"This book presents five cases that reflect on the experiences of using practices consistent with the 'Evaluating C4D framework' [published by June Lennie and Jo Tacchi in 2013]. Case studies are important to help move from a set of ideal principles to an understanding of how the framework may be op
...
erationalized within the actual realities of development institutions, organizations, and communities. The authors of each chapter focus on a few key principles from the framework and contextualize how they interpreted those principles in relation to various methods, models, and projects. As well as showing the usefulness and opportunities, they illustrate the challenges of balancing the various principles as well as real-world practical needs." (Overview of the book, page 10)
more
"This publication is a compilation of 19 articles by African researchers, academics, journalists and human and digital rights activists on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on digital rights in Africa. The articles were commissioned by the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms (AfDec
...
) Coalition as part of its project on “Securing human rights online in Africa through a strong and active ‘African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms’ network”. The AfDec Coalition is a pan-African initiative which promotes human rights standards and principles of openness in internet policy formulation and implementation on the continent, guided by the 13 principles established in the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms. At the time that the papers were commissioned, in June 2020, African states had either invoked existing policies or adopted new policies for prevention of spread, containment and treatment of the virus that had an impact on the enjoyment of digital rights. For example, most governments employed the use of contact tracing applications to track and trace citizens’ movements and put in place measures criminalising free speech when it contained false information about the pandemic. These two examples had the potential to be abused, particularly the latter, which was used to silence journalists and government critics. The pandemic also moved most citizens’ communication, education, work, trade and access to basic services from physical interactions to primilary online interactions. However, the continent is still largely made up of informal economies, has a low internet penetration rate of 28.2% (far below the global average of around 53%), and has seen an increase in reports of digital rights violations resulting from repressive cyberlaws, making the efforts to address the pandemic inadequate and inequitable. These articles offer reflective analyses on government efforts to curb the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of the AfDec principles, with a focus on a number of the principles including privacy and personal data protection, gender equality, freedom of expression, internet access and affordability, and the right to development and access to knowledge." (Introduction)
more
"In March 2019, Cyclone Idai brought death and destruction to Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe as a result of heavy rains and extensive flooding (Figure 1). The respective governments together with UNICEF and other partners, responded swiftly to the disaster. Rescue and relief operations were impleme
...
nted immediately, saving many lives, and resources were rapidly mobilized to provide food and non-food items to people in the affected areas. As part of the initial response, UNICEF conducted a rapid knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) survey on the information and communication needs of the most affected people in all three countries. The findings informed the lifesaving multisectoral C4D interventions which played a key supporting role in all three countries (Table 1). The experiences of the three countries in successfully mainstreaming C4D across the Cyclone Idai response offer valuable learning for future humanitarian emergencies." (Introduction)
more
"We started by performing fieldwork in five countries, covering the four main SSA regions: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. We then conducted 116 interviews across 78 organizations, covering the overall ecosystem: mobile network operators (MNOs), aggreg
...
ators, donors, multilateral organizations and nongovernmental organization (NGOs). The following are key findings by mobile channel: SMS volumes are driven by a few players, mostly multilateral agencies; Voice/IVR allows for rich interactions, but impact needs to be documented further. USSD usage by aid and development players appears limited despite promise; Interest in mobile money is high among both supply and demand players; Mobile internet adoption is still limited in potential. In each of the five countries, the 2018 market value of all mobile channels generated by NGOs and multilateral organizations was estimated at between $500,000 and $1 million. Using data from these five countries to extrapolate to all 48 countries in SSA, the total 2018 market is estimated at $15.7 million, with mobile money standing out as the largest channel. This aggregate number for the sector appears low compared to the overall size of the telecommunications market. Market appeal is further reduced by the fact that the mobile sector already perceives the aid and development sector as being difficult to work with, due to uncertainty of demand, long procurement processes and other factors. While price has been cited as a reason for this low aggregate number, the fieldwork suggests that it is driven more by the lack of awareness of many implementing partners, particularly at the country level. These challenges to scale are consistent with qualitative findings obtained from DIAL’s Ecosystem Baseline study in 2018. That said, the market appears bound to grow due to strong underlying trends. Our model predicts three scenarios that show a 2022 market value of between $31.6 million and $61.6 million." (Executive summary, page 4)
more
"Artificial intelligence (AI) is now receiving unprecedented global attention as it finds widespread practical application in multiple spheres of activity. But what are the human rights, social justice and development implications of AI when used in areas such as health, education and social service
...
