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MA Media and Development Dissertation(Shehab Zahda)
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Development Communication and International
Organisations in the occupied Palestinian territories
Shehab Zahda
w13763587
This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment for the
MA Media and Development
University of Westminster
Copyright (2013) University of Westminster and Shehab Zahda
Acknowledgment
My deepest love to my parents, my sister Lubab and my brothers Ubaida, Sohaib, Shuaib and
Sharaf...
Appreciation for my cousin, Yazid Zahda, for his unstinting support and unwavering friendship...
Special thanks for my supervisor, Professor Daya Thussu, for his kind guidance and valuable
support...
I thank all the lecturers who taught me ... with all due respect to each and every one of them...
I fervently thank the University of Westminster for honouring me with the generous scholarship
to pursue the Master degree...
Shehab Zahda
28th
August, 2013
Abstract
The paper seeks to ascertain the area of Development Communication of International
Organisations working on and funding the development sector in the occupied Palestinian
territories. It addresses the way development is planned, executed and measured, including
communication actions, policies, strategies and agenda. The review of previous academic work
deals with Development Communication paradigms and perspectives from its historical,
practical and academic aspects. A light is shed on main paradigms of development
Modernisation and Empowerment and contrasts between them in terms of policies and practices.
The outcome of semi-structured interview is the essence of the discussion and analysis part of
the research, besides the understanding and insight from the theoretical framework of the study;
the works of Jan Servaes and Srinivas Melkote. The conclusion section lays down the main
points and offers recommendations drawn from the empirical research, interviews and the
researcher‘s analysis of the matter.
1
Table of Contents...........................................................................................................................1
List of Tables ..................................................................................................................................2
List of Abbreviations.......................................................................................................................3
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 5
1.1 Research Questions .......................................................................................................... 7
1.2 Objectives ......................................................................................................................... 8
1.3 Significance of the Study ................................................................................................. 8
2 Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 10
2.1 Development communication ........................................................................................ 10
2.1.1 Development paradigms ......................................................................................... 10
2.1.2 Communication theories ......................................................................................... 13
2.1.3 DevComm ............................................................................................................... 18
2.2 Palestinian Context Deconstruction ............................................................................... 26
2.2.1 Historical and political-economic background ....................................................... 26
2.2.2 Background of civil society and international donors ............................................ 29
2.2.3 Traces of DevComm practices in the oPt ............................................................... 30
3 Research Methodology .......................................................................................................... 32
3.1 Semi-structured Interviews method ............................................................................... 32
3.2 The sample ..................................................................................................................... 34
3.3 Ethical considerations .................................................................................................... 35
3.4 Research Design ............................................................................................................. 36
3.5 Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 37
4 Discussion and Analysis ........................................................................................................ 38
4.1 Development views and approaches in the oPt .............................................................. 38
4.1.1 Modernisation under Empowerment Camouflage .................................................. 39
4.1.2 Development a Means versus an End ..................................................................... 40
4.1.3 Development is Experimental and Secondary ........................................................ 41
4.2 Communication role in development in the oPt ............................................................. 43
4.2.1 Communication for ‗Visibility‘ .............................................................................. 44
4.2.2 Communication for ‗Awareness-Raising‘ .............................................................. 46
2
4.2.3 Communication for ‗Dialogue‘ ............................................................................... 48
4.2.4 Communication for ‗Advocacy‘ ............................................................................. 49
4.2.5 IOs and DevComm strategies and policies in the oPt ............................................. 50
4.2.6 Towards DevComm approach ................................................................................ 53
4.2.7 DevComm and Social Media .................................................................................. 54
4.3 Issues that decelerate DevComm process ...................................................................... 56
4.3.1 Local Context .......................................................................................................... 56
4.3.2 Stability ................................................................................................................... 57
4.3.3 Language ................................................................................................................. 58
4.3.4 Organisational aspects ............................................................................................ 59
5 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 61
5.1 General recommendations .............................................................................................. 62
References/ Bibliography.............................................................................................................. 66
Appendices .................................................................................................................................... 72
Appendix I - Interview Request ............................................................................................. 73
Appendix II - Questions List ................................................................................................. 74
Appendix III: Interviews (1-8) .............................................................................................. 75
List of tables
Table (1): Modernisation and Empowerment Communication ...................................................20
Table (2): List of Interviews ....................................................................................................... 35
3
List of abbreviations
4Ps: Product, Price, Place and Promotion
AFD: French Agency for Development
CSOs: Civil Society Organisations
DevComm: Development Communication ‗Communication for Development‘
DSC: Development Support Communication
EE: Edutainment
EU: European Union
FAO: Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations
GDP: Gross Domestic Product
HDI: Human Development Index
ICRC: International Committee of the Red Cross
ICTs: Information and Communication Technologies
INGOs: International Non-Governmental Organisations
IOs: International Organisations; ‗Donors and Development Agencies - governmental and non-
governmental‘
KAP: Knowledge, Attitude and Practices
NGOs: Non-Governmental Organisations
4
oPt: occupied Palestinian Territories
PA: Palestinian Authority
USA: United States of America
5
1 Introduction
The study of Communication for development (DevComm) and the work of international
organisation (IOs) in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) are the main scope of this
research. Firstly, that DevComm has been a recognised vital part of Development work since
1970s by pioneer organisations like the World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organisation of
the United Nations (FAO). A milestone of DevComm history can be traced back to the first
World Congress on Communication for Development that took place at the headquarters of FAO
in Rome in 2006. Secondly, the role of international organisations, governmental or non-
governmental, in the (oPt) as the main stakeholders and key players of funding and development
work besides in addition to their expertises and money.
