Capacity Development for Better

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• Capacity Development for Better
• Communciation on Education by African Ministries
  and the
• African Press
• Presentation by Lawalley Cole
• Coordinator, ADEA Working Group on Communication
  for
• Education and Development
• (WG COMED)
• World Bank NETF Completion Seminar,
• Oslo, Norway October 4, 2007

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CONTEXT

• Good quality education is essential for enabling
  countries to achieve the level of economic growth
  required to tackle poverty and make sustainable
  development a reality.
• In 2000, global leaders set the first MDG to
  achieve universal primary education i.e.
  ensuring that by 2015 all boys and girls complete
  a full course of primary schooling.
• In 2007, nearly two thirds of the 100 million
  children that are not in school are girls and
  over 70 countries (the majority in Sub-Saharan
  Africa) have failed to achieve this goal.
• To successfully educate their citizenry,
  countries will have to invest in the full
  Education For All agenda, as there is great
  inter-dependency of different aspects of
  education.

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• All this will require more and better allocation
  of resources than are currently available. The
  scarcity of domestic and external financing is a
  key challenge to achieving progress in education.
• Countries must also adopt more ambitious
  expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to
  provide the fiscal space needed for increased
  spending to meet the MDGs.
• Countries must also change the way they manage
  their public sector expenditure, which until now
  has been incompatible with the big spending
  increases projected to be needed to fund the
  MDGs.
• It is with this in mind that a viable
  communication strategy will need to be developed
  and adopted to promote both dialogue and adequate
  service delivery in education.

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• COMED
• ADEA, the World Bank, with financial support from
  the NETF, and in collaboration with WANAD, have
  supported this initiative to promote the use of
  communication to support education.
• The COMED Program started in 1998 to help build
  national consensus and enhance public support for
  education policies and programs.
• The Program became an ADEA Working Group in April
  2002.
• COMEDs vision is to promote joint action for
  building confidence, trust and ownership.
• Ministries including of Education and Finance,
  the African media and all education stakeholders
  can work together towards a common objective of
  promoting education.

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• THE ROLE OF MINISTRIES OF EDUCATION
• Education ministries have a major responsibility
  for managing programs and for piloting reforms in
  their countries.
• They therefore need to establish multiple
  partnerships for education development and
  change.
• Parents, teachers unions, learners, civil
  society, faith-based and community organizations,
  media, universities and research institutions,
  proprietors, relevant arms of government, the
  private and voluntary sectors and development
  agencies are all partners in education.
• Ministries should carry these varied groups
  along, in developing and implementing education
  reforms, in a process that is destined to become
  more participatory, democratic and accountable.
• Experiences from Africa point strongly to the
  importance of systematic, sustained and strategic
  communication as a major tool for ensuring
  successful education reforms.
• However, few African education ministries have
  invested in institutionalizing strategic
  communication activities.

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• Ministerial communication units, where they
  exist, are weak, perform mostly protocol and
  peripheral management functions, and rarely have
  designated budgets or identified communication
  staff trained in relevant professional skills.
  Nevertheless, there is a will to change and move
  to a new paradigm.
• COMED is currently giving priority to working
  with education ministries to develop and
  reinforce their capacities for institutional
  communication.
• Previous COMED activities involving media and
  civil society will be refocused and programmed in
  the light of current and evolving needs.
• The Africa Education Journalism Award, managed by
  the ADEA Secretariat in collaboration with COMED,
  has been re-introduced after a one-year pause for
  review and redesign.
• It will continue to promote media excellence in
  reporting on education issues by awarding prizes
  to the best articles by African journalists
  writing in English, French and Portuguese.

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• MAIN OBJECTIVES OF WG COMED
• Strengthen the capacity of communication units in
  ministries of education in African countries to
  promote national dialogue and consensus for
  education policies and programs.
• Develop a network of trained journalists within
  African media reporting on issues of education
  and development
• Enhance the exchange and distribution of news and
  information among ADEA constituencies, including
  African education journalists, communication
  officers in education ministries and other
  relevant stakeholders through establishing an
  electronic-based communication system
• Mobilize adequate resources for executing the
  programs and work plans of the Working Group.

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• MAIN CHALLENGES
• There will be many challenges that would need to
  be
• addressed concurrently. The following are noted
• Mobilizing resources - Communication has costs
  time, expertise, appropriate structures and
  technologies, including planning and
  organization. Therefore, communication requires
  resources material, human, financial, technical.
• Diversifying resources base
• Increasing national commitment to developing
  communication strategy for education/ EFA.
• Accessing national resources for COMED
  programmes.

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• COMEDS FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• Support country leaderships in education,
  strengthen local institutions and advocate for
  building efficient partnerships to serve national
  interests.
• Undertake an extensive consultation process
  involving countries, sub-regions, and donor
  partners, UN agencies, evaluation bodies and
  centers of excellence and steering committee
  members.
• COMEDs communication strategy will be linked to
  the overall ADEA strategic plan and its targets
  and will adequately reflect key international
  agreements and initiatives including the MDGs and
  the broader EFA agenda.
• With the advent of new initiatives such as SFAI,
  ADEA and COMED must maintain and increase their
  international advocacy role for the promotion of
  all aspects of education in Africa, while
  allowing other partners UN agencies, NGOs, the
  World Bank to assume a more aggressive role in
  terms of supporting financing, and service
  delivery at (regional/national) international
  level.
• The COMED Working Group will be more explicit on
  how to work with civil society to achieve its
  goals.

