditional agricultural exports (including coffee, cashew and cotton),
contributed over three-quarters of all foreign exchange earnings in 2004. But the major
contributor to employment and GDP is agriculture, which employs 80 percent of the
country’s 36 million people, with men traditionally in control of cash crop earnings and
women in charge of subsistence agriculture.
Tanzania is held up as a model of donor coordination and donor-government
cooperation, replacing past patterns of multiple donors supporting individually-run
projects with improved efficiency and effectiveness. This change can be seen in the
transition from an externally-driven Poverty Reduction Strategy process to a much more
nationally-owned MKUKUTA (the Swahili acronym for the national poverty reduction
plan), which emphasizes three pillars of:
1) growth and reduction of income poverty,
2) improved quality of life and social well-being, and
3) good governance and accountability.
This is complemented by the Joint Assistance Strategy (JAS) of donor countries that
moves them toward the principles of aid effectiveness and harmonization outlined in the
Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness.
Despite these advances, serious challenges remain. Unless the agriculture sector can
take better advantage of domestic, regional and international markets, and extractive
and tourism industries can create more forward and backward linkages into the local
economy, Tanzania will be unable to foster broad-based and sustainable economic
growth. Any solutions to overcome these challenges must address remaining gender
inequalities in agricultural labor, control of income and assets and access to resources,
which keep women from reaping the benefits of economic development, linked to cash
crop cultivation and expanded export opportunities. Given the importance of agriculture
in the economy and its
potential for contributing to greater equity in development, it is an important starting
point for Aid for Trade or other donor-supported initiatives.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
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crop, women contribute a significant portion of the labor, particularly picking and
drying the coffee beans.
Therefore, when international market prices for coffee fell to an all time low in 2002,
making many coffee farms unprofitable, Tanzania’s rural communities were hit
particularly hard. While prices began to recover the following year, a study of the global
coffee market showed that for many farmers around the world, the prices remained low
due to:
• Technical innovation in Brazil which led to a large increase in coffee production
• The emergence of Viet Nam as a low-cost coffee producer
• The increasing use of Robusta, a lower-cost type of bean, for specialty blends.2
However, these problems are not insurmountable given that Latin American nations are
increasingly accessing markets for industrial and high-value agricultural products,
thereby making room for East Africa’s comparative advantage in coffee production.
Adolph Kumburu, the Executive Director of KILICAFE, a coffee growers association
based near Mount Kilimanjaro, explained the extent to which the recent period of low
prices had an effect in Tanzania. “As smallholders’ coffee income evaporated,
investment in coffee production stopped and a vicious cycle of low investment,
resulting in lower production and ever lower incomes, starved coffee communities of
their main source of income,” he said.3
In addition to the recent period of low prices, Tanzanian coffee producers have faced a
number of other challenges:
• Over 90% of Tanzania’s smallholder growers lack access to modern processing
technology and market information. As a result, despite the high quality of their
coffee, farmers must sell their produce into the undifferentiated commodity markets.
• Despite liberalization of the coffee market in 1994, there has been minimal
investment in the coffee sector.
• Specialty coffee buyers from the USA, Japan and Europe market Tanzanian coffee as
a ‘premium’ brand. However, buyers including Starbucks Coffee Company report
difficulties in sourcing a sufficient quantity of specialty coffee from Tanzania that is
needed to meet growing demand.
OBJECTIVES :
• To promote the production and processing of high quality specialty coffee.
• To improve its access to international and local markets in order to boost the
incomes of its members.
METHOD
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Recognizing the limitations of the farmer business groups to individually access credit
and buyers, TechnoServe has worked closely with KILICAFE to develop a range of
marketing and credit services for these groups with significant outcomes:
• Cooperative unions typically pay a uniform price, dividing proceeds equally among
members regardless of the quality of their coffee. On the other hand, KILICAFE
prefers to deliver revenues to each farmer business group in proportion to the price
received at auction or through direct export for the individual group’s coffee. As a
result, farmers with prospects to produce high quality coffee maximize their income
by associating with KILICAFE instead of allowing it to be bulked and sold with inferior
quality coffee.
• The potential for higher prices paid by KILICAFE creates incentives for higher quality
production and processing. The higher quality coffee, supported by assisted
marketing services, has delivered prices 70% higher than the national average to
member farmers.
• In 2005, KILICAFE provided over US$700,000 in working capital to its members and
linked 12 groups to finance in order to purchase quality-enhancing central pulpery
(processing) equipment.
• KILICAFE sold more than US$3million worth of coffee in 2005 and launched a
partnership with the US-based Peet’s Coffee & Tea to sell KILICAFE’s coffee in the
USA under the ‘Tanzania Kilimanjaro’ brand.
As demonstrated by KILICAFE, the value-adding activities of supporting the
development of central pulpery processing, credit access, improved marketing and the
development of new business models translate into higher revenues and more income
for the rural poor.
Smallholder farmers can sell specialty coffee, produced in central pulperies, for US$2
per kilogram at the farm gate, compared to US$1 per kilogram for commodity coffee
produced using back-yard processing. Creating access to efficient central pulpery
facilities for all coffee growers in Tanzania, and developing the Tanzanian Specialty
coffee brand, could benefit 400,000 rural families and increase foreign currency
earnings annually by US$23 million.
With a program of modest investment, the KILICAFE model can be replicated and
substantially scaled up, significantly impacting the development of Tanzania by
providing more income for social investments in health, education, basic nutrition and
the development of enterprises that will contribute to sustainable livelihoods.
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businesses with longer term loans. Therefore, a common situation is that of a farmer
with whom Realizing Rights delegates met, who was without the funds to send his
daughter to school in the period between crop harvesting and crop sale, regardless of the
visibility of his assets. This structure needs to be shifted in order to benefit farmers by
creating more flexibility in the length and size of loans and the collateral needed to gain
access to credit. The development of micro-finance products specifically for
smallholder coffee growers would address the cash-flow problems associated with this
annual crop.
• National studies have shown that only a tiny proportion of operators in the informal
sector could acquire capital from the formal financial sector. The inability to utilize land
as a form of collateral is the most significant barrier for smallholder farmers who wish
to access credit.
• A lack of access disproportionately affects women: only half of the women who
applied for bank credit were successful (ILO, 2003), and they cited the main
obstacles as difficult procedures, high interest rates and the requirement of 125 per
cent loan collateral.
• It is particularly hard for local businesses, especially early stage ones, to identify and
access sources of good quality technical assistance and business advice to help them
overcome these challenges. TechnoServe has found that banks and other providers of
capital are far more willing to open their doors once a business has been provided with
assistance of proven quality.
Indirect Investments Required to Facilitate Trade
The following areas offer a combination of public and private investment opportunities
that need more support. Doing so requires a new focus and significant coordination
from the Tanzanian government and willingness of others to co-invest.
Power: Developing Tanzania’s capacity to trade, and growing the economy more
generally, is stymied by insufficient power generation.
• Tanzania relies heavily on hydropower, but with frequent drought and the prospect of
continuing low rainfall due to climate change, this brake on production and trade must
be urgently addressed.
• Increased electricity demand – which inevitably comes with economic growth – must
be satisfied in a country that already faces a power crisis.
• Tanzania needs support in finding alternative energy solutions – one suggestion was
using the Highly-Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief dividends to purchase
turbines; another was adopting alternative fuel sources (coffee waste products including
coffee husk, pulp waste and central pulpery waste-water are utilized to produce energy
in rural areas of Latin America).
Transport: Expanding and improving road and port infrastructure is essential for
Tanzania’s producers.
• Without proper infrastructure to get agricultural goods out of the country, producers
are not able to take advantage of export opportunities, curtailing options for ensuring
their livelihoods.
• As a coastal country bordered by several landlocked states, infrastructure
development could have a very positive benefit for several countries and millions of
producers in East and Southern Africa as well. Tanzanian business people noted
that President Kikwete is known for his amicable relations with countries in the
region, and felt that this could be the basis for creative regionally-synchronized
infrastructure development.
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Developing Human Resources: The recent Tanzania demographic growth study
revealed that secondary education achievement rates are low relative to other sub-
Saharan countries. As in many countries, women’s access to education lags behind that
of men’s. As a result, the human resource gaps for engaging successfully in markets
exist at all levels but is particularly marked with respect to women.
• People recognized that basic education is as important as technical skills, but this
would obviously be beyond the scope of Aid for Trade assistance.
• What should be incorporated in any Aid for Trade initiative is an effort to increase
skills directly needed by local entrepreneurs: marketing, accessing finance,
negotiations, packaging, customs facilitations, and so on. This should include a
gender aspect to ensure that women have access to knowledge and resources
necessary to take advantage of trade opportunities.
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As indicated by Tanzania’s coffee industry, market access does not guarantee market
entry. The Aid for Trade initiative is a unique opportunity to move the process of
market entry forward as well as bolster broad based growth that is employment
intensive, illustrated by the coffee sector. Through measures like those mentioned
above, trade has the potential to benefit hundreds of thousands of families in countries
like Tanzania, improving livelihoods and living conditions, and promoting human
development and basic human rights.
Moreover, by taking women producers and leaders into consideration in the architecture
and delivery of Aid for Trade, the initiative has potential to significantly improve the
opportunities for women to share in economic growth generated by
trade.
RESULT
Tanzania, a largely agrarian country, has not been able to fully take advantage of access
to international markets in the past. Coffee production and innovations in the industry
highlight the challenges faced by African countries, while providing examples of
initiatives that can be replicated by Aid for Trade in order to ensure the greatest possible
impact with respect to poverty reduction and market access.
One such initiative is KILICAFE, a farmer owned association that has been able to
dramatically improve the quality as well as the yield of coffee produced with assistance
from TechnoServe, an international non-profit organization focused on development of
businesses in rural areas. Higher quality coffee, supported by assisted marketing
services, has commanded prices twice as high as the regional average with the
consequence of substantially increased producer income. This allows for greater
provision of resources for human development and basic necessities for producers’
families and communities.
LESSON LEARNED
The role of NGO in welfarism (a key public relations activity) and sustainable
development are essential in the developing countries. ‘TechnoServe’s policy of
welfarism and sustainable development really helped these rural dwellers in improving
their per capital income and living standard.
APPENDIX
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Questions
114
COMMUNITY RELATIONS
115
COMMUNITY RELATIONS
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No. GDG-A-00CCCACA Chapter Thirteen
By Joseph De-Stefano
T
BACKGROUND
Improved access to education in underserved areas represented a critical challenge in
Egypt in the 1990s. Enrollment rates in Upper Egypt, especially for girls, were below
the national average, and many small communities in the southern half of the country
had virtually no schooling services. Education quality was also a national concern, and
the education system was seen as in crisis. An agreement between the United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Egyptian Ministry of Education launched the
community school initiative in Upper Egypt in 1992 as a “joint venture for quality
innovative education through genuine community participation,” according to Malak
Zaalouk on page 35 of 2004’s The Pedagogy of Empowerment: Community Schools as
a Social Movement in Egypt. The Ministry agreed to pay the salaries of teachers,
provide materials, and support curriculum and teacher training. UNICEF developed a
model for quality community-based education, designed to respond to the needs of
Upper Egypt’s underserved areas.
Rural parents in early 1990s Egypt were commonly perceived as not interested in
educating their daughters. Research commissioned by UNICEF at that time discovered
that parents and local religious leaders did not object in principle to girls’ education in
many cases and frequently expressed support and desire for it. However, the research
found that communities did object to the specific conditions under which traditional
education systems offered schooling, including:
• The safety of girls who had to walk to distant village schools;
• Classrooms with male or non-local teachers; and
• School hours that kept girls from contributing to their daily household economies.
This EQUIP2 Case Study looks at UNICEF and the Egyptian Ministry of Education’s
joint experience in Upper Egypt during the latter half of the 1990s and examines
the extent to which community schools successfully provided access, completion,
and learning, especially for girls, in three Upper Egypt governorates. The cost and
cost-effectiveness of the community schools are compared to government schools.
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Additionally, the study highlights features developed, tested, refined over time, and
deemed critical to the success of the model.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
OBJECTIVE:
While education data from mid-1990s Egypt can be considered suspect in the light of
enrollment rates reported at over 100 percent, Farrukh Iqbal and Nagwa Riad reported
the net enrollment rate reached 83 percent for girls and 90 percent for boys in 1996-
1997 in their paper for The World Bank, “Increasing Girls’ School Enrollment in the
Arab Republic of Egypt,” presented at Scaling Up Poverty Reduction:
A Global LearningProcess and Conference in 2004. However, national rates do not
distinguish the regions where enrollment rates were considerably lower. For example, in
the Assuit, Souhag, and Qena governorates where UNICEF’s community schools
project was concentrated, net enrollment rates for girls, reported as 63 percent, 61
percent, and 71 percent respectively in 1996-1997 by Iqbal and Riad, were well below
the national average.
Governorate-level statistics do not reveal that access—girls’ access in particular—was
most limited in Upper Egypt’s small, rural hamlets. These hamlets are usually a long
distance from a central village primary school. However, parents in surrounding villages
are reluctant to allow their daughters to walk to these village schools. As a result,
incertain rural areas of Upper Egypt, female enrollment rates were as low as 10 to 15
percent, according to Joseph Farrell in 2003’s “Case Study: The Egyptian Community
Schools Program.”