This research comes as an endeavour to scientifically look at the work delivered by the
international organisations in the oPt and their approaches towards DevComm, an interest that
stems from humble work-experience with International Non-governmental Organisations
(INGOs), combined with the curiosity about communication role in development sector in the
oPt as field of specialisation.
DevComm stands on the premises of dialogue, participation and the sharing of knowledge and
information, it is about bearing in mind the needs and capacities of all concerned in development
from grass-roots level to highest national policy-making level. This approach views the role of
communication indispensable to reach people-centred ‗participatory‘ and sustainable
development, compared to the modernisation view of development that has been subject to
criticism over the past century as a form of a new form of imperialism. “As Nelson Mandela
highlighted, it is people that make the difference. Communication is about people.
6
Communication for Development is essential to making the difference happen” (World Bank,
2007: xxxvi).
The importance of development communication in the development of poor economies and
societies has triggered the concern of IOs work. It is vital to study how communication strategies
are adopted by IOs as a tool for enhancing development objectives. IOs tend to implement
projects and leave without any sustainability or follow-up. Participatory approach is still
confined to internal communications within IOs and limited to geographic boundaries. The
question of efficacy of development communication in different projects in different IOs is
tackled in different ways. Many IOs have short-term as well as long-term projects; the roles of
these organisations have been subject to controversy, whether local or international, in terms of
sustainability and efficacy to human development. One would be concerned whether the funds
and projects poured in oPt are benefiting the society in general, and the extent of development on
the population and their well-being.
The relevance of this research is that the oPt, being developing, are subject to the processes of
development, and international organisations are the bodies that shape this process. This paper
stands on the point that successful and meaningful development in Palestine should be integrated
with the principles of participatory ‗multiplicity‘ approach of development, where DevComm is
a major factor to reaching such development. It is to examine whether IOs recognise and adopt
DevComm approach in their work in the OPt.
A part of this argument is associated with whether IOs adopt and utilise media and
communication as a tool and means of development in the oPt. Provided that the geographic
division of the oPt which makes it quite difficult for the people to be a society and develop from
7
within. There has been a critical division between the oPt; West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza
Strip. Projects in the territories are limited to the boundaries depending on the organisations
outreach capacity to work.
IOs have communication activities that involve lobbying, advocacy, giving advice for decision
making, conducting researches, holding conferences, assisting tribunals, disseminating
information, defining agenda, developing and promoting codes of conduct and work on
investments and boycotting campaigns (Yaziji & Doh, 2009: 8). These roles have grown with the
rapid development of mass communication and the emergence of new technologies. International
organisations have affirmed the role of the media in the service of humanitarian issues and state
building (Abuzanouna, 2012: 179). Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a
key role in distributing information around given issues as well as sharing information and
ideologies. Technology has increased the ability of communication development, both through
traditional distribution channels, such as newspapers, radio and television, and through more
direct-to-consumer channels as blogs and podcasts (Yaziji & Doh, 2009: 29).
1.1 Research Questions
1. How does communication fit in the development approach of the IOs working in the
OPt?
2. How can communication help in the development process in the OPt?
3. What is the role of DevComm in the work of the IOs in the oPt?
4. How do IOs in the oPt incorporate communication in their development work?
5. How IOs build their policies, strategies and agenda of communication for their
development work in the oPt?
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6. To what extent communication strategies facilitate achieving the organisations‘ goals?
7. What is the role of ICTs and new media in the communication work of the IOs?
8. How to adapt or improve the development work to match DevComm approach and to
better increase the limited participation of the population in the development process?
1.2 Objectives
1. To investigate to what extent DevComm is adopted and prioritized by main donors and
development agencies ‗IOs‘.
2. To determine the factors which contribute and encumber the adoption of communication
strategies/ policies/ agendas by development agencies in the oPt.
3. To understand how factors such as organisations‘ culture and organisations‘ structure
impact the adoption of communication strategies, policies and their practices in the oPt.
4. To bring up findings that would contribute towards the subject of DevComm in the oPt.
5. To demonstrate the added value and impact of DevComm and how to incorporate it in
governmental, international, and donor policies.
6. To fit communication into local and national development processes and policies
7. To explore the communication and media infrastructure that is used for development in
the oPt.
8. To uncover any future insights of adopting DevComm approach.
1.3 Significance of the Study
9
The findings of the research will add to the knowledge and understanding of DevComm, in
particular, Communication strategies, policies and practices implemented by IOs in the OPt, it is
aimed to:
a. Deepen the knowledge of theory and approaches to DevComm adopted by IOs in the
OPt, in particular, media driven development in non-profit sector.
b. Present useful knowledge on factors that might influence as well as contribute to the
adoption of communication driven development by IOs and consequently by civil society
organisations.
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2 Literature Review
This chapter sets the foundation of the conceptual framework for the research, it comprises a
description of the old concept of development and contrast it with some contemporary
definitions of development; it sheds the light on the main development paradigms that have been
present in the oPt. A description of definitions mainly adopted from the theoretical frameworks
drawn from the writings of Jan Servaes (2008) and Srinivas Melkote (2010) about DevComm
theories and practices that shape the main framework for the following discussion and analysis.