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• COMEDs strategy will also reflect the new aid
  agenda and the changes associated with move away
  from individual projects to a more strategic
  sectoral approach.
• It will focus on some specific results-based
  planning and reporting, specify how this will be
  done, and elaborate on modalities for funding the
  various COMED-related activities on the
  continent.
• It will also indicate potential areas of conflict
  in programming, especially as related to the work
  of the other 10 ADEA Working Groups and other
  institutions with similar types of agenda.
• More emphasis will be put on improved quality in
  education, further focus on education for
  disadvantaged groups, girls and children from
  economically and socially deprived communities.
• Education in emergencies is also an essential
  part of the overall strategy. Such education
  should be seen as a protection mechanism for
  children and adolescents and should extend in the
  longer term to education for peace building.
• ADEA and COMEDs advocacy role in policy dialogue
  in education in fragile states will be clearly
  defined. Technical and vocational education in
  programming for adolescents will also be
  considered.

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• In view of the above broad strategies, COMED
  intends in 2008 to focus on the following areas
• Provide information
• Enhance dialogue and debate
• Advocate more on education issues and promote
  understanding of the cost barriers to education
• Promote visibility and image of education and its
  direct correlation to development
• Promote enrolment, retention and achievement
• Give priority to national capacity building-
• - Support Ministries of Education (strategic
  communication)
• - Support the media (education specialization)
• - Support parents, communities etc
  (Communication/advocacy strategy)
• - Enhance EFA policy dialogue (with new
  communication strategy)
• - Foster Institutional Communication - Make
  ourselves known and appreciated gain the
  understanding, support and sympathy of various
  groups in order to attain given objectives.
• - Ensure full participation of all partners
  this should be regarded as an indispensable
  pre-requisite to success. The concept of
  participation is at the root of any communication
  process

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• NEED FOR FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THE COMED PROGRAMME
• COMED need financial support as funding seems to
  be inadequate.
• COMED has received funding for the objectives and
  scope of its work from the NETF over the years.
• COMED is now applying to benefit from the EPDF
  transferred from the NETF.
• COMEDs programme in 2008 and 2009 is likely to
  be an ambitious one due to the current
  circumstances and scope of work to meet given
  objectives and defined strategies.
• Fund-raising will become a major priority.
  Achieving our fund-raising objectives requires
  innovative as well as cohesive and co-ordinated
  fund-raising.
• The fund-raising environment is more challenging
  and competitive than ever before. The
  international consensus around the Millennium
  Development Goals help to focus our efforts.
• We intend to demonstrate to donors how aid
  through us will directly support achievement of
  the MDGs. and how, in the context of our
  communication for education and development work,
  we are promoting policy dialogue and consensus
  for education and development in African states.

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• The COMED Coordinator will pursue fund-raising
  activities with the following
• in mind as part of an established program for
  fund-raising
• approach the traditional donors
• Review funding targets vis-à-vis past funding
  levels
• Review current major donor and its contributions
  in the past
• Review the possibility of the continuation of key
  bilateral and multi-lateral partnership to
  support COMEDs Program objectives and interests
  in specific programs
• Work locally with Ministries of Education
• Advocacy thus fundraise as in Mali
• Bring in the private sector and see the
  possibilities of them providing funding at local
  level in the various countries
• The strategy should outline the main existing and
  potential governmental and inter-governmental
  funding sources, and any other opportunities in
  the private sector including new aid modalities
  (such as global funds and foundations).
• The maintenance of contacts with representatives
  of donor countries based in the various countries
  and in the region, and with the concerned donor
  focal points (government donors/global funds and
  foundations).

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• WORK WITH MINISTRIES OF EDUCATION
• COMED will continue to work with Ministries of
  Education and will promote
• and enhance ministerial capacity for
  institutional communication on
• educational issues through the following
• National training for communication officers, and
  other media practitioners
• Widespread use of the COMED Curriculum for
  communication officers
• Use of new modules for designing and managing
  communication strategies
• Use of other communication techniques and tools
• Find new techniques in institutional
  communication program design and management
• Use of more internal communications mechanisms
• Promote public/external relations in Ministries
  of Education
• Maintain a viable media/press relations - enhance
  media understanding of education issues in
  general
• Support public affairs communication and advocacy
  in particular advocacy with media
  leaders/gatekeepers
• Help to design ministerial communication
  strategies