The UNICEF-Ministry project responded by specifically targeting small hamlets with at
least 50 out-of-school children. The pilot phase of the community schools project lasted
from 1992 to 1995 and established 38 schools that served 1,037 students, 63 percent of
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whom were girls. This case study focuses on the project’s development phase from
1995 to 1999, during which the community schools expanded to include 202 school
sites, enrolling 4,656 students, 70 percent of whom were girls, according to Zaalouk in
The Pedagogy of Empowerment.
Completion
In The Pedagogy of Empowerment, Zaalouk reports the community school grade five
completion rate in Assuit, Sohag, and Qena at 92 percent. Although disaggregated
data on .fth grade completion in Egypt is difficult to obtain, observed trends make it
safe to assume that the public school completion rate in rural Upper Egypt would be
considerably lower than the national rate of 90 percent reported by the World Bank in
2000. Zaalouk provides some data on primary school completion and the continuation
of community school students into secondary school and beyond:
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Learning
The community schools project emphasized assuring quality education for rural
children, especially girls. Student performance data reveal that the community school
model was a resounding success in terms of students able to pass official Ministry of
Education examinations in third and fifth grade. Zaalouk’s data in The Pedagogy of
Empowerment from 1997 through 2001 show that community school students in five
Assuit, Sohag, and Qena districts consistently outperformed their public school third
and fifth grade district counterparts. Community school third graders passed at an
average of 99 percent in 2001, compared to 87 percent in public schools in the same
districts. The average pass rate for community school fifth graders that year was 97
percent, compared to 73 percent in the counterpart public schools. The following chart
shows how consistently community school students outperformed their public school
counterparts from 1997 through 2001.
Transformation
Beyond the community schools’ education outcomes, their success has dramatically
changed certain aspects of life in Upper Egypt. According to Zaalouk, children in
community schools demonstrated a positive sense of self and their role as active
learners.
In particular, girls began to see themselves as educated, capable, and empowered.
Families have begun to value children’s schooling and have ceased consigning their
girls to labor and chores at the expense of education. Children have become role models
for their families and communities, helping adults see the importance of learning,
freedom, and progress. Community school governance has also provided Upper Egypt
with new decision-making processes and models of collective action.
Costs and Cost-Effectiveness
Analysis of cost-effectiveness reflects the different government, project, and local
community costs for and contributions to establishing and running community schools
in Upper Egypt. Available data make it possible to assess the start-up and operating
costs for project schools in 1998-1999, towards the end of the expansion phase. The
following table, with data from Zaalouk’s The Pedagogy of Empowerment, shows how
total costs were broken down.
5
Egypt Community School Project Costs by Partner
Source Category Amount (U.S. dollars)
S Source Category Amount
(U.S.$dollars)
Ministry of Education Facilitator salaries and books $253,172
Project Supervision (salaries and $71,711
transportation)
Project Training $94,557
Project Supplies $58,563
Project Administration $3,087
Community Schools TOTAL $431,090
Excluding land and buildings, the recurrent cost per pupil was $114 for 187 community
schools enrolling 4,208 students. Data on the cost of government schools in Egypt
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are difficult to locate. Zaalouk estimated national per pupil recurrent costs for public
schools in 1998-1999 at $164.
Unit costs and primary school completion and student learning data are used to compare
the cost-effectiveness of community schools and public schools. The following table
shows that community schools were considerably more cost-effective than public
schools at producing fifth grade completers who could pass the national examination in
Upper Egypt.
Community Participation
Education committees form at each school, functioning as local school boards. The
school curriculum and activities focus on the community’s work and are embedded
in the local culture. The community provides a school site in existing infrastructure
deemed suitable for the number of children to be enrolled, determines the hours and
days school will be in session, and participates in teacher selection. The school serves
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as a site for an integrated development approach, offering courses outside of regular
school hours, including parenting classes, preschool and daycare, non-formal adolescent
education, environmental education, and hygiene, health, and nutrition classes. Because
the Ministry of Education pays teacher salaries, and the Ministry and UNICEF supply
materials, the communities ensure that education remains truly free for students enrolled
in their schools. Community schools charge no fees, require no uniforms, nor impose
hidden costs. Moreover, the expensive private tutoring ubiquitous in Egypt is absent
from community schools.
Partnerships
From its inception, the Upper Egypt community schools model has relied on
collaboration between UNICEF and the Ministry of Education, which has ensured the
Ministry’s investment in the project’s success and sustainability—paying teacher
salaries, providing supplies, participating in staff training and school supervision, and
formally recognizing the community schools by issuing students official primary school
certificates at the end of fifth grade. The Ministry and other education institutions
helped develop a rigorous teacher training curriculum, refined the community school
curriculum and pedagogy, and administered student exams and evaluations.
Communities have also been essential partners by serving on education committees,
playing active roles in the schools, including teaching or supervising students. Local
nongovernmental organizations provide field presence for the establishment,
management, supervision, support, and ongoing evaluation of schools.
In community schools, children between the ages of six and 12 gain access to the
primary cycle. Classes are usually limited to 30 students in a multi-age group
supervised by two facilitators. Pupils are organized according to ability and the pace at
which they learn, but within the same classroom. Facilitators and teachers tailor
activities to each group, allowing higher-paced students to sometimes complete the
primary cycle in three years. Instruction is child-centered, and cooperative learning is
widely practiced.
Facilitators and children develop materials together that are used in the classroom.
The program draws on the experience, values, and inputs of an entire network of local
community members, program staff, government representatives, nongovernmental
organizations, and Ministry of Education staff at the district, governorate, and national
level. The instructional methods are based on the best existing research on multi-grade
classrooms and girl-friendly methods. According to Ash Hartwell’s paper prepared for
the 1997 Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) Conference, “Applying
What We Know about Learning to Projects: The Experience of Community Schools
in Upper Egypt,” school is scheduled, space is organized, furnishings are chosen, and a
variety of instructional materials are developed to maximize students’ opportunities for
self- and peer-directed learning.
In “Case Study: The Egyptian Community Schools Program,” Farrell painted a vivid
picture of community school pedagogy and instructional activities. Learning is
selfdirected to a large extent, with students spending a significant portion of the day
working individually or in small groups on self-planned projects in ‘learning corners’
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devoted to Arabic, math, science, general knowledge, and art. Students are required
to report to the entire class on their individual work at the end of each school day. A
shorter portion of each day is devoted to whole class activity directed by the facilitators,
individual students, or small groups, which may also involve presentations by adult
community members with special knowledge in a particular curricular area. The class
may also engage in discussion of a given issue or plan a presentation for the
community, involving skits, songs, dances, and games.
Young women are recruited locally to be facilitators, with special attention paid to their
capacity for innovation, creativity, and sensitivity to children’s needs. They are required
to have an intermediate level of education equivalent to primary plus three years of
lower secondary, usually making them among the most educated women in the
community.
The education committee interviews candidates to select a core group and reserves to
train for each class. Reserves substitute for absent facilitators or travel around to support
other facilitators. Facilitators undergo rigorous pre-service training in three phases. The
initial orientation workshop is residential, lasts eight to 10 days, and introduces
participants to the principles governing the community schools, including problem
solving, planning, scientific thinking, and communication skills. According to Zaalouk
on page 58 of The Pedagogy of Empowerment, participants experience “relationships
that are quite different from the authoritarian formats they are accustomed to,” stressing
teamwork. A second pre-service residential workshop also lasting eight to 10 days
addresses activity-based learning and includes subjects such as lesson planning,
authentic student evaluation, creating learning activities and materials, grouping, and
classroom management through student participation. The third pre-service training
activity includes two to four weeks of classroom observations in existing community
schools, emphasizing open-ended questions to stimulate effective student thinking and
understanding.: Egypt Community School
Upon completion of the three phases of pre-service training, new facilitators are
officially recognized as members of the Egyptian teaching force. They are paid by the
Egyptian government based on a salary rate established within the national teacher
salary grid at a level below formally certified primary teachers who have completed a
program at a University Faculty of Education. Refresher training is also provided every
other year and targets both community school facilitators and teachers in government
supported one classroom schools.
In addition to their preparatory training, ongoing facilitator in-service is a continuous
and intensive process. Facilitators engage in scheduled end-of-class daily meetings
with their partners that provide time for self-reflection and exchange of ideas for
improvement. In these daily meetings, facilitators note questions or issues to bring up
at the weekly meetings with cluster supervisors, which help facilitators solve problems
and plan collectively based on others’ experiences. These weekly meetings often also
include teachers and supervisors from the one-classroom schools in the district. Every
two weeks, the facilitators in each school meet with the local school committee to get
feedback from parents and community members on their work and discuss how to
address problems.
In addition to ongoing in-service training, a supervisory and support system ensures
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the quality and continuous improvement of instruction. A field supervisory team and
a technical supervisory team manage and monitor the community schools initiative,
both of which supervise and direct the schools and carry out on-the-job training. These
teams also handle ongoing evaluation and maintain links between the schools and
communities, as well as expanding a network of affiliates who offer special expertise to
facilitators, including universities and nongovernmental organizations.
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On pages 173-174 of The Pedagogy of Empowerment, Zaalouk identifies six pieces of
institutional infrastructure in Egypt that are critical to dissemination and sustenance of
the community schools’ impact:
• The Education Innovation Committee shaped education policy to support
• innovation and acted as a think tank and source of technical support for the
• implementation of quality standards. Several key ministerial decrees to promote
• education innovation are attributed to the Education Innovation Committee’s
• work. When the government chose to launch its one-classroom schools, the
• Education Innovation Committee linked the community schools’ experience to
• the model’s development. The committee also communicates the community
• schools’ lessons to mainstream Egyptian elementary schools through the development
and implementation of education standards.
• The Ministry of Education’s nongovernmental organization department provides an
• official channel to promote and set up partnerships between government and civil
• society actors supported by external or internal donors.
• The Center for Curriculum and Instructional Materials Development draws on the
• experience of teachers making instructional materials that successfully promote active
• learning in their classrooms. It puts together kits of materials and teachers’ manuals
• for use throughout Egypt.
• The National Center for Examinations and Educational Evaluations has worked with
• the community schools initiative to develop indicators of effective schools that serve
• as guidelines for school accreditation.
Meeting EFA: Egypt Community Schools
10
The general strategy was never to directly expand the community schools system. The
objectives were to keep the system relatively small, maintain and evaluate its quality,
and diffuse lessons first to the one-classroom schools system, followed by the
mainstream primary school system.
An agreement with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) provided
funding to expand the community schools system from around 200 to a maximum
of 300 schools in the original three governorates of Upper Egypt. The agreement also
facilitated linkages between community schools and the one-classroom schools in those
governorates. The project includes a provision for transferring 25 well-established
community schools from UNICEF to the Egyptian Ministry of Education every year,
with UNICEF adding 25 new schools each year to its system, therefore maintaining the
target maximum of 300 schools.
Thus, the current phase of the community school initiative includes ongoing operation
of schools, direct transfer of schools to the Ministry system, and continued diffusion
of lessons learned. For example, the basic pedagogical model is influencing other
areas in Egypt through additional donor-supported efforts. International donor-
supported
programs have included part of the community schools pedagogical model
in their assistance to the Ministry of Education, including major projects supported
by the World Bank/European Community, the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID), and CARE.
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RESULT
Apart from the community schools’ education outcomes, their success changed certain
aspects of life in Upper Egypt. Children in community schools demonstrated a positive
sense of self and their role as active learners. In particular, girls began to see themselves
as educated, capable, and empowered.
Families have begun to value children’s schooling and have ceased consigning their
girls to labor and chores at the expense of education. Children have become role models
for their families and communities, helping adults see the importance of learning,
freedom, and progress. Community school governance has also provided Upper Egypt
with new decision-making processes and models of collective action.
LESSON LEARNED
QUESTIONS
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References
Farrell, Joseph. December 2003. “Case Study: The Egyptian Community Schools
Program.”
Hartwell, Ash. March 1997. “Applying What We Know about Learning to Projects:
The Experience of Community Schools in Upper Egypt.” Paper presented at the
Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) Conference in Mexico City,
Mexico.
Iqbal, Farrukh, and Nagwa Riad. May 2004. “Increasing Girls’ School Enrollment
in the Arab Republic of Egypt.” Paper prepared for The World Bank and presented at
Scaling Up Poverty Reduction: A Global Learning Process and Conference in Shanghai,
China.
Zaalouk, Malak. 2004. The Pedagogy of Empowerment: Community Schools as a Social
Movement in Egypt. Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press.
Acknowledgement
This paper was written for EQUIP2 by Joseph DeStefano (Center for Collaboration
and the Future of Schooling), 2006, and draws heavily on a comprehensive study
and analysis of the UNICEF community schools project done by Malak Zaalouk in
The Pedagogy of Empowerment: Community Schools as a Social Movement in Egypt.
Source: EQUIP2
APPENDIX
This paper was written for EQUIP2 by Joseph DeStefano (Center for Collaboration
and the Future of Schooling), 2006, and draws heavily on a comprehensive study
and analysis of the UNICEF community schools project done by Malak Zaalouk in
The Pedagogy of Empowerment: Community Schools as a Social Movement in Egypt.
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Chapter Fourteen
BACKGROUND
In an ideal society, the police at all times ought to be servants of the people. If
this is the case there would be no antagonism and hostility between the police
and the communities they serve. However, the literature on police and policing
reveals that the police are often in conflict with a significant percentage of the
population in almost all countries of the world (Alemika, 1999; Reiner, 2000;
Alemika and Chukwuma, 2000). This is so for largely two factors. Firstly,
modern societies are diverse in economic, social and cultural
compositions, which means that the police cannot be neutral in respect of
competing and sometimes antagonistic class relations no matter how hard they
try. Secondly and perhaps most importantly police are agencies of the state
employed to maintain the social order in which the interests of the rulers and the
dominant economic class are paramount.