Furthermore, it introduces the notion of communication and tries to lay down its role in
development and contrast it with some of the roles of communication models in development
processes. In addition to that, it highlights some academic traces of DevComm practices by IOs
in communication sector in the oPt.
2.1 Development communication
2.1.1 Development paradigms
Looking at the term development, the literal meaning of development in Oxford Dictionary
defines it, inter alia, as ―the process of developing or being developed; a specified state of growth
and advancement‖ (2013). It is a very wide definition due to which the exact meaning of being
developed or developing has been subject to controversy and research. It is a slippery concept
that has a chaotic history. “Development means different things to different scholars and
practitioners” (Melkote & Steeves, 2001: 34), that being said; one cannot discuss the theory and
practice of DevComm without firstly defining development as well as communication. The
conventional understanding of development depicts it as the improvement of the living condition
of a society and a state of growth, nonetheless, a debate has been on to define what ‗constitutes
11
improved living conditions‘ and how they could be achieved (Hopper, 2012: 1-3; Melkote &
Steeves, 2001: 34, Nugent & Vincent, 2004: 86).
Traces of development go back to ―anti-colonial movements‖ in the 1940s in Western countries.
It implied, then, progress and economic growth in most cases. (Hopper, 2012: 30). Along the
same vein, from a historical angle of the term, as the USA in late 1940s regarded development as
allowing underdeveloped areas to benefit from the scientific advances and industrial progress.
This marked the spark that started development to come into the phase of being a method of
change introduced in the former colonies. It drew the emergence of not only Development
theories, but also for the Discipline of International Relations. The political discourse of the USA
back then also laid the basis for the international development when US President Harry Truman
said that development should “embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our
scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of
underdeveloped areas” (Truman quoted in Rist 1997:71). Later on, development was no longer
“the study of policy choice in poor countries” (Krieckhaus, 2006:165), but it became to
encompass the expansion of freedom, choices and dignity (Telatin, 2011: 36).
The earliest definition of development was “a type of social change in which new ideas are
introduced into a social system in order to produce higher per-capita incomes and levels of
living through more production methods and improved social organisation” (Rogers in Melkote,
2010: 110). Development has been redefined, taking the emphasis away from traditional
economic indicators of economic growth as primarily the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to
broadening the concept to take in psychological and material factors related to the measurement
of human well-being; a human-centred development (Chandler, 2007: 6). In the 1990s, Human
12
Development Index (HDI) became an additional measurement of development in addition to the
GDP (Hopper, 2012: 11; Melkote, 2010: 108).
“Development is an integral, multidimensional, and dialectic process that can differ from society
to society, community to community, context to context” (Servaes, 2008: 205). There are four
main development perspectives; where the development situation in the oPt can be a hybrid
product of these four main paradigms which form till this very moment the process of
development in the oPt. The first paradigm is modernisation that is based on ‗neo-classical
economic theory‘ which promotes and supports capitalistic economic development; it assumes
that the Western model of economic growth is applicable elsewhere. Modernisation aims to
persuade developing countries‘ governments and their people to adopt modern technologies in
order for the developing countries to develop, and macro-level policies in order for economic
growth to come about. This paradigm is quite predominant in development projects, rather in the
oPt, around the world as there have been no concrete alternatives, especially in the development
funded projects. Modernisation paradigm has invited a lot of criticism and controversies; as a
result, Critical perspective, a second paradigm about development emerged stemming from the
criticism that modernisation as an agent of Western cultural expansion and new facet of
imperialism. The critical paradigm advocates for political and economic restructuring to create
more production and fairer distribution of resources among and within societies. (Melkote, 2010:
105-106; Hopper, 2012: 30; Melkote & Steeves, 2001: 34).
The third is the Libertarian or monastic paradigm, it is derived from the ‗Liberation theology‘
works of Paulo Freire in the 1970s ‗Pedagogy of the Oppressed‘, which puts forward personal
and communal liberation from oppression as its main priority; it is the gateway to ‗empowerment
and self-reliance‘ which forms the primary goal of development. This paradigm views Western
13
countries and corporations, as the source of oppression. Libertarian development advocates that
the individuals be free to choose how they want their countries to develop (Melkote & Steeves,
2001: 35-36). It is worth mentioning that the aforementioned paradigms have overlapping
viewpoints in their methodologies and assumptions about ‗economic growth‘. Meanwhile,
liberation school of thought claims that Modernisation aid projects have ignored or marginalised,
inter alia, basic needs, sustainable development, gender, cultural and anthropological
specifications, and to name a few, from their development aid in the developing countries
(Melkote, 2010: 106; Peet & Hartwick, 2009: 17).
The fourth school of development is the Empowerment paradigm. Development through
empowerment is seen as a process of increasing control by groups over issues that are important
to the group members and to the boarder community. Empowerment paradigm has been adopted
in the DevComm theories, policies and works extensively. It forms one of the main theoretical
frameworks since its inception. It is a multi-level structure suitable to individual citizens and also
to organisations and governments. Melkote (2010) cites a description of empowerment as;
An intentional, ongoing process centred in the local community, involving mutual
respect, critical reflection caring and group participation through which people lacking an
equal share of valued resources gain greater access to and control over those resources
(115).