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• WORK WITH OTHER STAKEHOLDERS
• With the use of social mobilization techniques,
  COMED will strive to create social consensus at
  all levels on new education initiatives such as
  SFAI and UNGEI.
• Communication activities can also be organized to
  create consensus between NGOs on modalities to
  support the new initiatives in a collective
  manner in each country.
• There is also the aspect of community
  mobilization where communication activities, on a
  smaller scale, may be geared towards mobilizing a
  community to share a vision, promote dialogue
  within the community, facilitate the emergence of
  consensus within a group or arouse individual and
  collective actions needed to address the problem
  affecting the entire community.
• Communication activities may be geared towards
  influencing decision making mechanisms, acting on
  decision makers or those that influence them, and
  can contribute to initiating, changing or
  enforcing laws, regulations, procedure, social
  norms or supporting schemes aimed at addressing a
  problem facing the community or society.
• A number of concrete initiatives should be
  encouraged and promoted. The FAPE Fédération
  des Associations des Parents dÉlèves - project
  where parents talk to parents is helping to
  increase access (especially for girls) as well as
  increase parents participation in schools.
• Radio-based strategy that constituted radio
  programs and parents listening groups also
  proved to be effective in some countries.
• COMED will in the long term also make use of
  social marketing techniques. Models from the
  business sector, (advertising, public relations
  and communication agencies), can contribute to
  communication for education by emphasizing
  strategic and results-oriented institutional
  communication by Ministries of Education.

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• EMPHASIS ON CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
• In order to proceed, COMED will necessarily need
  to address the following issues
• Strengthen capacity development at national level
  and to make this cut across all COMED activities.
• Establish a series of collaborative agreements
  with all national training institutions in the
  area of communication that are dealing with
  communication and development activities.
• Address two or more levels of capacity
  development. 1. at the individual level with the
  acquisition of skills and knowledge on
  information use that may be obtained through
  technical and non-technical workshops, and 2.
  Supporting the building up of capacities of
  Ministries of Education and other organizational
  capacities such as internal structures, and
  collective capacities of staff to enable
  responsiveness to communication activities
  vis-à-vis education..
• Establish formalized partnerships with other
  African institutions and the private press. Smart
  partnerships between public, private and
  non-profit organizations are critical at this
  stage.
• Collaboration with each of these sectors adds
  value to the work of COMED and its local partners
  in many ways.
• These enabling partners are likely to share
  expertise and contribute financially to help
  ensure that local activities are sustainable.
• With strong partnerships, we will
  provide education information services, advice on
  educational developments and access to expert
  networks and local websites.

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• RESEARCH AND EVALUATION
• The results of applied research on all
  educational issues on the continent are important
  and must be shared with partners, and made
  practical use of.
• The collection and dissemination of best
  practices and lessons learned in the various
  areas are an important tool. We do have ample
  opportunities for knowledge sharing at the
  international level, but there is not much at the
  local level.
• Support local initiatives to share knowledge and
  experiences on educational issues most likely
  with the use of information and communication
  technology
• Make use of grassroots tools and media.  When
  empowered, grassroots organizations may be able
  to achieve a more participatory process, and
  undertake communications-related activities for
  education and development that are grounded in
  public opinion research. 
• Evaluations should be done more regularly. This
  is essential in order to ensure that COMED's
  activities are effective, and that all partners
  learn from our experiences.

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• Together with partners, develop user-friendly
  monitoring and evaluation system that will be
  able to evaluate COMED's roles, its level and
  user satisfaction and the developmental impact of
  its activities.
• Each country can have its independent local
  partner organization that would help in
  monitoring and evaluating the local country
  programme on communication for education and
  development.
• Professional communications organizations need to
  be included in communication for education
  efforts. Many sources of education information
  are largely untapped because unknown. What is
  known is generally regarded as inaccessible or
  uninteresting.
• Research institutions, their activities and
  data-bases in education need to become better
  promoted among journalists and other
  communicators
• Training in the use of educational statistics and
  other data-related experiences for reporters and
  correspondents are necessary, as is the creation
  of user-friendly Education Management Information
  Systems (EMIS).
• Exposure, through the COMED regional workshops,
  to information and communication technologies,
  especially access to the Internet, and its use as
  a research tool, provides much-appreciated
  opportunities for professional enhancement for
  both communication officers and journalists. This
  should be reinforced and sustained.

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• IN CONCLUSION
• Reinforce COMEDs activities with Ministries of
  Education in sub-Saharan Africa. Such activities
  will also be extended to NGOs and Civil Society
  Organizations.
• Establish a continental network of journalists on
  education and strengthen existing national
  networks Ghana, Benin, Congo, Senegal have
  networks that are deemed to be rather fragile.
  Strong networks must be developed in the short
  and medium terms in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya
  and Senegal.
• The development of a COMED website. This is
  crucial at this stage and must be given top
  priority. We will need to find a way of making
  this operational as soon as possible.
• Establish and strengthen links with universities
  and research institutions. Educational journalism
  will be brought into the programs of university
  departments and schools of journalism in Africa.
• The Africa Educational Journalism Award will in
  the long term be consolidated and further
  expanded to audio-visual journalism. A new
  proposal will be developed that will detail the
  merits of this award. A pilot project to include
  radio will be considered for the next award. The
  technology already exists in Africa as radio is
  widely used throughout the continent and its
  importance cannot be underrated.