Therefore, police enforcement of the laws and maintenance of social order
which promote the interests of the rulers to the detriment of the majority of the
population, inevitably put them in hostile relations with their host communities
across countries (Alemika, 1999).
However, the nature and extent of police-community antagonism differs from
one society to another; from one government to another; and of course from
one police force to another. Among the major determining factors are:
1. The social structure of the society: The more unequal and uncaring a social
order is the more hostile the relationship between the police and the
marginalized sections of the society would be.
2. Police internal control systems: If the police internal control system is
proactive, internalized by police officers and rigorously enforced through formal
and informal mechanisms, the police in that society would be less disposed to
antagonizing the communities they serve.
3. The nature, scope and extent of contact between the police and the
community serve: If the scope and nature of interactions between the police and
the community they serve are restricted to involuntary law enforcement
encounters such as arrests, stop and search encounters, detention etc. the
relationship that would ensue from such contacts would be involuntary and
hostile. Whereas if the people and the police have other avenues of meeting
and understanding each other their relationship would be less hostile and
friendly.
Our argument in this paper is that a combination of unequal social order; weak
police internal control system and the largely involuntary nature of police-
community interactions in Nigeria have made police community relations in the
country one of the most antagonistic and hostile in the world. It therefore means
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that if the relationship between the Nigeria police Force and the people of
Nigeria is to improve, reform efforts would have to target the three levels
identified above and tackle them almost simultaneously. The paper is divided
into four sections. Section one looks at the social structure of Nigeria in which
the police discharge their functions and its impact on the
relations between them and the people they police. Section two critiques the
internal system of the Nigeria Police Force. Section three provides an analysis
of the nature and scope of contact between the police and the Nigerian people.
Finally, section four concludes the paper and recommends steps that should be
taken by government, police and civil society groups to improve police-
community relations and partnership in Nigeria.
1. Social Structure and Policing in Nigeria
In his article on police community relations in Nigeria, what went wrong,
Alemika (1999:73) argues that, “any attempt to understand policing and police-
community relations must begin with the analysis of the social structure that is
policed.” This is so because police forces are created to defend the prevailing
social, economic and political structure and in very substantive ways mirror the
contradictions and conflicts as well as human cooperation in society. According
to Coatman (1959: 8): … a student of the political institutions of any country
desirous of understanding the “ethos” of any country’s government can hardly
do better than make a close study of its police system, which will provide him
with a good measuring rod of the actual extent to which its government is free
or authoritarian.
If the police mirror the contradictions in society, their relationship with the
community they serves must inevitably reflect the political, social and economic
divisions in society.
Thus the character of police-community relations will be determined by the
extent of division, inequality and conflicts between the rulers and the rest of the
society as well as the extent to which every member of the society have a
sense of belonging and wellbeing.
Consequently, police-community relations will be less hostile and friendly if
society:
• Runs a democratic system of government in content and posture;
• Maintains an economic system in which concern for growth, equity and welfare
of all the citizens are given priority attention;
• Maintains legislative and judicial systems, which ensures adherence to the
rule of law by the low and mighty as well as the protection and promotion of
human rights.
Conversely, a totalitarian or repressive regime will create conditions for hostile
police-community relations. The pillar of a totalitarian society, argues Alemika
(1999) is a police state.
In Nigeria, it cannot be argued that the economic, social and political system
has remained largely exploitative and oppressive of the vast majority of the
citizens. Consequently, the Nigerian police in trying to conserve and reproduce
that status quo have conducted and continued to conduct themselves in
manners that are adversarial to the oppressed and marginal strata of the
Nigerian society and by so doing setting the stage for the continuing conflictual
relationship they have with the majority of the population.
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The struggles for decolonization and independence in Nigeria were vigorously
waged and predicated on the belief by the majority of the anti-colonial activists
and ordinary people that self governance, which political independence
promised would bring an end to the oppression and exploitation, and a
transformation of the socio-political and economic forces and institutions that
sustain them, which includes the Nigeria Police Force. But that did not happen.
in the case of the police, Adisa, (1999:7) notes:
Many people thought that from being the enemies of the people the police
would become friends of the people as well as the custodians of law and order
in society.
Regrettably, this has not turned out to be so. Almost four decades after
independence, the police are yet to change its orientation to a people oriented
police force….
The police could not change the hostile character of its relationship with the
people at independence because the unequal economic, social and political
structure of the Nigerian society did not undergo any radical change in 1960.
What the country witnessed was change of the color of the rulers and not the
content of their character or manner of behaviour. They retained all the colonial
oppressive structures and policies and used the police to enforce them.
Consequently, the police have continued to be accountable to the rulers (as
they did under colonial rule) who often are neither legitimate representatives of
the citizens nor accountable to the people. The first and fundamental problem
with police-community relations in the country is that the nation’s successive
governments were largely not expression of aspirations, interests and will of the
people. They were often usurpers of people’s power and sovereignty through
violence (coup) and electoral fraud; exploiters of the people, as well as mass
poverty, ignorance, homelessness, ill-health,
etc. on the vast majority of the population. These conditions foster antagonism
between the government and the citizens. Police are recruited to suppress the
opposition of the citizens against government. In the circumstances, police-
community relations cannot but be hostile (Alemika, 1999). The next section
looks at the internal control systems in the Nigerian police.
2. Internal Control System of the Nigeria Police Force
Internal control systems can be defined in general terms as core values,
processes and mechanisms through which police authorities regulate and guide
the daily activities of their institutions and confront individual acts of wrongdoing.
They also offer an important line of defense against corruption and abuse in a
police force and provide a key measure of police authorities’ will to hold their
personnel accountable for abuse and other misconduct or inappropriate
behavior and by so doing promote positive relations with the
community (Neild, 2000). When effective, internal controls systems can assist in
analyzing and changing the regulatory and management systems and practices
of the police to refine their capabilities and improve their performance, both in
their effectiveness and ethics.
Generally speaking, there are different types and levels of internal controls in
every police force. These include training, core values, regulations, procedural
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manuals, code of conduct and disciplinary mechanisms. In this section, we shall
focus on examining the disciplinary mechanisms in the Nigeria Police Force as
the mechanism whose activities that directly affects police-community relations
in the country.
The Nigeria Police Force has a multi-layered internal disciplinary system that
can theoretically be invoked by members of the public that are aggrieved by
acts of police misconduct. These mechanisms include verbal or written
complaints to any superior police officer about acts of misconduct involving his
or her subordinates and if the complainant is dissatisfied with the action of the
superior officer could complain to higher officers including the office of the
Inspector General of Police. Such complaints could also be sent to the police
Public Complaints Bureau (PCB) located in the police public relations
department of every state police command or to the police Provost Department
at the Force headquarters, which are responsible for investigating acts that
negate police ethics and profession with a view to finding out the genuineness
of such complaints or otherwise (Ogbonna, 2001). The police provost
department is also responsible for conducting orderly room trial against erring
police officers (Ogbonna,2001).
Within the offices of the Force Criminal investigation Department (FCID), there
is also the X-Squad made up of plain clothes police personnel who occasionally
conduct surveillance on the activities of patrol officers and those on checkpoint
or stop and search duties. Successive Inspectors General of Police also
established ad hoc monitoring units that reported directly to them and are
usually called IGP’s Monitoring Unit (MU). A review of these internal disciplinary
mechanisms within the Nigeria Police Force reveals that they are highly
discriminatory against the poor, reactive in nature instead of proactive,
accorded less attention in terms of budget and are unwieldy or haphazard in
coordination.
Reactive and Discriminatory
It is usually only when the police are being vilified by the press for egregious
violations of human rights such as extra-judicial killing or when the victim is a
prominent person that you mostly hear about their internal disciplinary systems.
On those occasions the police would either dismiss such erring officers from
service or quickly convoke orderly
room trials ostensibly to douse public anger against the activities of its officers.
While it could be argued that the number of police officers investigated or
disciplined for acts of misconduct has greatly increased since the inauguration
of an elected government in 1999, information or statistics on culprits, their
offences and the processes through which they were disciplined are hardly
available in the public domain. The list of the individuals is only provided
reactively and on an ad hoc basis when the police come under severe public
criticisms for not doing much to bring its erring members to book. Furthermore,
you cannot simply work into a police station and get statistics on complaints or
even commendations that officers have received in the course of their work
within a given period. You usually have to apply and go several times before
they would be made available to you, if at all they do. This gives the impression
that such statistics are prepared to suit the occasion in question and not a
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routine or regular feature of police work and administration, which would have
assisted them in tracking officers that are
subjects of unusually high number of complaints and disciplinary sanctions.
Discipline as a less priority
Successive chiefs of police at federal and state level in Nigeria have failed to
recognize discipline and disciplinary mechanism as tools that could be used in a
fair and consistent manner to remove those police officials who are undermining
police effective and improved pubic relations in the country. This could be
gleaned from the priority areas of concern, resource allocation to disciplinary
mechanisms and more importantly absence of periodic review of the disciplinary
system. Police authorities in Nigeria hardly publish priority areas of concern of
their administration. And when they do, such articulation rarely goes beyond
identification of armed robbery and establishment of ad hoc taskforces to tackle
it, which hardly provides more that momentary succor. Exceptions to this rule
was the eight-point agenda drawn up by the former Inspector General of Police,
and the elaborate 10-point priority agenda published by the current Inspector
General of Police, on assumption of office in January 2005. These two priority
agenda (especially the fairly elaborate one drawn by the current Inspector
General strategy) are commendable given the fact that they are innovations in
the contemporary history of the Nigeria Police Force. However, there is
absence of a plan for their implementation or measurable indicators or
benchmarks for evaluating them. In the final analysis, the priority agenda
become mere shopping lists rather than well articulated strategies for police
transformation.
Lack of budgetary Allocation
A further proof that discipline has low placement in the Nigeria Police Force,
can be seen from the fact that none of the disciplinary mechanisms in the
Nigeria Police has an annual budget for its operations. The personnel are
equally not provided with the logistics such as transportation to the scene of
inquiry rapidly and investigate citizens’ complaint against the police. Almost all
of these mechanisms, especially those at the state level such
as the police Public Complaints Bureaus (PCB) have no writing materials for
recording complaints, working telephone lines, fax machine and computer sets
for keeping tracks of the complaints. They depend on rare handouts from the
police authorities to carry out their functions, which enables them to achieve
anything but contempt from the citizens.
As a result citizens lack confidence in them and rarely bother to send their
complaints to them. A fall out of the resource constraints facing them and the
low status they enjoy in police hierarchy of issues of importance is that the
internal disciplinary mechanisms are hardly evaluated to find out how they are
performing by the police authorities and what are required to make them
perform optimally.
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information or statistics they generate; the casual manner with which most
complaints against the police are received and treated; and the fact that there is
no mandatory record keeping and tracking system to provide some protection
against police efforts to dismiss or cover up complaints.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Police and citizens are in constant daily contacts. These contacts may be
voluntary or involuntary. The nature, extent and scope of contacts influence
police-public relations. According to White et al (1991: 20):
Interacting with citizens constitutes an important part of a police officer's daily
activities. Many aspects of these interactions have the potential for influencing
how the police and citizens perceive and evaluate each other ... Research over
the years has established the fact that contacts between the officers and
citizens influence police-community relations in major ways, often for the worse
...Citizens often bring to the interaction an array of attitudes and preconceived
notions about the police and their conduct... Likewise, the officer brings to the
interaction a similar attitude of presumptions, prejudices, and perceptions of the
citizen. Prior research has established that the officer is sometimes ...
prejudiced, callused by contacts with undesirable and unrepresentative
population elements, and is trained to assert authoritative control in these
contacts. In addition, the police culture abounds with perceptions of the public
as uncooperative, unsupportive, and antagonistic towards the police.1
Police-citizen contacts are characterized by prejudice and preconceived
notions. The citizens, therefore, tend to resist the police and the latter try to
assert their authority. These are two important factors in police-citizens
violence. Antagonism and violence between the police and citizen tend to be
higher in societies where the police concentrate on law enforcement than in
societies where the police blend law enforcement and social welfare services.
Except the police see themselves as "part of the social fabric of a community,
they will be perceived as an alien force, and, unless they are clearly visible in
their roles of helping people in trouble, they will be seen as a mercenary army of
enforcers."1 In Nigeria, the "acute shortage of personnel has reduced the police
to crime fighters [which they do very ineffectively due to qualitative and
inadequacy of men, material and money] to the detriment of the diversification
of police functions found in western societies."2 The provision of social services
by the police creates opportunities for non-coercive contacts between them and
citizens. In Nigeria:
Few members of the public see the police as friends, instead the sight of police
is considered synonymous with trouble. This is partly because in the absence of
a social service dimension in police work in Nigeria, the police pre-occupations
or routine police work revolve around stop and question/search, arrest, crime
investigation, detention, prosecution, riot and crowd control, and armed combat
against violent criminals and guarding of the rich and powerful. Consequently,
there are rather too few positive attributes of policing that can be projected.
OBJECTIVE:
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To identify the root causes of police-community violence in Nigeria.
METHOD
In year 2000, the CLEEN Foundation conducted a national study on the root
causes of police-community violence in Nigeria, in which questions where
introduced to gauge the nature, extent and scope of contact between the police.