2.1.2 Communication theories
Communication in the early stages of research was assumed to be a ‗linear process‘, where basic
description of communication comes to be: “someone sends a message to someone else via a
channel and gets a response, called feedback”, this model is usually described as one-way
14
communication (Melkote & Steeves, 2001: 30). Meanwhile, mass communication refers to “the
process by which a complex organisation with the aid of one or more machines produces and
transmits public messages that are directed at large, heterogeneous and scattered audiences”
(Dominick, 2007: 10). Early theories about communication and its role in development took
place when Daniel Lerner studied modernisation in 1958 ―The passing of Traditional Society‖
and expected that mass media can be ‗a magic multiplier for development in the developing
countries. Government development agencies in the 1950s and 1960s implied a one-way flow of
communication to the people, and back then mass media was suitable and convenient to that role.
Mass media reached large audiences and conveyed to them informative and persuasive messages
about development processes (Melkote, 2010: 109; Rogers, 1976: 225-226). "It was the pressure
of communications which brought about the downfall of traditional societies" (Pye in Rogers,
1976: 226).
Communication theorists started to question the role of communication in early stages in regards
to the message transfer and its effects, the conducted studies brought up some communication
theories, then sought to explore the role and the power of mass media in areas as agenda-setting
for public discourse, public opinion and persuasion, education, campaigns, role-model influence
and imitation, audiences studies and so forth. These theories have explored the linear nature of
communication; the studies showed that communication is the maintenance, modification and
creation of culture, from where one can find out that communication, culture and development
are interlinked, especially in an age where communication technologies have been advancing at a
very rapid pace that eased the information flows and communication channels globally (Melkote
& Steeves, 2001: 31).
15
The social and economic contributions of the media to development depend on the nature of the
content delivered. Media have an important social aspect as a channel to encourage
communication within various segments of a given society – non-governmental organisations,
syndicates, civil society groups, religious, and ethnic communities. This mediated interaction
enhances the participation of various groups through exchange of information and deliberation,
thus contributing to social, political and cultural development (Abuzanouna, 2012: 36; Locksley,
2009: 2). The more individuals in the developing countries were exposed to mass media, the
more modern they were, it is demonstrated by their modern attitudes and behaviour, this theory
seems relevant as mass media were considered to be carrying pro-development messages
(Rogers, 1976: 229).
Sociologist, psychologists, linguists, political scientists and others have examined the impact and
effect of mass media in different areas over the past few decades. Results have come up with
various and different models of communication theories, assumptions about communication and
social change. At the same time, development scholars and communication theorists have come
up with communication models that suit development contexts and goals (Melkote & Steeves,
2001: 29-30). Media play a crucial role as a channel that fosters and strengthens communication
among different levels of the society. This has an added value in exchanging information which
contributes to the social, political and cultural development. This role of communication is a
preliminary condition for democracy in a society. Media can contribute to the promotion of
social harmony; democratic media are to ensure ‗active participation of individuals, diversity of
opinions including people at the grass-roots level. In this vein theorists have argued that mass
media are an “instrument for economic and social development which can spread the message of
modernity” (Abuzanouna, 2012: 36).
16
Colin Sparks as well shares the view that mass media are an instrument for economic and social
development which can spread the message of modernity. In regards to ‗DevComm‘, the role of
mass media in development started to help and to assist create social change in terms of the shift
to new customs and practices and a shift to different social relationships (Sparks, 2007: 25, 70-
75). The main agreed-upon functions of the media are to educate, inform, and entertain. “The
media can be used and delivered in so many ways, there is no single means of analyzing its
contributions to development” (Locksley, 2009: 2-3).
These variations of viewpoints stem from the understanding and perception of development and
of communication. Communications‘ role in the modernisation paradigm is viewed merely as
‗information transmission‘, they view development as a process of modernisation where
communication can be a persuasive assisting tool in the process, through delivery and insertion
of technologies, or inculcating certain values, attitudes and behaviours in the population. The
critique of this model is that it is marketing for the Western economic and political values and
technologies. Similarly the expertise and professional expatriates especially coming from North
America and Western Europe are brought and given highly paid salaries from their compatriot
taxpayers, while there are local expertises who can serve the very same development processes.
In addition to that critique, modernisation paradigm has been subject to corrupt leaders and
government officials misuse, by finding ways to enhance their wealth through foreign aid which
creates and fosters the social gap between the elites and the masses, or rich and poor people in
the country (Melkote & Steeves, 2001: 38).
DevComm‘s participatory approach has pioneered this evolution which regards people as active
actors or participants in development, rather than a development imposed by a Western
conception and a unidirectional communication aiming at persuasion from the informed ‗source‘
17
to the uninformed ‗receiver‘, while participatory approach allows people to have self-
appreciation rather than self-depreciation. Development has come to be liberating and
emancipating people while respecting their local culture. The diffusion model of development
goes along the modernisation philosophy, where the role of communication is used to put the
blame for underdevelopment upon the people of the respective societies, using its strategies of
‗diffusion of innovations‘, the ‗two-step-flow‘ and ‗social marketing‘ (Servaes, 2008: 201-202;
Melkote, 2010: 110).
The participatory model regards people as the ‗nucleus of development‘. Development in that
respect works to elevate the spirits of the people to maintain their pride of culture, intellect and
environment. Development in participatory approach with its communication model ‗DevComm‘
aims to educate and motivate people to have an active role in improving their individual and
communal prospects in an ecologically balanced system sustainable development. DevComm is
about dialogues rather than monologues; it is about emancipation and not alienation, and
universalism versus nationalism. On the other hand, the modernisation diffusion model of
development has been criticised endlessly for excluding the social and cultural aspects of the
developing countries, while the participatory approach adopts an anthropological development
approach within (Servaes, 2008: 201-202; Melkote & Steeves, 2001: 37-38).