s, or in building “smart cities”? How does algorithmic decision making impact on marginalised people and the poor? This edition of Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) provides a perspective from the global South on the application of AI to our everyday lives. It includes 40 country reports from countries as diverse as Benin, Argentina, India, Russia and Ukraine, as well as three regional reports. These are framed by eight thematic reports dealing with topics such as data governance, food sovereignty, AI in the workplace, and so-called “killer robots”. While pointing to the positive use of AI to enable rights in ways that were not easily possible before, this edition of GISWatch highlights the real threats that we need to pay attention to if we are going to build an AI-embedded future that enables human dignity." (Back cover)
more
"Addressing depression in young people is a health-care policy need in sub-Saharan Africa. There exists poor mental health literacy, high levels of stigma, and weak capacity at the community level to address this health-care need. These challenges are significant barriers to accessing mental health
...
care for depression, soon to be the largest single contributor to the global burden of disease. We here describe an innovative approach that addresses these issues simultaneously while concurrently strengthening key mental health components in existing education and health-care systems as successfully applied in Malawi and replicated in Tanzania. Improving the pathway to care for young people with depression requires the following: improving mental health literacy (MHL) of communities, youth, and teachers; enhancing case identification and linking schools to community health clinics; improving the capacity of community health-care providers to identify, diagnose, and effectively treat depression in youth. Funded by Grand Challenges Canada, we developed and applied a program called “An Integrated Approach to Addressing the Challenge of Depression Among the Youth in Malawi and Tanzania” (IACD). This was an example of, a horizontally integrated pathway to care model designed to be applied in low-resource settings. The model is designed to 1) improve awareness/knowledge of mental health and mental disorders (especially depression) in communities; 2) enhance mental health literacy among youth and teachers within schools; 3) enhance capacity for teachers to identify students with possible depression; 4) create linkages between schools and community health clinics for improved access to mental health care for youth identified with possible depression; and 5) enhance the capacity of community-based health-care providers to identify, diagnose, and effectively treat youth with depression. With the use of interactive, youth-informed weekly radio programs, mental health curriculum training for teachers and peer educators in secondary schools, and a clinical competency training program for community-based health workers, the innovation created a “hub and spoke” model for improving mental health care for young people. Positive results obtained in Malawi and replicated in Tanzania suggest that this approach may provide an effective and potentially sustainable framework for enhancing youth mental health care, thus providing a policy ready framework that can be considered for application in sub-Saharan Africa." (Abstract)
more
"While the internal dynamics or the role of the state has had a significant bearing on how media systems evolve and change, both internal and external factors have contributed to the type of media that exists in Malawi today. Although Hallin and Mancini did not include at length the role of external
...
forces, they did rightfully point out that “media systems are shaped by the wider context of political history, structure, and the culture” (ibid., 2004, page 46). This being said, media systems in aid-dependent contexts should start with a historical interrogation of foreign aid and its conditionalities; because if, as political realists claim, foreign aid is a coercive foreign policy tool that can be used to manipulate change, its ability to shape the type of media a country has emphasises the need for reassessing the way in which we, as media systems researchers, study media systems. In addition, we should not isolate the analysis of media systems through one theoretical lens, but approach international relations theory to challenge and reinvigorate the structural and ideological power arrangements that exist. While no broader generalisations can be made until further analysis is undertaken, it is hoped that the study will serve as a valuable starting point for highlighting the inherently faulty analysis of studying media systems through an internal lens only. This will become even more apparent with the rising economies of China, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Korea and India, which “are subtly changing the rules of foreign aid with profound consequences for the role of multilateral institutions and conditionality”." (Page 409)
more
"The GSMA mHealth programme, under the mNutrition Initiative funded by UK aid (the UK Department for International Development, DFID), has been working with mobile network operators (MNOs) and other mobile and health sector stakeholders to support the launch and scale of mobile health (mHealth) valu
...
e-added services (VAS). As of December 2017, these services have cumulatively delivered lifesaving maternal and newborn child health (MNCH) and nutrition information to over 1.59 million women and their families across eight Sub-Saharan African markets: Malawi, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda and Mozambique (Figure 1). Key findings: Adopting a HCD approach to product development and optimisation led to increased user engagement; mHealth service users demonstrated improved nutrition behaviours over non-users across all implementing markets; mHealth services resulted in an average improvement of 12 percentage points in overall nutrition knowledge among users across all eight markets; Mobile information services improve knowledge, even when existing knowledge around certain nutrition topics is reasonably high; Mobile information services have a stronger impact with poorly understood concepts; Repetition of messages about key health practices reinforces the behaviour; Forty-two per cent of mNutrition service users report sharing the information they learn with their family, friends and communities [...]" (Executive summary)
more
"As farmers, foresters and providers, women have a unique understanding of the ecosystems they live alongside. A pioneering radio programme in Malawi is tapping into this immense body of knowledge by creating a platform for women to engage in landscape restoration." (Page 1)
"[...] despite the welcome increase in the number of journalism and communication qualifications offered by public and private journalism training colleges in Malawi, the quality of the output is still lackluster. This is overwhelmingly because practical skills courses are taught inadequately, hapha
...