This research shows that there is an extensive contact between the citizens and
police in Nigeria. Such contacts occur in the course of police operations in the
following areas:
•Crime prevention, especially through stop and search at road blocks
(checkpoints) on highways;
•Crowd and riot control;
•Detection, investigation, apprehension and prosecution of offenders;
•Detention;
•Bail of suspects, pending or prior to arraignment in court;
•Request of assistance by crime victims;
•Request for location of missing persons and recovery of lost properties.
The study found out that 68 percent of the respondents had ever been stopped
and searched by the Nigeria Police and that most of the contacts took place in a
vehicle while on a journey. The data further shows that about a third (33.8%) of
the respondents had ever been arrested before by the police. Among those
arrested, over 50 percent of them had been arrested twice or more. Many of
them were arrested for traffic offences (27%); fighting or assault (22.2%); theft
(18.3%) and strike or protest (13.3%). The data also
reveal that less than a third (28.3%) of the respondents had ever been detained
for three of fewer days.
This information show that police and citizen contacts, though relatively
significant, have occurred mostly in pursuance of law enforcement objectives by
police. The restrictive contacts between the police and citizens in Nigeria,
against the background of the country’s political and economic structures
discussed in the preceding section, contribute to or escalate mutual hostility
between the police and citizens, which occasionally results into violent
encounter. The frequency, content and consequences of contact between the
police and citizens are not randomly distributed. The poor and powerless,
according to criminological literature are disproportionately and discriminately
subject to police surveillance and violence (Hahn, 1970; Alemika, 1993).
Police-citizens contacts have significant impact on police-public relations. For
example, in Nigeria, certain groups in the public (students, the educated, some
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occupations, e.g. taxi drivers) have a much more negative view of the police
than does the general public, which having little education and knowledge of
their rights and much experience with the police.
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Table 2: Occupation and stop/search, arrest and detention
Ever stopped and Ever arrested by Ever detained by
searched by police? police?
police?
Yes No Yes No Yes No
Unemploye 60 43 21 81 17 77
d (58.3%) (41.7%) (20.6%) (79.4%) (18.1%) (81.9%)
Farming 25 18 17 27 17 25
and petty (58.1%) (41.9%) (38.6%) (61.4%) (40.5%) (59.5%)
trading
Commercial 58 6 46 18 35 29
driver &park (90.6%) (9.4%) (79.1%) (28.1%) (54.7%) (45.3%)
joint
Junior 19 24 12 29 8 30
employees (44.2%) (55.8%) (29.3%) (70.7%) (21.1%) (78.9%)
Intermediate 35 15 13 34 14 33
employees (70.0%) (30.0%) (27.7%) (72.3%) (29.8%) (70.2%)
Senior 92 23 32 84 24 77
employees (80.0%) (20.0%) (27.6%) (72.4%) (23.8%) (76.2%)
Business 57 22 31 48 26 48
men (72,2%) (21.8%) (39.2%) (60.8%) (35.1%) (64.9%)
Others, 78 40 35 81 20 87
including (66.1%) (33.9%) (30.2%) (69.8%) (18.7%) (81.3%)
students
X2=41.6;df=7p<0.0 X2=54.6;df=7p<0.0 X2=38.4;df=7p<0.0
1 1 1
Source : Alemika and Chukwuma,2000.
RESULT
The data show that respondents had relatively high level of contacts with the
police. The contacts were in the form of stop and search, arrest and detention.
These are forms of involuntary contacts, which in effect impinge on citizens'
freedom and may heighten police-citizen hostility. An irony of increased police
surveillance and proactive aggressive policing tactics in order to prevent and
control crime, according to Wilson (1975: 121) is that they tend to:
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Multiply the occasions on which citizens are likely to be stopped, questioned or
observed. Inevitably, the great majority of the persons stopped will be innocent
of any wrongdoing; inevitably many of these innocent persons believe the police
are harassing them….
The frequent contact between citizens and police who, in the course of their
duties, are uncivil to the public and who sometimes abuse their power to extort
money are sources of violence between the police and citizens. Citizens
become defiant if police are uncivil and corrupt. The police interpret the defiant
demeanor of the citizens as a challenge to their authority, and may sometimes
resort to violence in order to assert their authority.
LESSON LEARNED
137
hierarchy of government and private institutions. The existence of corruption at
these levels, encourage corruption at other levels, especially by law
enforcement agents. Effective anti-corruption programme in the country will also
promote effective and efficient allocation and management of resources for
national development and provision of social services.
3. The Leadership of the police in Nigeria needs to make police discipline a
national functional policing priority and it needs to start from the top. The
importance of leadership as a driving force for culture change in policing
institutions has long been identified in the literature (Whisen and Ferguson
1989, Newman 2000). In this regard, the police hierarchy should see
disciplinary system as a tool for achieving their values, mission and vision.
Disciplinary system can be used proactively to promote a new culture and
establish minimum standards for the police as a whole. The system could then
be used not only to set clear standards for the institution but could also be used
in a fair and consistent manner to remove those police members who are
undermining the transformation and effectiveness of the NPF.
4. The police code of conduct contained in the Police Act should be reviewed.
This review should seek to reduce the rather lengthy to code to size that could
easily be memorized and internalized by police officials in Nigeria. It should
emphasize the service nature of police and incorporate standards contained the
United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials as well as drawn
inference from the more recent guidelines on the conduct of police officers on
electoral duty in Nigeria. Towards this end, a committee should be set up with
members from the or Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Nigeria Police
Force to review the code. They should also solicit the inputs of civil society
groups working on police reform in Nigeria.
5. The police leadership needs to streamline the unusually high number of
disciplinary mechanisms that presently exist in the force, as they make their
work not only ineffective through unnecessary duplications but also create
problems in tracking police personnel that are processed through them. For
instance there is nothing wrong with merging the work of the police X-squad
and Human Rights Units with the police public complaints Bureau (PCB) since
the three bodies are involved in processing cases of police misconduct and
abuse of human rights. Similarly, the tendency of successive IGPs to establish
their own ad hoc mechanism for dealing with police abuse such as corruption
and human rights violation should be stopped as they create coordination
problems and tend to undermine existing mechanisms. Rather such extant
mechanisms should be assisted with resources and personnel to make them
more effective.
6. Processes for receiving complaints should include mandatory record keeping
and tracking systems to provide some protection against police efforts to
dismiss or cover up complaints. Any process by which complaints are screened
in order to evaluate which merit a full investigation must be open to public
scrutiny to assure that dismissals are valid. Similarly the complaints process
should provide guarantees for the security for the complainant against any
potential threats or reprisals. The police must also make clear that they will
punish any effort to intimidate or retaliate against complainants.
138
7. The scope of contacts between the police and citizens should be enlarged to
include social services delivery by police and regular non law enforcement
related meetings should be held with communities in order to create favourable
environment for public cooperation with police, in their law enforcement duties.
8. Members of the public should be educated on the role and powers of police,
and the significance of public cooperation with police in order to promote an
overall individual, community and national security.
9. Policemen and women should be thoroughly screened and tested during their
initial training to ensure that they possess good character, and are emotionally
stable before they are finally enlisted.
10. The pace and scope of the on going police reform process with emphasis
on community partnership and problem-oriented policing strategy should be
increased and vigorous public enlightenment campaign about the programme
should be launched in collaboration with civil society groups in the country for
members of the public to know what it is all about.
11. Finally, civil society organizations need to create programmes, activities and
measures that will enhance partnership and cooperation between the public and
police. Additionally, the organizations should empower citizens to ensure police
accountability and effectiveness in their service delivery functions. Civil society
groups can promote these through the mobilization of the public in support of
police legitimate efforts as well as the mobilization of citizens against abuse of
authority/power, brutality and violence, insensitivity incivility and ineffectiveness
by police. Civil society institutions should maintain a strong monitoring,
research, training and advocacy capacity on police work in the country.
QUESTIONS
1. What are the causes of hostility between the police and the masses in
Nigeria?.
2. How will you determine the causes of hostility between the police and the
masses in your community?, outline your programme of action.
3. Having identified the problems between the police and the masses,
design a PR blue print for effective police-community relations for your
community.
4. Is PR department essential in any police organization?, discuss.
139
References
Adisa, J (1999) “A New Nigerian Police Image: its Role in the Next Millennium”
Text of a lecture delivered at a seminar organized for Assistant Inspectors –
General and Commissioners of Police by the Nigeria Police Force at the
International Conference Centre Abuja, October 19-20
Alemika E.E.O. (1993) ‘Colonialism, State and Policing in Nigeria” Crime, Law
and Social Change (20) 187-219
Alemika E. E. O. (1999) “Police-Community Relations in Nigeria: What Went
Wrong?” in I .Chukwuma and I. Ifowodo (eds.) Policing a Democracy, Lagos:
Centre for Law Enforcement Education.
Alemika E. and Chukwuma I. (2000) Police-Community Violence in Nigeria,
Lagos: Centre for Law Enforcement Education.
Asemota, S. A. (1993) “Policing under Civilian and Military Administrations”, in
T. N. Tamuno et al (eds.) Policing Nigeria: Past, Present and Future, Lagos:
Malthouse Press Limited.,
Chukwuma, I (1994) Above the Law: A Report on Torture and Extra-Judicial
Killings by the Police in Nigeria, Lagos: Civil Liberties Organisation;
Chukwuma, I and Ibidapo-Obe (1995) (eds.) Law Enforcement and Human
Rights in Nigeria, Lagos: Civil Liberties Organisation.
Chukwuma, I. (2001) “Guarding the Guardian in Nigeria”, Law Enforcement
Review, June 2001.
Coatman, J. (1959) The Police Oxford University Press
Miller, J. Bland, N. and Quinton, P. (2000) the Impact of Stops and Searches on
Crime and the Community, London: Home Office
Morgan, R. and Newburn, T. (1997), The Future of Policing, Oxford: Clarendon
Press
Neild, R (2000), “Internal Controls and Disciplinary units” in Themes and
Debates in Public Security System: A manual for Civil Society, Washington DC:
WOLA.
Newburn, T. (1995) Crime and Criminal Justice Police, London: Longman
Newman, G (2000) Transformation and the Internal Disciplinary System of the
South African Police Service, Johannesburg: Centre for the Study o Violence
and Reconciliation.
Nowrojee, B. (1992) The Nigeria Police Force: A Culture of Impunity, New York:
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
Nwankwo C. et al (1993) Human Rights Practices in the Nigerian Police, Lagos:
Constitutional Rights Project.
Ogbonna C. (2001) “Handling of Complaints against Police” paper presented at
the Police-Community Partnership Workshop in Ahiazu Mbaise Local
Government Council, Imo State in November 2001.
Okoro C. I. (2002) “How Citizens Can Process Complaint with the Police”,
Paper presented at the Police-Community Partnership Workshop in Abak Local
Government Council of Akwa Ibom State in August 2002.
Reiner, R. (2000) The Politics of the Police, Oxford: Oxford University Press
140
Reiner, R (1989) in R. Morgan and S. Smith (eds.) Coming to Terms with
Policing,London: Routledge.
INTERNATIONAL PR
141
INTERNATIONAL PR
142
Chapter Fifteen
BACKGROUND
The continent of Africa bears the largest human burden of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In
the absence of a cure for AIDS, accurate and relevant messages on prevention, care and
support are necessary to reduce prevailing stigma and bring about behavior change.
Information about malaria drug policies and TB treatment strategies can save lives – if
people know about them.
The African media, therefore, have an important role to play in helping to prevent, cure
and better understand these public health issues. This role goes beyond simply reporting
the latest statistics. It requires holding governments accountable for their actions and
reporting on the human face of disease. It goes beyond merely reporting facts to
questioning actions, recording the lives of those living with major illness, and helping
save those lives.
In 2002, working with a $1.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
the International Women’s Media Foundation created the Maisha Yetu project to
enhance the quality and consistency of reporting on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in
Africa. Maisha Yetu was created to give African media the means to become more
responsive to their communities and to magnify their efforts in reporting on health.
Maisha Yetu means “Our Lives” in Swahili.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The role of the media as the means of effective dissemination of information goes
beyond telling the news but having educative and informative programs that will
enlighten the masses on essential issues.
The African media role of educating and informing the masses of essential issues not
just telling the news is at low ebb.
The African media, therefore, have an important role to play in helping to prevent, cure
and the masses having better understanding of public health issues. This role goes
beyond simply reporting the latest statistics. It requires holding governments
accountable for their actions and reporting on the human face of disease. It goes beyond
merely reporting facts to questioning actions, recording the lives of those living with
major illness, and helping save those lives.
OBJECTIVE:
143
To make African media play an important role in helping to prevent, cure and make the
masses have better understand these public health issues.
METHOD
Journalists with experience as health reporters in each of these countries were selected
to become local trainers. The local trainers, in collaboration with Harare-based project
manager Aulora Stally, designed individual plans based on each country’s and each
media house’s needs to move Maisha Yetu into newsrooms. The local trainers were:
Tidiane Kasse (Senegal), Otula Owuor (Kenya) and Beata Kasale (Botswana).
Between March 2005 and March 2006, the Centers of Excellence held more than 20
skills-building workshops and trained some 1,000 journalists. The training was designed
to link HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria to wider social and development issues as well as
provide basic skills journalists need to cover health.
Women comprised at least half of participants in these workshops. Journalists from
beats other than health and newsroom managers were also encouraged to attend
workshops in an effort to spread health reporting to other news areas, such as
economics, politics and features.