Changes in the theoretical frameworks of development and of communication have reached the
policy-making level, consequently different methodologies and terminologies have emerged
which development agencies have had to deal with. It became necessary to identify the basis and
come up with a concrete understanding of the objective of development and the role of
communication within in order to run development project professionally and efficiently. “A
18
variety of theoretical models can be used to devise communication strategies for development”
(Servaes, 2008: 205).
Different from the traditional perspective on modernisation and development, the main idea is
that one cannot get hold on one universal development. This shift of theoretical and practical
framework of communication as well as development went from the vertical top-down
framework which serves as a basis for the modernisation school of development; as the diffusion
of innovations or two-step flow theories. The shift went to view the process rather as two-way
and horizontal adopting a participatory approach to development and communication in theory
and practice creating mainly a new area entitled ‗Communication for Development‘ (Servaes,
2008: 203; Melkote, 2010: 110).
2.1.3 DevComm
“Communication for Development is a social process based on dialogue using a broad range of
tools and methods. DevComm is about seeking change at different levels including listening,
establishing trust, sharing knowledge and skills, building policies, debating and learning for
sustained and meaningful change. It is not public relations or corporate communication” (World
Bank, 2007: xxxiii).
DevComm lays the foundation for a long-term process to strengthen citizenship and good
governance, and foster the communication links and processes in the communities and societies.
DevComm surpasses the ‗information transmission‘ approach regarding the audiences to be
passive. It helps integrate the power of media in the local communication systems for the
objective of increasing the populations‘ involvement in development processes. DevComm
prioritises the convergence of media ‗traditional and ICTs‘, the empowerment of local
19
stakeholders where the priority is the local content and community media to help build and
strengthen local institutions. The strategies and activities of DevComm are based on
‗participatory communication needs assessment‘ in order to use the relevant tools to tackle
specific issues and needs. It is a horizontal process among development actors, and it empowers
the local marginalised and vulnerable people to decide the development processes and
opportunities (FAO, 2013).
The DevComm reiterates the importance of participation and ownership of development by the
individuals and the communities of the developing country. It encompasses different levels of,
among other things; policy-making, change and sharing knowledge and skills (World Bank,
2007: xxxi-xxxii). The media‘s development impact is summarised by Gareth Locksley as
follows,
Plurality and transparency—the contributions that a plural media environment makes to
good governance, transparency, and the functioning of markets (economic and political)
which can be seen as the media‘s political economy role. Behavioural—the media‘s
contribution to inspiring beneficial changes in the behaviours of individuals, groups, and
organisations. Infrastructure and platform—compelling content is essential for and the
main driver of investment in new convergent broadband infrastructure and platforms,
which hold the potential for transformational development. Economic—the media
provide many jobs, especially in smaller-size enterprises. Trade—trade in media, mainly
audio-visual products—is substantial but asymmetric, certain trade barriers restrain
investments and limit opportunities for developing country exports, and so the media‘s
potential contribution to development (2009: 3).
20
The research‘s theoretical frameworks from Jan Servaes (2008) and Srinivas Melkote (2010)
provide the major set of different development communication approaches and practices that
organisations work on in different social levels and social settings, this set of approaches can be
divided between practices of DevComm under modernisation paradigm ‗diffusion model‘ and
participatory development paradigm multiplicity model and empowerment (Servaes, 2008: 205-
211).
The diffusion of innovations in DevComm approach adopts the top-down way of technology and
knowledge transfer. This approach intends to inform the people ‗audience‘ and persuade them of
behavioural change based on the Western values; it is seen as a simulation and copycat model
transferred to the developing countries. Traditional approach of diffusion model practices has
been widely spread in the agricultural field. Diffusion concepts being imprecise led the diffusion
theory alone to be inadequate as a basis to communications planning in development campaigns.
The contemporary approach of the diffusion model widened to encompass environmental issues,
small businesses, trainings and technology transfer (Melkote, 2010: 111).
Table (1): Modernisation and Empowerment Communication. Source: (FAO, 2005: 20)
21
The participatory approach of development based on which DevComm has developed over time
has a wide range of approaches used in the processes of development (Servaes, 2008: 205;
Melkote, 2010: 110).
First, the ‗Network Development and Documentation‘ approach requires satellite
telecommunication network or Internet as its basic infrastructure. It provides a contextualised
and analytical flow of information that enhances the process of development through the
communication services. A prominent example of this approach is news reporting which allows
journalists to network and voice their views from the South ‗developing countries‘ to the
developed countries. It creates a sort of balance ‗counter-flow‘ to the flow of information and
data from the North. In addition to that it also supports the peripheries ‗developing countries‘ to
interconnect. This approach has the potential to contribute to important development processes
as ‗online training programmes, distance education, information exchange and the establishment
of alternative networks‘ (Servaes, 2008: 205-206).
The second approach is utilising ICTs for development; computer and telecommunication
technologies, in particular the Internet. This approach helps reduce the information and
knowledge divide between the poor and the rich, helps improve access to education
opportunities, increases governments‘ efficiency and transparency, allows population
participation in the democratic process, augments trading and marketing potential, empowers
marginal and vulnerable groups (e.g. women, minorities, etc), allows access to information for
the isolated communities and creates employment opportunities. This approach has been
implemented through multimedia community centres which offered ‗desktop publishing,
community newspaper, sales or rentals of audio and video cassettes and DVDs, book lending,
photocopying, faxing, and telephone services‘. ICTs4Devlopment is a powerful tool that helps
22
apprentices and entrepreneurs access information they need to improve their living and get better
opportunities (Servaes, 2008: 206).