zardly and theoretically due, partly, to inadequate human and material resources and lack of a national policy to guide the formation of journalists. It recommends that to improve the quality and relevance of journalistic output, Malawi should draft and publish a journalism education and training policy to guide all journalism training colleges. It also recommends that training colleges should partner with the industry, multilateral organizations with interest in communication and media development, government departments and NGOs not only for industrial attachment but also for these to sponsor communication and journalism training programmes. Partner institutions should consider procuring training materials and assets for the training institutions. The study further recommends that partner institutions need to consider sponsoring academic staff for higher education in journalism and media studies." (Abstract)
more
"Radio is an effective source of health information in many resource poor countries. In Malawi, 53% of households own radios however few radio programmes in Malawi focus on health issues in the context of medical research. An interactive health-talk radio programme ‘Umoyo nkukambirana’ was intro
...
duced by Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme on a national radio station. The aim was to increase awareness of health and medical research, and improve engagement between researchers, healthcare workers and the public. The content and presentation were developed through participatory community consultations. Focus Group Discussions were conducted with established Radio Listening Clubs whilst quantitative data was collected using toll free FrontlineSMS to explore national response. A total of 277 to 695 SMS (Median: 477) were received per theme. The majority of SMS were received from men (64%) and mainly from rural areas (54%). The programme improved knowledge of medical research, health and dispelled misconceptions. This study suggests that the radio may be an effective means of increasing the exposure of men to health information in resource poor settings." (Abstract)
more
"International development stakeholders harness communication with two broad purposes: to do good, via communication for development and media assistance, and to communicate do-gooding, via public relations and information. This book unpacks various ways in which different efforts to do good are com
...
bined with attempts to look good, be it in the eyes of donor constituencies at large, or among more specific audiences, such as journalists or intra-agency decision-makers. Development communication studies have tended to focus primarily on interventions aimed at doing good among recipients, at the expense of examining the extent to which promotion and reputation management are elements of those practices. This book establishes the importance of interrogating the tensions generated by overlapping uses of communication to do good and to look good within international development cooperation." (Publisher description)
more
"Applied Theatre: Performing Health and Wellbeing is the first volume in the field to address the role that theatre, drama and performance have in relation to promoting, developing and sustaining health and wellbeing in diverse communities. Challenging concepts and understanding of health, wellbeing
...
and illness, it offers insight into different approaches to major health issues through applied performance. With a strong emphasis on the artistry involved in performance-based health responses, situated within a history of the field of practice, the volume is divided into two sections: Part One examines some of the key questions around research and practice in applied performance in health and wellbeing, specifically addressing the different regional challenges that dominate the provision of health care and influence wellbeing: how the aging population of the global north creates pressure on lifetime healthcare provision, while the global south is dominated by a higher birth rate and a larger population under 15 years old. Part Two comprises case studies and interviews from international practitioners that reflect the diversity of practices across the world and in particular differences between work in the northern and southern hemispheres. These case studies include a sanitation project in a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand in the 1980s, and the sanitation and rural development projects initiated by the traveling theatre troupes of a number of University theatre departments in Africa – Makerere in Kampala, Uganda; Botswana; Lesotho and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – which began in the 1960s. It considers the emergence of Theatre for Development's use as a health approach, considering the work of Laedza Batanani and the influences of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed." (Publisher description)
more
"Governments around the world have dramatically increased their efforts to manipulate information on social media over the past year. The Chinese and Russian regimes pioneered the use of surreptitious methods to distort online discussions and suppress dissent more than a decade ago, but the practice
...
has since gone global. Such state-led interventions present a major threat to the notion of the internet as a liberating technology. Online content manipulation contributed to a seventh consecutive year of overall decline in internet freedom, along with a rise in disruptions to mobile internet service and increases in physical and technical attacks on human rights defenders and independent media. Nearly half of the 65 countries assessed in Freedom on the Net 2017 experienced declines during the coverage period, while just 13 made gains, most of them minor. Less than one-quarter of users reside in countries where the internet is designated Free, meaning there are no major obstacles to access, onerous restrictions on content, or serious violations of user rights in the form of unchecked surveillance or unjust repercussions for legitimate speech." (Page 1)
more