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RESULT
LESSON LEARNED
The success of any PR campaign lies in the planning and execution of such campaign,
and also the constant evaluation, in-order to keep the planners and the executors on their
toes of achieving the set goals and objectives. Evaluation becomes easier and better, if a
measurable evaluation method is established.
This PR campaign could be said to be successful because the quantitative evaluating
measures established for these three African countries regions, south, east and west
before the commencement of the campaign were evaluated at the end, the results
reflected that the campaign in these countries was successful.
145
QUESTIONS
1. What is Maisha Yetu?, why was it created?, how will you rate its
performance?.
2. Design a media campaign plan on health for 3 countries in different
regions of Africa, what are the factors you will consider in designing the
plan.
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Chapter Sixteen
This case study is on international public relations. It was conducted in four countries in
two sub-continents, East Africa (Kenya and Uganda) and Southern Africa (Lesotho and
Malawi).
BACKGROUND
In Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, and Uganda, free primary education (FPE) was viewed as a
step toward achieving universal basic education and as part of scaling up poverty reduction.
The removal of school fees contributed to poverty reduction by ensuring universal access to
basic education, which in turn could help break the cycle of poverty. It is a significant
intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is lagging behind in achieving universal primary
education (UPE). The four countries represent different stages of the process over time,
using different scales, and different approaches under different political, social, and
economical contexts.
Universal basic education is largely understood as universal primary schooling. Only
after the Jomtien conference on Education for All (EFA) in 1990 was it understood that by
making primary education free would it include children from poor families and thereby
perhaps become universal. Schooling costs for families are a major constraint to achieving
UPE. Direct costs can include general fees, examination fees, salary top-ups, textbooks,
materials, uniform, feeding, transportation, sports and culture. Indirect costs are the
opportunity cost of labor at home or work. By eliminating direct costs of schooling, families
could send their children to primary school, thus increasing demand. On the supply side,
very few school systems in Africa were keyed to education for all from the outset, and a
strategy combining the elimination of fees together with the reform of the EFA system is
needed.
Similarities and differences in the educational systems and resources of
the four countries
The educational systems in Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, and Uganda share several key
features. In all four countries free primary education was a central issue in the political
discussions that led to multiparty elections or the transition to multiparty democracy. In
Kenya, Lesotho, and Malawi, free primary education was the key election issue on
which the new governments came into power. In Uganda free primary education has
been a central issue in presidential elections.
All four countries have, or have had until recently, high poverty rates, high illiteracy
rates, and low enrollment and completion rates (table 1). All face great challenges in
improving conditions in remote areas, where poverty is worst and access to education
is limited. All were heavily centralized and burdened by a cumbersome bureaucracy, all
lacked fiscal discipline, and all provided too few resources to primary education relative
to other education sub-sectors, especially tertiary education.
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Table 1. Poverty indicators in Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, and Uganda,2002
Kenya Lesotho Malawi Uganda
Share of population living on less 23.0 43.1 41.7 82.2
than $1 a day(%)
Share of population 69.0 26.0 33.0 21.0
undernourished(%)
Fertility rate 4.3 4.3 6.1 6.1
Infant mortality rate (per 1,000 live 78.0 91.0 114.0 79.0
births)
Under-5 mortality rate (per 1,000) 120.0 132.0 183.0 124.0
Life expectancy (years) 46.3 43.3 37.5 42.8
Illiteracy rate (% ages 15+) 16.7 16.1 38.2 32.0
Female illiteracy rate (% ages 15+) 22.7 6.1 51.3 42.0
Source: UNDP 2003; UNESCO Institute for Statistics; UNICEF 2003b; World Bank 2003d.
148
The role of religious institutions
Christian denominations have influence on the educational system in all four countries,
but in different ways and to varying degrees. In Malawi government-assisted schools
and unassisted private schools were merged into the same category, and the
government took over all financing of both types of institutions. The situation was most
difficult in Lesotho, where 90 percent of the schools are owned by several different
denominations. The government paid teachers’ salaries and covered the cost of some
materials, but it had little say in running the schools. Free primary
education meant that proprietors would lose income from parents, school committees
would have a greater say in running the schools, and the government would gain more
control over the system.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
149
constraints on how far policy implementation could go prevented turning the policy into
reality. The president wrote the program into a government manifesto in December
1996. Given the short interval before implementation, the template for universal primary
education had to be developed as an emergency plan.
In all four countries there was acknowledgment of the need for free primary education,
but political opposition and in some cases political instability, prevented full
implementation until the issue was championed at the highest level and supported by a
democratically elected majority party. In all four countries the adoption of universal free
primary education was triggered by political demand rather than by rational planning
processes. In each case the trigger event was a dynamic, top-level political initiative
that left very little time for planning, forcing countries to adopt a idready, fire, aiml,
approach. In addition, unreliable statistics and the
unpredictability of educational reform processes made it extremely difficult to come up
with accurate projections of needs and responses.
In some countries there was little time even to negotiate with stakeholders. Malawi held
a two-day National Policy Symposium and launched a mass media campaign to
mobilize the public. Uganda used radio spots to communicate with the public, but
consultation was insufficient. Learning from both countries, Lesotho used the traditional
form of community consultation (pitsos) to negotiate the policy widely, in addition to
using the mass media.
In Kenya a stakeholder forum was created to forge strong ownership. It set up a task
force and reported to the government. In all four countries the political opposition and
skeptics among education professionals cast doubt on the proposal and attempted to
weaken the social contract between government and the people. The main criticisms
included questions about the financial sustainability of free primary education given the
limits of the country’s resources, concerns about the lack of adequate planning, and
condemnation of the government’s failure to move rapidly enough to provide what it
promised. People with vested interests in the former system exploited policy gaps and
potential ambiguities. In Uganda, for example, some local politicians told parents not to
send lunch with their children and then criticized the government for not providing
school lunches. In Lesotho school owners do not openly disagree with free primary
education, but they complain that their possibilities for raising funds for additional
school activities are now severely limited. In all four countries quality issues were
raised in the political discussion.
Among education professionals, skepticism stemmed largely from concerns over
declines in quality (soaring pupil to teacher, pupil to textbook, and pupil to classroom
ratios) and the need to field teachers and paraprofessionals trained through short
courses. The lack of administrative capacity to deal with the changes is a professional
as much as a political issue.
METHOD
Malawi was the first of the four countries to start working toward UPE, by abolishing
school fees grade by grade in 1991. FPE was launched for all grades by September 1994
after an election campaign where the strategy changed to the “big bang” approach for all
grades at the same time. Uganda had a sleeping UPE policy from 1987, but not until relative
stability in 1997 was FPE implemented, following the new government’s manifesto.
Uganda also used the big bang approach. FPE was in the constitution of Lesotho, but
150
instability delayed implementation until 2000, after the 1999 elections. Lesotho adopted a
sequential strategy, phasing in from grade
The newly elected government of Kenya adopted the big bang approach in 2003.
In all four countries, a top-level dynamic political initiative triggered FPE
implementation, leaving little time for detailed planning before startup. In some cases, there
was little time even to negotiate with stakeholders. In Malawi, a two-day national policy
symposium was held and a mass media campaign mobilized the population. In Uganda, the
radio was used for dissemination and communication; Lesotho, learning from both
countries, used the traditional form of community consultation (pitsos) and mass media; in
Kenya, a stakeholder forum was created, which set up a task force and reported to the
government. What FPE would and would not cover, and how, varied somewhat from
country to country owing to contextual differences, especially of school ownership.
Key issues in introducing FPE included maintaining the social contract with the
electorate, establishing quality education, and developing the capacity to implement and
sustain FPE. Criticism of FPE in all four countries has raised questions about its
sustainability, the lack of time for planning, slowness to deliver, and problems in quality
education. However, introducing FPE as an urgent task shows what major changes are
needed in an educational system to redirect it to EFA. In each country, immediate support
from at least one major donor/lending agency was needed to ensure confidence in the
process. As part of democratization processes, FPE must not be seen to fail.
The public response to FPE was overwhelming and created access shock. Enrollments
jumped by 68 percent in the first year in Malawi and Uganda, 75 percent in Lesotho (grade
1 only), and 22 percent in Kenya. This led to overcrowded classrooms; double and triple
shifts; and shortages of teachers, textbooks, and materials. Many enrolled are over-age
pupils who should have been taking adult education. None of the systems were geared up
for the logistical implications of FPE.
Ministries, supported by international agencies, put in place distance in-service teacher
and paraprofessional training and retrained teachers for large classes; multigrade teaching in
small schools; and in education for all. There was implementation of crash classroom
construction programs and, in the case of Lesotho, temporary tents, particularly using
community involvement as a lead-in to participation in school management. All four
countries want communities to be more involved in school management and saw
community involvement in construction as an opportunity. Unfortunately, without proper
training and local craftsmen, the results may not be worthwhile.
FPE was implemented concurrently with other reforms: curriculum reform, provision of
textbooks and other materials, the use of local languages in education, Poverty Reduction
Strategy Papers (PRSPs), Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEFs), civil service
and local government reforms. These add to the burden of change, but PRSPs/MTEFs
together with Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), do ensure a protected resource
envelope and increased funding for primary education.
RESULT
151
Kenya Lesotho Malawi Uganda
2002 2003 1999 2001/02 1993 2001 1996 2002
Numb- 6,314,600 6,917,553 364,951 418,668 1,795,451 3,187,835 3,068,625 7,354,153
er of
pupils
Perce- 49.5 49.7 51.6 50.2 47.2 48.6 46.3 49.4
nt (2000)
female
Numb- 197,331 178,037 8,225 8,762 26,333 53,444 81,564 139,484
er of
teache
rs
152
Enrollment is up
Enrollment rose 240 percent over six years in Uganda, 78 percent over eight years in
Malawi, 15 percent over three years in Lesotho, and 14 percent in one year in Kenya.
Free primary education is having a positive effect on the poor, who are much better
represented than they had been. In Uganda, for example, enrollment of the poorest
quintile is almost on a par with the richest.
Confidence in government and the education system has increased
Free primary education has increased the public trust in government and the education
system,and it has freed up private resources that had been spent on primary
education. 5 According to the 2002 Domestic Household Survey of Malawi, 79 percent
of respondents felt that their children were learning more than they had before free
primary education was introduced (84 percent of the lowest income quintile and 66
percent of the highest quintile), 65 percent felt that teaching had
improved, and 82 percent felt that the quality of infrastructure and the supply of
textbooks had improved. These results suggest that education has improved, but not
necessarily that the quality of education is satisfactory. The challenge of improving
quality is a major concern in all four countries.
Cooperation between line ministries is closer
In addition to raising educational access, the provision of free primary education has
forced education ministries in all four countries to make changes in their structure,
organization, organizational culture, administration, and finance. Line ministries now
work more closely together, reflecting the fact that free primary education is not only an
education sector issue but involves players from many sectors. Cooperation among
donors, and between donors and ministries, has also increased, a natural result of
sharing the same goals and agreeing to be task-rather than status-oriented.
HIV/AIDS is the biggest short- to medium-term challenge because its impact is being
felt across sectors. High prevalence is affecting the efficiency and the supply of teachers,
rapidly increasing the number of orphans, affecting girls in particular, and it has financial
impacts. Improved planning and administrative and managerial efficiency are needed to
ensure that FPE continues and that children affected by HIV/AIDS are not lost to education.
FPE/UPE sustainability remains a question: Under what circumstances will FPE
be sustainable, and who has responsibility for those circumstances? Innovative solutions
are needed, such as bringing back retired teachers or adding day care centers to school
so that young mothers can attend classes. Continued commitment from the government
and development partners in both policy and financing remains key to FPE sustainability.
Key factors for success include (i) top-level leadership; (ii) a strong social contract with
the electorate; (iii) institutional innovation at all levels; (iv) developing capacity—both the
sheer increase in volume and the pace of the increase; (v) learning from previous
experience; (vi) the presence of external catalysts; (vii) financial security for primary
education;(viii) perhaps decentralization; and (ix) good communication and participation
strategies. Other factors need to be identified, including what the consensus threshold is in
each country and what parental expectations are.
LESSONS LEARNED/CONCLUSIONS
153
FPE involves a new paradigm of education—education for all—an inclusive system with
universal completion and with acceptable levels of learning achievement.
Learning from experience is important, but adaptation to each context is essential.
HIV/AIDS is the greatest threat to FPE and has to be addressed through a combination of
inter-sectoral strategies.
Trade-offs are inevitable, whatever strategy is chosen (sequential or big bang).
There is a need for innovative solutions for quality and access.
Changing education takes time and depends on each country’s contextual and external
factors. Only after some years will one know if FPE actually did make the contribution it
was supposed to toward education for all.
A decision needs to be made about the definition of education for all. Is it universal
nominal attendance in school, universal completion of primary education, or universal
completion of primary education with optimal achievement, as stated in the Millennium
Development Goals? The meaning of the term must be clarified and agreed upon so that the
human and financial resources required and the pace of change needed can be better
determined.
To secure the gains made through FPE, it must be supported until the returns to the
household and national economy take effect. Continued commitment from the government
and development partners in both policy and financing will be key.
FPE is not sufficient in itself for poverty reduction. Macroeconomic conditions at the
country and international levels must be changed to create employment opportunities,
and the impact of HIV/AIDS must be dealt with economic sustainability of the effort.