The third approach is ‗Social Marketing‘ where commercial marketing techniques are used to
solve social problems. Social marketing is “a process that assumes that what made McDonald‟s
and Coca-Cola a world class success can also have a dramatic impact on the problems of high
blood pressure, AIDS, child mortality in developing nations, and other circumstances related to
patterns of behaviour” (Roy Colle in Servaes, 2008: 206-207). Science based commercial social
marketing strategies examples include discouraging tobacco smoking, encouraging the use of
auto seat belts, stopping drinking and driving, promoting health diets, encouraging safe sex and
preventing HIV/AIDs, family planning, advocating equal status for women and promoting adult
literacy. This systematic approach requires planning, implementation and monitoring ‗project
cycle‘. It is based on the basic elements of marketing; ‗product, price, place and promotion‘
(4Ps), where the product is social in nature. The difference between commercial marketing and
the social one is that the latter is concerned with the well-being and health of people and not
profit oriented, and it looks for larger market shares rather than commercial marketers (Servaes,
2008: 207; Melkote, 2010: 111).
The fourth approach is ‗Edutainment‘; Entertainment Education (EE) “the process of purposely
designing and implementing a media message to both entertain and educate, in order to increase
audience members‟ knowledge about an issue, create favourable attitudes, shift social norms,
and change the overt behaviour of individuals and communities” (Singhal, 2007: 260). It is a
combination of education messages paired with the attraction of entertainment. It is a mixed
„hybrid‟ product of participatory communication strategies and the diffusion model of
communication. This approach seeks to encourage and enhance development processes and
23
social progress through education, information and behavioural change. It employs tradition
media ranging from puppet shows, folk media, theatre, music and dance to promote issues in
health care, literacy programmes, environmental protection and introducing agricultural
practices, etc. In addition to that, it also integrates with the broadcast or electronic media. The
Edutainment programmes are produced locally as they appeal to local audience, the approach is
adapted to the local and cultural context which brings together entertainment, awareness-raising
and education. It has been widely used in health issues (AIDS/HIV, chronic diseases, mental
health, etc) as well as social tackling social problems (rape, schooling drop-out, discrimination,
etc) (Servaes, 2008: 207; Melkote, 2010: 112).
The fifth approach, ‗Social Mobilisation‘ is a process which encourages the participation of
different social groups and sectors to become partners and allies to raise awareness about a
particular development objective and demand for achieving it. It works on including institutions,
groups, networks, syndicates, individuals and communities so that they could identify, raise and
manage their human and material resources which strengthens their self-reliance and
sustainability. This approach is adopted from ‗Libertarian development paradigm‘ and employed
to help participatory development. Jan Servaes states that Social Mobilisation “is a planned
process that relies heavily on communication” (2008: 208). Social Mobilisation is used both at
‗grass-roots level‘ and ‗policy level‘. At the grass-roots level, the main objective of social
mobilisation is to raise awareness and motivation of community members through different
channels to have an active participation in matters they advocate for. At the policy level, social
mobilisation takes the form of advocacy which is a way to ensure the necessity of public
commitment for decision-making and allocation of the ‗resources‘ to gain the most of their
development goals and objectives (Servaes, 2008: 208).
24
The sixth approach is ‗Information, Education and Communication‘; this approach has been
commonly used for ‗population and family planning programmes‘ across the globe. It employs
information, education and communication to promote a solution or behavioural change about an
issue; for example, adoption of contraceptives or birth limit. The information part addressed facts
and issues that help stimulate discussion, it also comprises technical and statistical aspects of
development. Education component is employed to inculcate an understanding of the problems
and potential solutions. The communication aspect works on influencing the attitudes of people,
disseminating knowledge among people and bringing about a benevolent behavioural change
(Servaes, 2008: 209).
Institution building is the seventh approach, where developed countries provide the developing
countries with organisations, skills and facilities to enable them work on development processes
and achieve development goals (Servaes, 2008: 209). It is more connected to modernisation
paradigm.
The eighth approach is ‗Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices‘ (KAP), where development
communicators work on people‘s behavioural change. Knowledge and attitude are regarded as
internal factors that have an effect upon the way individuals act, besides other factors as social
norms, gender, etc. This approach asserts that knowledge is based on scientific facts, experiences
and traditional beliefs. Behavioural change happens when perceptions, motivations and skills
interact with attitude which comprises feelings, opinions and values that an individual holds
about certain issues, problems or concern. The approach seeks to provide an ‗enabling
environment‘ for individuals where “education system, policy and legislation, cultural factors,
service provision, religion, socio-political factors, physical environment and organisational
25
environment can also influence the knowledge and attitudes of the target groups” (Servaes,
2008: 209-210).
The ninth approach is ‗Development Support Communication‘ (DSC). It targets at increasing
population‘s participation in development processes and informing, motivating and training
people at the grass-roots level through utilising systematic and well-thought of communication
channels and techniques. It lays great emphasis on multimedia, especially by integrating
traditional and popular media with campaign and advocacy strategies. In addition to, that it
works on supporting national institutions to raise local capacities to deal with various aspects of
DevComm; the making of communication research, policies, strategies and the use of
multimedia in development and adapting media to cultural and local contexts (Servaes, 2008:
210; Melkote, 2010: 105).
Last but not least the tenth approach ‗Community Participation‘, DevComm is built on the
principle of active participation of the beneficiaries/ target-groups in every stage of the
development process, this principle is conceived to be a pre-requirement for a successful
sustainable development. Development in this approach cannot occur if there are not changes in
the attitudes and behaviour of the people concerned. Community Participation through media can
happen through interactive films, videos, community radio and newspapers. The main priority of
this approach is to enable people to make their own decisions. The community participation is
necessary in development process for people to get stimulated to take action and solve their
priority problems (Servaes, 2008: 211).
26
2.2 Palestinian Context Deconstruction
This section attempts to provide an understanding of the history and context of the study, through
looking at our subjects IOs in a general context, and by reviewing the general ―political
economic‖ context in the occupied OPt. Followed by a description of the status quo of the
Palestinian development context and main stakeholders on the ground.
2.2.1 Historical and political-economic background
The story goes back to the 1940s, when Palestinians have lost their lands and were dispossessed
of their home and livelihood to become refugees in what is called now occupied OPt ‗West
Bank, Gaza Strip and East-Jerusalem‘, and in the neighbouring countries (UNHR, 2013). This
conflict has been entitled for decades as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and has been the core
issue of Middle-Eastern politics. The case of Palestine has attracted an enormous research about;
inter alia, social, political, cultural and religious aspects. The current status of Palestinian history
has been for few decades as a population who seeks to end the Israeli occupation and build a
democratic viable state (Abuzanouna, 2012: 3-4; Sakr, 2003: 11). Those people who are isolated
one from another, in exiles, refugee camps and Diaspora, those who remained in their land post-
1948 and 1967 wars and those who live in West Bank and Gaza Strip. This study focuses on
those who live under the Israeli military occupation namely in West Bank, Gaza Strip and East-
Jerusalem ‗the oPt‘.
Palestinians have depended since 1940s to this very day on external aid, where it has been
reported that the Palestinians receive one of the highest rate of external aid per capita in the
world. This aid comes from the international community, mainly the West, which has been
involved in the process of crisis resolution and peace-making. Despite the huge amount of
27
money poured every year, its criticism resides in not taking the political and humanitarian crisis
anywhere near a safe shore (DeVoir & Tartir, 2009: 7; Abuzanouna, 2012: 3-4; Youngs &
Michou, 2011: 1). “Foreign aid has prevented Palestinians from free-falling into abject poverty”
(Souri, 2008: 265). This research focuses the attention on the international aid ensuing Oslo
accords 1993 period; as it is a milestone in the Palestinian cause. During that period, the
establishment of independent and professional media institutions which were expected to be the
fourth estate and to play a constructive role with civil society organisations to prepare for a new
state (Souri, 2008: 265-6). Oslo accords also led to some sort of acclaimed democracy where
Palestinians sought in all its aspects “freedom of expression, freedom of the press, participation
in decision-making, the rule of law, implementation of human rights, as well as civil and political
rights protected by the constitution” (Abuzanouna, 2012: 4).
At the same time, the Oslo agreements opened the doors before the foreign investors and aid
under the pretext of conventional development as part of the developing world; where the
international community promised ―modernisation, democratisation, strengthening civil society,
integrating into the global economy, and sustaining peace‖ (Souri, 2008: 265). As a result, the
Palestinian economy has been buttressed by enormous infusions of foreign aid, in 1994 yearly
foreign aid amounted $130 million while “total aid to the OPTs was running at nearly USD 3
billion a year by 2008” (Youngs & Michou, 2011: 5). In 2008 budget support alone increased by
nearly 80% from its 2007 level, which was equivalent to about 30% of GDP (UNDP, 2010: 35).
The World Bank estimates that without assistance programs the 16 per cent of the population
who are unable to afford basic subsistence would climb to 35 per cent. While Foreign aid has
become a growing percentage of domestic income, from 12 per cent in 1994 to 44 per cent in
2004, it has, thus, been up to Palestinian non-governmental and civil society organisations and
28
foreign development agencies to provide many of the services that the lack of a state, followed
by the defunct proto-state, could not provide (Souri, 2008: 265). There has been, moreover, Arab
Fund that was to support budget of PA ‗running costs‘, which mounted to half a billion in
between 2001-2011, but the Arab Funds are not channelled for democracy assistance or
development aid per se (Youngs & Michou, 2011: 5).
The Second Intifada marked another important milestone in the nature of external funds and aid,
when the situation became less tense, a shift in aid took place from mostly humanitarian needs
and emergency assistance or crisis funds to development funds (DeVoir & Tartir, 2009: 9). There
was a considerable decline in funds after 2006 elections when Hamas Movement won the
democratic elections from both Arab and Western Funds. Still, international funding came back
to support former prime minister Salam Fayyad‘s reform program with his main plan
‗Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (PRDP) 2008-2011‘ where donors promised nearly 8
billion dollars over the three years at the first donor conference in December 2007, which even
exceeded the Palestinian Authority‘s maximal request. “Under the new structure of aid delivery
specifically designed to align with the PRDP, the percentage of funding to development
increased even more rapidly than in the previous three years” (DeVoir & Tartir, 2009: 12-13).