QUESTIONS
154
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
155
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
A crisis could make or mar the success of any organization, it depends on how it is
handled. The two case studies on crisis management portray crises that could occur in
any organization or country. Though they are negative, there are important lessons to
learn from them.
The purposes of studying these case studies are :
• To identify organizational crisis when it is at the bud.
• To adopt relevant and appropriate solution to cure crisis.
• To prevent ‘issues’ from developing to ‘crisis’.
156
Chapter Seventeen
By Evan Bloom
The battle between the Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the Sunday
Times has a lot more to it than just the allegations about her being an alcoholic, being
pushed up the liver donor list and having a criminal record for theft in Botswana.
“From a PR crisis perspective what is so telling is how her boss, President Thabo
Mbeki, has dealt with the allegations around the developing issues,” says Evan Bloom,
MD of Crisis Communications Consultancy.
Politicians are like anyone else in the business world, you get good and bad, those who
deliver and those who do not. “The private sector, in most cases, deals swiftly with
senior employees who bring their company or brand into disrepute or negatively affect
the smooth running of a company. They are either shown the door or are very nicely
asked to resign or retire,” adds Bloom.
The question must be asked: why has the President not fired his health minister or at the
very least initiated a public enquiry? The President sacked his deputy, Jacob Zuma, at
the mere suggestion of him being corrupt, yet he does not dismiss other corrupt and
totally incompetent senior police officers and government ministers and officials
allegedly because of their struggle credentials.
"Surely the opposite sentiment should prevail,” says Bloom. “The battle for liberation
and democracy was so hard that it should be expected that every person who holds a
position of authority will do their utmost to get the job done honestly, without personal
gain and for the good of the people. Anyone who cannot live up to the standards of
excellence demanded and expected by the people of the country and who is not capable
of delivery, should not hold public office.”
The following analysis of the unfolding issues of the crisis surrounding the minister of
health looks at what President Mbeki should have done as soon as the story broke.
157
THE BACKGROUND:
Imagine being the President and waking up one Sunday morning to find a major Sunday
newspaper has your minister of health on its front cover and is telling the nation and the
international community that she is a drunkard and a thief. You would probably spit
your grapefruit across the room!
Now imagine this... as the minister, you deal so abysmally with the media that both you
and your boss, the President, basically say and do nothing to take control of the
situation. Members of the public start telling jokes about you: “Hey Manto has two new
guys working for her, Mr Jack Daniels and Mr Johnnie Walker” and “Did you know the
Johannesburg General Hospital is going to be renamed? Yup, Manto's pub and grill!”
The 12 August headlines of the Sunday Times screamed “Manto's hospital booze binge”
and alleged that Tshabalala-Msimang ”disgraced herself with wine, whisky and
tantrums” before she went into surgery in Cape Town at the Medi-Clinic in Hof Street
in 2005 for a shoulder operation. The paper went on to elaborate how the minister‘s
bodyguards, a female friend and a senior sister ”dispatched hospital staff” to buy
alcohol on a number of occasions. It also mentioned that ”after a party in her room one
night, at about 1:30 am, the minister demanded lemons”, and how "Tshabalala-
Msimang demanded food from Woolworths at odd hours".
The Sunday Times also mentioned that within hours of receiving a new liver from a
teenage suicide victim, doctors are alleged to have said that the minister had been
diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis, and that the cause of her cirrhosis was not
alcohol related.
During the course of that week many South African radio stations, daily newspapers
and e.tv covered the initial allegations and approached the minister and President's
office for comment. Nothing of substance was communicated to the media bar the odd
threat of legal action and allegations that the Sunday Times stole medical records from
the hospital concerned.
The minister and Medi-Clinic also filed an urgent application in the Johannesburg high
court asking for among other things, her medical records to be returned. They also
wanted the paper to stop publishing further details around the minister's health, and to
destroy its reporters' notes and records.
No public action from the President's office to take control of the situation
On 19 August, the Sunday Times ran another front page article with the headline
”Manto: A drunk and a thief” and two sub headings ”The big cover up: Chronic
alcoholism the real reason she got a new liver” and ”The dirty little secret: She was
kicked out of Botswana for stealing from a patient”.
The article mentioned how, after being convicted of theft of numerous items including
hospital blankets, linen and heaters from the Athlone Hospital in Lobatse where she was
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the medical superintendent, she was declared a ”prohibited immigrant” and barred from
Botswana for 10 years from 1976.
The paper also alleged that the minister's medical team stated publicly that their
patient's new liver had been damaged by autoimmune hepatitis, a long-term disease in
which the body's immune system attacks liver cells.
Still no comment from the President to take control of the situation, only veiled requests
for proof of the allegations.
Later that week, e.tv sent senior news reporter Ben Said to Botswana and he tracked
down former staff members from the hospital where the minister worked in the 1970s.
He also interviewed the person responsible for disciplining her and, of major
importance, he found her original case number.
Local political parties climbed in on the action with the Democratic Alliance calling for
the health minister's resignation.
By 30 August, The Citizen ran a front page article with the headline, “Thabo knew
about Manto theft”. In the article, ANC head of the presidency Smuts Ngonyama said,
“President Thabo Mbeki actually knew about it because the ANC knew about it.”
So how should the President have dealt with an exceptionally public crisis that focused
on two critical issues, disclosure of a ”hidden” issue that basically tells the world our
minister of health has a criminal record and that she is alleged to be an alcoholic who
received a liver transplant simply because of her position in government?
LESSONS LEARNT:
Lesson one: When there are storm clouds on the horizon, deal with them
immediately! If it was in fact true that President Mbeki was aware of the minister's
conviction of theft in Botswana, then either the President or his official spokesperson
should have issued a public statement immediately confirming that they were aware of
the conviction for theft. One golden rule of PR crisis management that is crucial in this
case is to ”tell it all, tell it fast and tell it honestly.” This may have helped the
Government and the ANC to take back some form of control of the situation. It would
have also acted as a measure to slow down or control speculation and rumour
mongering.
159
News reports contained significant comment in general about the series of Sunday
Times articles but there was no consistent comment either challenging or dealing with
the issues in the public domain by the Presidential spokesperson. In addition, most of
the communication initiated by the President went straight onto the ANC's website.
Communicating only to the party faithful is not the best strategy as you marginalise the
rest of South Africa.
Lesson four: If you are a boss and a staff member has been caught out, take the
moral high ground and do the right thing.
While the jury is still out as to whether the minister was bumped up the donor list and
the President was aware of her criminal record, he could have immediately initiated a
commission of enquiry to investigate the allegations and asked the minister to take a
short leave of absence. If nothing untoward was found then she could have resumed her
normal duties or she could have resigned if damning evidence was found.
Just recently the American senator for the State of Idaho, Larry Craig, resigned over
allegations of soliciting sex from an undercover police officer in the men's toilet at an
airport. British cabinet ministers have also resigned over various allegations, including
Liberal Democrats Home Affairs spokesperson Mark Oaten resigning in 2005 after it
was revealed by News of the World that he paid rentboys for sex. Why should South
Africa be any different?
Lesson five: Always have a succession plan for senior staff members.
As soon as a company or organisation hires someone to hold a senior position, a
succession policy and plan needs to be put in place. This succession plan will lay out
what will be done and said publicly and privately by the employer should the senior
executive need to be ”shown the door”, resign or become a victim of tragic
circumstances. The succession plan must strategically consider all potential scenarios
that could cloud over the employee. Clearly based on how the Government dealt with
Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge and with the sacking of then Deputy President Jacob Zuma
(the country waited a few weeks for the new deputy president to be announced) there is
allegedly either no succession plan or a very scant one at that.
Lesson six: Make sure you have a robust media relations plan.
Possibly one of the most crucial strategies any organisation should have before they
face a crisis is an active strategy of media engagement. A core part of this is to
communicate with the media as often as possible, hold specific one-on-one briefing
sessions, all with the express aim of fostering good relations and opening up channels of
communications on key issues and developments. By the way the events detailed above
160
have rolled out, the Health Ministry's media relations plans either do not exist or are
haphazard in their roll out.
Lesson seven: If you had some media credits stored in the media bank, you could
cash some of them in.
The fact is that the health minister and her ministry have such an abysmal track record
of delivery that there is almost nothing on which to spin her crisis PR. “It is pretty safe
to wager that Tshabalala-Msimang has been the worst minister in post-apartheid South
Africa.” (Mail and Guardian, August 17-23). If the minister had a superb track record
of delivery against brilliant healthcare strategies, then it may have been easier to defend
her against the allegations that emerged in The Sunday Times. Simply put, the Minister's
PR bank is insolvent, there is nothing strategic to build any recovery strategy on.
Source: BIZCOMMUNITY.com
QUESTIONS
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Chapter Eighteen
BACKGROUND
In May 2005, Tanzania took the drastic step of terminating its contract with City
Water, a foreign-controlled company that for the previous two years had been
struggling to supply water to a major city, Dar es Salaam.
Within weeks three City Water executives had been deported, marking the end of
another unhappy phase in what was supposed to be a flagship water privatisation
scheme in Africa.
A fiasco in the making
Tanzania is a very poor country. The statistics make grim reading. 60 per cent of the
population live on less than two dollars a day. One in five children die before their fifth
birthday. Average life expectancy is a shockingly low 44 years. This pattern of poverty
is also reflected by low access to water and sanitation. At least 9.8 million Tanzanians
(27 per cent of the population) do not have access to safe water and 40 per cent of
children under five suffer from diarrhoea as a result.
Before privatization the water system in Dar es Salaam was, like much of the country,
in very poor shape. Its water system had failed to grow with the population. In 2003
only about 4 per cent of households had a direct water connection and 74 per cent of
water was lost as leaks or illegal connections. It is against this background that the push
by international aid donors and lenders for the privatization of Dar es Salaam's water
system began.
The drive for privatisation
Examples from around the world have consistently shown that water privatisation is not
the answer to the global water crisis. But the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) continue to push this approach. Tanzania was the latest in a long
line of countries to be targeted. In the past decade, Tanzania has been advised by
foreign consultants on privatising over 350 stateowned firms.
In general, pressure was applied either by making lending conditional on moves towards
privatisation, or by pushing the privatisation process in return for more lending. For
example, in 1997 the World Bank said it would offer Tanzania £186 million per year
to speed up the sale of stateowned companies, but only £62 million per year if the
privatization programme stalled. In essence, the Bank offered cash-strapped Tanzania a
£124 million incentive to privatise more quickly.
By the late 1990s, pressure for the privatisation of the city’s water system, the Dar es
Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA), became more focussed. Between
1996 and 1999, the IMF first made privatization of DAWASA a condition for lending
162
via its Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility. Then in 2000 IMF lending via the more
benign sounding Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility was made conditional on
specific negotiations for privatisation of DAWASA being completed by March of the
same year.
The first stage of the privatization of DAWASA also became one of the pre-conditions
given to Tanzania to qualify for debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country
(HIPC) initiative.
While some members of the government undoubtedly favoured privatisation, Tanzania
was in effect given no other choice. Money for improvement was desperately needed
but loans were only available for projects involving private companies. Faced with a
failing water system and the possibility of debt relief, what other option could they
choose?
The City Water deal
After numerous delays the Tanzanian government and its lenders settled on a form of
privatisation called an “operating lease contract”, in which a private company would
take over routine maintenance, billing and tariff collection while DAWASA would
retain ownership of the physical water system and renew the dilapidated pipe network.
To support the proposed deal, the World Bank, African Development Bank and the
European Investment Bank offered total loans of £87 million to rehabilitate the water
system, with £24 million allocated to the private company to do specific work. The aim
of these loans was likely to be to improve the state of the water system, so that after the
initial ten year operating lease contract, DAWASA itself would be more attractive for
foreign investors and could be fully privatised.
However when the Tanzanian government invited bids for the contract, there was a
notable lack of interest. In fact only one bid was made, by a consortium of Biwater
(UK), Gauff (Germany) and Superdoll (Tanzania), otherwise known as City Water.
Despite the lack of competition, the contract was awarded to City Water in December
2002. From then on Dar es Salaam's water supply became reliant on a complex mixture
of public and private service provision.
What private money?
One of the advantages that privatisation is supposed to deliver is major investment by
foreign companies. However in this case, the vast majority of the investment continued
to come from public sources, either from international lenders or directly from the
Tanzanian government. In fact of the total £100 million project cost, City Water only
agreed to invest £5.2 million, mostly to cover removable assets, such as computers. City
Water was also granted a tax holiday by the Tanzanian government, until at least year
six of the contract.
The failure unfolds
The Tanzanian government enthusiastically signed the City Water deal. But just two
and a half years later, in May 2005, the same government terminated the contract.
Considering the dire state of things before City Water took over, how could things have
worsened so quickly?
IDENTIFIED PROBLEM
The Tanzanian government claims that its reasons for terminating the contract are
simple: “The water supply services in Dar es Salaam and neighbouring places have
deteriorated rather than improved since this firm [City Water] took over two years ago.
163
The revocation was made following persistent complaints by city residents over
incompetence of the firm.”
They also allege that City Water:
Failed to invest £5.2 million as promised during the first two years of operation,
delivering only £2.5 million.
Failed to contribute to a fund to pay for water supplies to the very poor.
Failed to pay their contract lease fee to the government, which accumulated to debts of
over £1.9 million.
Failed to collect revenue from customers effectively. Under City Water, revenue is
alleged to have declined from the 1.2 billion shillings (£610,000) collected by
DAWASA three years ago, to 800 million shillings (£434,000) per month.
If true, these allegations suggest that City Water was facing serious financial and
practical difficulties. This fits with early reports that City Water officials had admitted
to a 'difficult' first year of operations and were expecting to make a loss of £428,000.
Customer revolt
“There is a problem with water privatisation because local people don’t have water.
After privatisation, the bills are coming, but no water.” – Members of Africa Youth
for Development, Dar es Salaam City Water's difficulties seem to have been caused, at
least in part, by behaviour which angered their customers:
• the residents of Dar es Salaam. Evidence from interviews conducted by Action
Aid show that within ten months of the contract starting consumers had begun to
resent being charged more without getting a better service. Complaints were
numerous and mostly focussed on City Water's tariff increases and patchy,
irregular service. Action Aid also discovered that City Water continued to
charge households for water even when it only came through occasionally,
meaning that they often had to pay twice
• once to City Water and again to the street water vendors selling at much higher
prices Unsurprisingly those that refused to pay were threatened with
disconnection, but City Water went even further by disconnecting whole areas in
an attempt to get those with illegal connections to pay up - even though this
meant no water for households who were paying! Within a year of City Water
taking over, anger had reached such levels that, according to one local group,
City Water bill collectors were being “chased away with dogs and knives”. A
population unwilling to pay high prices for a poor service would certainly
explain City Water's failure to collect revenue and reluctance to make the
payments and investments to which they were committed.
Excuses, excuses...
City Water claims that they failed to deliver due to “unexpected circumstances”,
including the discovery that the number of active customers was 50,000, not the
Pop for privatisation:
The role of the UK government
The UK has a vote at both the World Bank and IMF so must share responsibility for
their policies. It has also played a more direct role in promoting privatisation in
Tanzania, with the Department for International Development (DfID) spending
£9.5million of 'aid' on supporting privatisation between 1998 and 2004.
At least £574,556 of DfID’s money went to Adam Smith International, including
£273,000 in 1999 to pay for communications and public relations work to promote
164
privatisation. Bizarrely part of this money was spent on producing a pop song with
lyrics that are, in essence, pro-privatisation propaganda.
In September 2006, during a question time event at Labour party conference, Hilary
Benn, Secretary of State for international development finally admitted that “the
Tanzanian pop song was not DfID’s finest hour”. 100,000 they had been led to believe
and that the Tanzanian government had not disclosed the extent of leakage and illegal
usage from certain main water pipes.
“Far from ‘pocketing big profits’, we’ve had mounting losses since the contract went
live 22 months ago,” says Cliff Stone, CEO of City Water. “Our tender was based on
the information supplied by the Tanzanian government which we took to be complete
and accurate. Our view is that it was not.”
However consultants hired by the Tanzanian government to assess City Water's claims,
concluded that the conditions had not substantially varied from the time the contract
was signed. What's more, according to the Financial Times, “experts from multilateral
agencies are understood to have taken the view that the UK-German- Tanzanian joint
venture performed poorly and that the Tanzanian government had abided by its
agreement”.
RESULT
Wasted time, wasted money
While City Water and the Tanzanian government may blame each other for this fiasco,
what is indisputable is that this privatisation experiment has wasted three years and
millions of dollars which could have been spent improving the failing water supply in
Dar es Salaam, so that poor people could get the clean water they desperately need for
their health and well being.
Back in Tanzania a new public corporation, the Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage
Corporation (DAWASCO), has taken over, absorbing 1,300 City Water staff. The
Tanzanian government claims the replacement company is performing well, increasing
bill collection by 12.5 per cent from £570,000 in May to £660,000 in June 2005.
Hopefully DAWASCO will prove more of a success than City Water and the long-
suffering residents of Dar es Salaam will not have to put up with further incompetence.
A sting in the tail
Unfortunately, the City Water saga may not yet be over. In June 2005, the UK partner,
Biwater, announced that City Water had applied successfully to the English High Court
“for an interim injunction to prevent the Tanzanian government from unlawfully
terminating the contract without submitting to arbitration”. In short, City Water is now
looking for compensation, which would mean that Tanzania would once more have to
pay up.
Rejecting claims that they had not met performance targets or investment obligations,
City Water “feels strongly that the government’s actions are unlawful, its accusations
are entirely untrue and the real tragedy is that it is the people of Dar es Salaam who
will end up suffering
as a result”.
For some people water privatisation in Tanzania was a flagship project with high
expectations, but in less than two years it has turned into a disaster that has hit the
poorest the hardest. The UK government needs to rethink its approach to projects like
this and to start funding successful alternatives. It does not end there. Biwater, the UK
partner, is now suing Tanzania for ‘expropriating its assets’ through the International
165
Court for Settlement and Investment Disputes (ICSID). The final hearing is due to take
place in April 2007.
LESSON LEARNED
Any organization which does not have its head in the sand must be sensitive to future
trends and awake to possible ways in which these trends may infringe on the
organization’s future success. Sometimes this is called ‘futurism’, and another term
used is ‘environmental scanning’, but issues management is a better term that one does
not merely monitor change but plans to take it into counting consideration in planning
corporate strategy.
----- ‘issues are unsolved problems’ or ‘an issue is merely a trend whose time has
come’. The Conference Board of America has defined an issue as ‘ a condition or
pressure, either internal or external, that, if it continues, will have a significant effect on
the functioning of the organization or its future interests . 1 (Black, 2006).
Corporation do not exist in vacuum, they are an integral part of society, and what they
do, or don’t do, affects a broad range of publics and institutions. In today’s world, the
success of a corporation involves more of them producing goods for profit. A
corporation’s policies and actions are shaped and developed in reaction to political,
economic, social, and technological forces.
A corporation must consider numerous publics and institutions in developing its policies
and strategies. Among these are the general public, media, activist groups, government
officials, regulatory agencies, and local, state, and national laws.
Anyone of these can have a major effect on the future and success of the corporation.
PR counselors W. Howard Chase and Barrie L. Jones were among the first practitioners
to specialize in issues management. They define the process as (1) identification of the
issues, (2) systematic analysis, (3) strategy options, (4) action plan, (5) evaluation of
results. PPG Industries perceives the process along the same lines but identifies the
steps as (1) issue identification, (2) impact assessment, (3) position formulation, (4)
action-plan development and implementation, and (5) communications. Inherent in
either process, however, is the idea that issues management involves input from all
levels of the corporation and must have the complete commitment of top management.
2 (Wilcox et al, 1989).
When issues are not resolved, it will degenerate to crisis or conflict. The inability of
the City-Water management to identify the ‘issues’ and nip it at the bud resulted to
the crisis/conflict. The ‘take action campaign’ of the World Development
Movement reveals the depth of the crisis:
• Send an action card to the Secretary of State for International Development,
asking him to support public solutions to the water crisis.
• Sign up as a WDM activist and receive urgent actions and regular updates on
WDM’s campaigns.
166
The most challenging test of PR skill in corporate life arises in times of crisis. When an
expected development involving a company embarrasses the organization or frightens
the public-even in the worst instance creating the threat of death-the company’s
credibility and decency come under intense scrutiny. With the news media hard pursuit
of the facts, executives and PR experts must act under severe pressure.
In a crisis the first instinct of some companies is to “stonewall it”: deny that a crisis
exists, refuse to answer the media questions, and resist involvement by appropriate
government agencies. By behaving in this manner, managements suggest a “public-be-
damned” attitude that harms their images severely.
A second course, followed by some, is to “manage” the news about the concealing
especially unfavorable facts. If these facts slip out anyway, as they frequently do
through insider “leaks” and government inquiries, disclosure of a company’s cover-up
attempt shatters its credibility.
The third and best course is an open communication policy. The company keeps the
media fully and promptly informed of the facts while providing background information
to put the facts into perspective. A story candidly told, while perhaps embarrassing in its
immediate impact, is less damaging than a cover-up version that generates rumors and
suspicious much worse than reality. 3 {Wilcox et al,1989)
When issues metamorphosed into conflict, the organization should resolve to solve it, or
else it could throw it out of business.
According to Otis Baskin et al, to resolve conflict (crisis) the following steps should be
kept in mind:
1. Separate the people from the problem. Try to start from a position of respect for
those with whom you disagree. Remember, it is the goals and values that you
disagree with, not person holding the position. The next three steps suggest ways
to do this.
2. Focus on interest, not position. It is normal for both sides to stake out positions
and try to convince the other side of the wisdom in adopting their point of view.
It is natural but not productive. Instead, try to move beyond positions to find out
what the other side really wants. A position is just one expression of what
someone wants, but they may be able to satisfy then goals in other ways. Until
you explore the possibilities, you won’t know.
3. Invent options for mutual gain. You may know this as creative problem solving.
The idea is to explore ways you can both meet your goals. Plan on generating
lots of solutions before you reach an agreement. It sounds like an impossible
task, but for many issues it just requires the will to move beyond the conflict in a
way that respects the interests of both sides.
4. Insist on objectives criteria. Seek early agreement on what a fair solution would
look like. Is there a standard or index on which you could base a solution?.
Finding one makes evaluating solution s easier.
(Baskin et al,1997)
QUESTIONS
167
1. What are the causes of the City Water crisis ?, are they preventable?,
how will you handle it if you are the PR executive of the organization?.
2. Differentiate between issue management and crisis management, how
will you handle each of them in your organization?.
3. Outline a crisis management contingent plan for your organization.
References
168
PART III
OVERVIEWS
169
OVERVIEWS
PR is evolving in Africa, its role in the socio-economic and political development of the
continent is essential. The three overviews are to shed light on critical issues that could
breed socio-economic and political transformation in the continent . And also reveal the
PR climate of Africa. Hence the topics are on NGO, NEPAD(The New Partnership for
Africa’s Development) and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).
170
Chapter Nineteen
ABSTRACT.
This is a case study for the Save the Sea Turtle Project, Alexandria, Egypt. The study
defines the project mission, vision, objectives, and the different strategies and tactics
used when dealing with the different stakeholders, the activities and the results
intended.
INTRODUCTION.
Sea turtles know no boundaries therefore all the scientific institutes, governmental and
non-governmental organisations that are involved in sea turtle conservation in the
Mediterranean should share the same vision. Namely “saving the sea turtles in the
Mediterranean”. However each of them has their own agenda that differs according to
the way they tackle the problems that affect the sea turtle population in the region. All
over the Mediterranean there are organisations interested in various aspects of nesting
site protection, rehabilitation activities, public awareness, clean up the beaches
campaigns, lobbing & pressure groups, and scientific research concerned with the
species. In Egypt the main problems are lack of scientific research, the illegal trade in
their meat, blood and carapace, interaction with fisheries and marine pollution. In the
last 10 years accelerated efforts have been made in the field of scientific research,
pollution management, public awareness and legislation regulating the sea turtle trade.
In spite of these efforts, what was achieved can only be considered as one step forward
for marine turtle conservation in Egypt.
171
PUBLIC HEARING WITH THE STAKEHOLDERS REPRESENTATIVES.
This activity aimed to determine the different attitudes and point of views of the various
stakeholders and to create a dialogue encompassing these different attitudes and
different stakeholders. In the public consultation, representatives from the fishermen,
fish sellers, sea turtles’ meat and blood consumers, Islamic leaders, Christian leaders,
related NGOs, police authority, the National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries,
the media, teachers, the Faculty of Science (Marine Science Department), the
Alexandria Governorate, the Fishing Co-operative Societies and the Egyptian
Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) were present. The consultation started with a
brief presentation on the problems facing the sea turtles in the Mediterranean and
around the world, followed by open discussion chaired by a moderator from the project.
VOLUNTEER AND SUPPORTER RECRUITMENT.
This activity aimed to create a group of highly qualified volunteers who care about the
turtles. The volunteers were recruited following a number of oral presentations in
different locations and with different audiences. At the end of the talk the presenter
asked the audience to help in several ways, one of which was to join the Save the Sea
Turtles Campaign. Those interested and showing innate or overt abilities were chosen to
join the campaign. The volunteers were then trained to make presentations to the
different types of stakeholders, to participate in data collection, to join clean up the
beach campaigns and to help with the preparation of awareness material.
SEGMENTATION AND TARGETING.
This step aimed to identify and target each stakeholder separately since there are major
differences in their number, attitudes, educational background, willingness to change
and our ability to reach them. With each stakeholder several factors were involved in
changing their attitude toward the species, these factors included framing of the
problem, identifying the situation, developing a target and devising a plan.
DEVELOPING A COMMUNICATION STRATEGY.
Habit development and learning are permanent changes in behaviour that occur as a
result of reinforced practices. There are many theories explaining how a habit is
developed in humans, the most important one is the stimulus response theory. This
suggests that a stimulus affects a person subconsciously and leads to a sequence of five
stages: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, changing the
habit decision and post habit changing behaviour. This step therefore aims to create an
appropriate stimulus through an awareness message to motivate, fulfil and satisfy a
certain need in each stakeholder, delivered through an appropriate channel after which
we test the response of each stakeholder to each message.
The fish restaurant owners: The message was the illegality of the sea turtle trade in
their restaurants and the religious aspect of this trade; the channel of communication
was through personal negotiation, and the mystery shopper technique was used to
evaluate his response. Members of the working team unknown to the restaurant owner
visit him in the restaurant a few days later and order a sea turtle meal. If the owner
shows a positive attitude refusing to serve the meal, a certificate from the project is sent
to him thanking him for his help, if he shows a negative attitude by accepting the order,
172
his name and his restaurant are recorded and sent to the police for the necessary action
against him.
The fishermen: The message here was the religious aspect, the legal aspect and
focusing on the belief that sea turtles will bring them luck; the channel of
communication was through personal negotiation, oral presentations and religious
presentation during Friday prayers in the mosque. Evaluation was from records kept of
in-depth interviews with a sample of the fishermen.
The consumer of sea turtle meat and blood: The message was the hazards from
drinking the blood and the diseases that can be transmitted by it, and the religious point
of view; the channel of communication was through oral presentations and the mass
media; evaluation of the response of the consumer used questionnaires designed to
measure the difference in attitude before and after the presentation.
The school children: The message was that the sea turtle is an important creature,
friendly to humans, and which helps in getting rid of the jellyfish (a particular problem
on Egyptian beaches); communication was by oral presentations in the schools, poster
presentations and colouring competitions amongst the students. The evaluation was
done by in-depth interview of a sample of the children after the oral presentation
Mass awareness: The message was the importance of the sea turtle to marine
biodiversity, the effect of jellyfish on tourism, and the religious point of view (Islamic
teaching holds the drinking of animal blood to be a sin). The message was
communicated through T.V, Press, poster and oral presentations. Evaluation of the
effectiveness of the message was made by using questionnaires after the oral
presentations and the feedback received through letters, e-mails and telephone calls.
173
Physicians and pharmacists: The vision needed from them is to communicate their
opinion about the hazards of turtle blood consumption and the belief that it’s effect in
treating weakness, anaemia and infertility is scientifically unfounded.
LESSON LEARNED
Although the strategies/tactics adopted by the campaigner are thought provoking, which
could be adopted by practitioners operating in that part of Africa , but no evaluation
report is given. Therefore it is difficult to evaluate the result.
QUESTIONS
1. Do you think the campaigner can achieve the project vision and the mission
with the set PR strategies/tactics?, Comment.
2. What can not be measured can not be managed, how relevant is this statement
to evaluation in a PR campaign?, discuss.
174
Chapter Twenty
By Sophia Chanzu
It was organised under the auspices of the Federation of African Public Relations
Association (FAPRA) which brings together the public relations societies of different
African countries.
What came out clearly in the 2003 conference held in Ghana is that the biggest
challenges for PR practitioners within the continent is to position Africa in a positive
light. This is keeping in mind the negative publicity the continent always gets from the
international media. The practitioners felt that this impacted negatively on investments
from foreign companies. This is why it was felt that the New Partnership for African
Development (NEPAD) initiative which is said to be pursued so as to give some dignity
back to the continent.
WHAT IS NEPAD?
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INTRODUCTION
1. This New Partnership for Africa’s Development is a pledge by African leaders, based
on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to
eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a
path of sustainable growth and development and, at the same time, to participate
actively in the world economy and body politic. The Programme is anchored on the
determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of
underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world.
2. The poverty and backwardness of Africa stand in stark contrast to the prosperity
of the developed world. The continued marginalisation of Africa from the globalisation
process and the social exclusion of the vast majority of its peoples constitute a serious
threat to global stability.
175
3. Historically accession to the institutions of the international community, the credit
and aid binomial has underlined the logic of African development. Credit has led to the
debt deadlock which, from instalments to rescheduling, still exists and hinders the
growth of African countries. The limits of this option have been reached. Concerning
the other element of the binomial . aid . we can also note the reduction of private aid
and the upper limit of public aid, which is below the target set in the 1970s.
4. In Africa, 340 million people, or half the population, live on less than US $1 per day.
The mortality rate of children under 5 years of age is 140 per 1000, and life
expectancy at birth is only 54 years. Only 58 per cent of the population have access to
safe water. The rate of illiteracy for people over 15 is 41 per cent. There are only
mainline telephones per 1000 people in Africa, compared with 146 for the world as a
whole and 567 for high-income countries.
5. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development calls for the reversal of this abnormal
situation by changing the relationship that underpins it. Africans are appealing neither
for the further entrenchment of dependency through aid, nor for marginal
concessions.
6. We are convinced that an historic opportunity presents itself to end the scourge of
underdevelopment that afflicts Africa. The resources, including capital, technology
and human skills, that are required to launch a global war on poverty and
underdevelopment exist in abundance and are within our reach. What is required to
mobilise these resources and to use them properly, is bold and imaginative leadership
that is genuinely committed to a sustained human development effort and the
eradication of poverty, as well as a new global partnership based on shared
responsibility and mutual interest.
7. Across the continent, Africans declare that we will no longer allow ourselves to be
conditioned by circumstance. We will determine our own destiny and call on the rest of
the world to complement our efforts. There are already signs of progress and hope.
Democratic regimes that are committed to the protection of human rights, people-
centred development and market-oriented economies are on the increase. African
peoples have begun to demonstrate their refusal to accept poor economic and political
leadership. These developments are, however, uneven and inadequate and need to be
further expedited.
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BACKGROUND OF NEPAD
1. Foundations of NEPAD
• Ensuring Peace
• Sound Economic and Corporate Governance
• Positive Private Sector
• Development
• Regional Cooperation
• Creating new partnerships
2. Partners of NEPAD
• State and Civil Society
• Regional Partnerships such as ECOWAS and COMESA
• Development Partner
• Private Sector/Public Sector partnership
• Friends of Africa e.g Jubilee 2000
• Africans in diasporas
The main fear for APRM is that the member countries feel that G8 countries may use it
to determine recipients of aid. It is felt that without citizen’s cooperation it cannot work.
It is important that different organizations within the public sector set their own review
mechanism so as to enable their peer review processes yield a positive result.
The initiative is limited to governments only. It does not involve Civil Society, for
example, hereby, thereby making it too dependant on leaders some of whom may not be
willing to take it up..
• Limited to only a few countries in the continent making others feel like
observers.
• Its top-down approach makes it difficult to implement when the Presidents are
not interested.
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• There is no gender element in the initiative leaving women out of the
development agenda.
• The general population and even officials within the Executive do not
understand the significance of NEPAD in their lives.
In the case of the NEPAD initiative falls under Dr. Pan Kwesi Ndom- Minister for
Economic Planning and Regional Integration. Ghana has participated in all NEPAD
meetings and has offered itself for the African Peer Review Process. The Ghanaian
government has also come up with an IEC (Information, Education and
Communication) campaign for different groups within the society. Despite that
government’s commitment it has come up with challenges in several areas.
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Public Relations strategy. This will lead to better understanding between
multinational corporations and the societies surrounding them.
PR practitioners need to partner with people from other disciplines so as to use their
expertise to Assist in areas of development such as education, land, environment
etc.
An IEC campaign needs to be held on NEPAD
FAPRA ( Federation of African Public Relations Associations) should be registered
as a body under the African Union in Addis Abba.
FAPRA should have an independent website so as to be accessible to all
FAPRA should advocate for women’s issues to be included in the NEPAD agenda.
An IEC committee needs to be formed under NEPAD and the African Union.
PR practitioners should participate in events as they unfold, understand changing
trend and look at how we can manage and communicate these,
FAPRA resolved to present and market the continent of Africa positively.
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Public Relations as a tool for Regional cooperation and integration
• In globalisation regional integration is very important as it gives greater
bargaining power.
• Calls on practitioners to be educated on the issues involved, so they can promote
the integration agenda and inform the public.
• Calls on IEC or public education on economic and political decisions made by
leaders.
CONCLUSION
What came out at the conference is that the NEPAD initiative is very good for the
continent. This is because it provides for commitment and good governance which can
only translate to development for all citizens of benefiting countries. However there is
very little understanding of NEPAD in the continent.
It is important for public education to be carried out to all the implementors particularly
members of parliament and civil servants as well as the media whose work is to
disseminate information.
APPENDIX
Sophia Chanzu is the Public Affairs Officers at the Canadian Embassy and a member of
PRSK.
QUESTIONS
Reference:
71 8 .
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Chapter Twenty-One
By Paul Okumu
And when he surrendered to the police last month after loosing all the loot to other
smarter robbers (who included such heavy weights as the Uganda army boss) we did not
know whether to sympathize with him or to call it good riddance.
The theft reminds one of an episode from Police Academy. However, the way PR
departments in Kenya work with commitments in Kenya, especially through charities
leaves many wondering whether we are merely trying to boost our egos or are feeling
like thieves who have robbed the community and need to appease them by sharing a
fraction of the loot.
In balancing our PR objectives and community involvement we need to know that no
company needs us if we are not meeting the bottom line-profit.
Torn between a community that feels short-changed every time the annual results are
released and a management that wants to make the most money with the least resources
the PR professional’s job becomes a one amorphous merry-go-round labyrinth task,
trying to prove that the company is not another robber like that robber while still
ensuring that he achieves the bottom line. With our broad responsibilities, we feel we
may go the line of former CEO of the Kenya Commercial Bank whose defence was
brittle because even though his pay package was well spelt out his job description was
not.
If we are to help our companies achieve the bottom line, we should rethink our focus
on the way we relate to and support the community around us. Community support is
not just another photo opportunity propped to capture newspaper headlines. On the
contrary, community support is a ready avenue on which to build our image, and our
market. Do we ever realized that the community makes up our entire business
environment – the owners, suppliers, consumers, and employees who keep us in
business?
If PR is about relating to our business environment then why is it that whenever we
present our community support budget the management throws a tantrum uttering a
paraphrase of the now all-familiar phrase in Kenya. “Charity !, for what?, in what, of
what?. What haven the salesmen done that you want to do?. What haven’t the ad team
done that you want to do?”.
We have focused on building a good reputation and a good image, making us look like
Machiavellians using the community to further our own self-interests while pretending
to be helping them.
There is a new line of thought that we should embrace when we are seeking to get
involved in charitable causes:
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• Community support should go beyond charity
• Community support should go beyond Corporate Social Responsibility
• Community support should go beyond philanthropy
• Community support should go beyond those donations by the Bill and Melinda
Gates or Ted Turner.
If we are to create and build synergy that can build the community and our companies at
the same time we should realize that Corporate Charity Support or Corporate Social
Responsibility, as it is known in the old school, is an investment.
Many companies in Kenya have shed their expatriate staff and are dealing almost
entirely with local suppliers, owners, customers and staff. It is critical to know
therefore, that to make money we must build our staff and motivate them to work
harder, support the suppliers to produce better quality raw materials, help our
shareholders acquire services that would leave room for them to invest more in us, work
to ensure our customers have more money to spend on our products and services. If the
community was to sink into poverty, crime and ill health would rise, and these would
soon spill over to our corporate door steps. If the education facilities were to collapse,
we will soon loose both our staff and customers. If the environment and infrastructure is
left to go to the dogs, we soon find ourselves with either none or very expensive raw
materials and production processes.
Simply put, to gain more we must empower the community to spend more, produce
more, save more, and learn more. Community support then ceases to be an option we
take after giving a lecture to community members on how they should demand services
from the government and the international donors.
NO
It is a critical investment for our very survival. The government and the international
leaders have an obligation. However, we have both a responsibility and a stake.
MORE
In fact, a government can collapse-Somali has never had a government for the past ten
years but the citizens have continued with life, business is going on. But the corporate
world cannot survive in a community where there is hostility or low financial power.
Our share prices, and therefore our worth depend on them. The figures we display to our
investors are a reflection of the financial power and stability of the community in which
we operate. We only need to reflect on what happened to Chevron Texaco, Shell
Nigeria, AOL Time Warner and Cirio Delmonte in Kenya to know what happens when
a company thinks it can go on without investing in the lives of the community it is
operating. Even Kenya’s former ruling party K.A.N.U learned too late that in the long
run it is cheaper to support community initiatives rather than a few cronies.
A company that views community support as anything other than an investment will
soon find itself quickly edged out by others that have taken deliberate efforts to invest
in their staff, their owners, their consumers and their suppliers. Castle Larger collapsed
in Kenya primarily because it could not penetrate the supplier and consumer loyalty
market created by East African Breweries. Companies such as Kenya Shell, for
example, commits 1% of its gross profit to community investment. But there are a few
Johnny-come-latelys who are frantically running around like headless chickens trying to
transform their public relations departments into community-focused departments.
Public Relations practitioners will have to rethink their role from that of organizing
events and launches, writing speeches, and running around media houses with press
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releases and photo shoots with drabbuy lines, and pay a closer attention to investing in
the community.
MORE
Technologies such as Philanthropy and Corporate Social Responsibility are old archaic
and lame duck statements by PR apologists trying to make the community feel like they
are receiving the greatest favor since the return of Jesus Christ. Community investment,
on the other hand reminds us that our entire life depend on the well being of the
individuals who make us our internal and external environment. And so we begin to
make strategies that will lead to commitments that bring tangible changes not one off
ceremonial donations to some charity or individual we read about in the press last night.
We will stop subjecting our bosses to the harrowing experience of holding those 0.7m
by 0.5m cheques before media to show the whole world that we are responsible. After
all you would not have finished reading this article if you got a call that your son died
because the hospital you took to is run down, and your company which had been
approached to support turned down the request because “there are too many worthy
causes and are unable to be of help at this time”.
We will realize that there is a need to support charities, not because they have come to
us for support but because they are bringing to our attention the needs of a community
that may soon drive us out of the market. The rich will never enjoy their wealth in peace
until the poor have something to eat.
APPENDIX
QUESTIONS
183
2. Should the budget for CSR of the PR department conform with
the legitimate allocated resources to the department by the
organization?, discuss.
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