This plan has shaped a new ‗neo-liberal‘ agenda in the Palestinian society under the cover of
‗peace process‘ development and institution/-state-building. Majority of the support goes now
directly to the prime minister‘s office. The PRDP was praised for improved security measures in
the West Bank, but heavily criticised for imposing hard fiscal and tax policies on the Palestinians
living in West Bank (Youngs & Michou, 2011: 2-5). The PRDP is supposed to be followed by a
Palestinian National Plan 2011-2013 that would form the basis of state-building policies and
reforms for the period. Salam Fayyad has resigned/ got fired from his position based on disputes
29
with the President Mahmoud Abbas and the position of the prime minister is vacant as of this
writing, after a quick resign of less than a month from the appointed Prime Minister; Rami Al-
Hamdallah (BBC, 2013).
2.2.2 Background of civil society and international donors
There are over 100 donors who are present in the oPt, Western support comes primarily to the
oPt through consulates and representative offices (Challand, 2009:80). “The noteworthy
influence of this time is not only the increase in funding from the West, but their insistence upon
pre-packaged programs with pre-defined thematic concerns and sectors‟” (Hanafi in DeVoir &
Tartir, 2009: 8).
“NGOs have historically been the backbone of Palestinian development” (Souri, 2008: 266).
Since the 1990s a flood of Western NGOs and international donors have come to the oPt as
agents of development and modernisation, usually under the name of ‗peace processes‘.
International NGOs have played an important role in promoting independent media and
professional journalism by providing resources and training courses to build capacity and skills.
IOs have focused in funding projects that create a space for journalists to express their opinions.
They have provided technological equipment for alternative media spheres. The role of the
Internet is also important as an alternative space or public sphere as a source of independent
information. Where Palestinian media has been subject to control and censorship under different
government; East Jerusalem under Israeli Government, West Bank Fattah government, and Gaza
Strip Hamas government (Sakr, 2003: 11, 20-1; Abuzanouna, 2012: 202).
The nature of the core funding comes in the form of project funding that is short-term in nature
and has quick or temporary development impact. This has made civil society and non-
30
governmental organisations keep changing their strategies and priorities on an annual basis to
please and meet the donors‘ requirements. This means that organisations finish a project, and
jump to another project without any sustainability or follow-up. This current flow of funds does
not in most cases fit or meet the reality as it is brought by the donors and implemented in the
communities as they view it and mostly not to what the community, individuals or society needs
or is concerned about (DeVoir & Tartir, 2009: 8).
There have been a number of concerns over international funding, the way it is delivered is
doubted by the locals, the nature of democracy assistance and security reforms don‘t deal with
substantial matters as Israeli occupation, or settlement expansion, or resolving the Palestinian
split between Gaza and West Bank ‗Hamas and Fatah‘. Besides, a common shared belief is that
dependency on external aid would weaken the Palestinians‘ political and financial abilities to
progress and to be sovereign. The PRDP is heavily criticised being not a realistic option in such
context of territorial fragmentation within a limited space and poor market condition, adding to
that vulnerability and occupation obstacles. A need to re-consider the focus of donors and the
way funds are directed is a concern among the Palestinian where “donors must seek to empower
their recipients in a more sustainable fashion” (Youngs & Michou, 2011: 11).
2.2.3 Traces of DevComm practices in the oPt
The Palestinian media and communication sector has been controlled by government, is a tool to
serve political parties‘ agendas, and it lacks public participation. That is, people do not trust
governmentally censored media neither partisan media which is seen to serve its owners interests
and political views. International donors and non-governmental actors started a set of policies
and transparency measures of who owns or financially supports these media outlets. Certain IOs
31
and some civil society actors have realised the need to develop an independent media sector so as
to contribute to a democratic viable Palestinian state, which aims to gain public confidence and
to provide them with credible news and debate of issues and concerns that matter their lives.
ICTs have helped civil society and non-governmental sector not only in the OPt, but also in other
Arab states to network and cooperate with other partners to raise international awareness about
the matters and issues from the Arab World. This media environment provides a greater degree
of freedom and a promising spark for development (Sakr, 2003: 24; Abuzanouna, 2012: 45).
It is worth mentioning that international organisations have put forward projects to develop
media and communication sectors and to allow for an independent media system. (Abuzanouna,
2012: 180; Souri, 2008: 263-264). Initiatives took the form of training programmes, and capacity
building of technical skills of media practitioners The trend of development of communication
and media sector was pioneered by the work of the Swedish International Development Agency
(SIDA) “to support the development of journalism and to make it possible for free media to
contribute to ensuring that the general public has access to information and the social debate”
(Jalloy in Abuzanouna, 2012: 47).
International donors provided technological equipment for alternative media to allow journalists
create their stories to a mass audience. Other projects focused more on the ICTs for
development, the Internet in particular, where IT4Youth project and ‗Internet for development‘
were remarkable projects in the oPt, a trend that focuses on media to be the stimulus of
‗progress, modernisation and growth‘. Where it is believed that Internet and computer access is
an essential part of Palestinian State building and development, it is considered a method of
integrating into the global economy (Souri, 2008: 263-264).
32
3 Research Methodology
The researcher, initially, planned to do a large-scale online survey to seek insights about
DevComm from Palestinian (Non-Governmental Organisations) NGOs and (Civil Society
Organisations) CSOs. The advantage of using online surveys is that most of the NGOs and CSOs
are connected online and it is a low-cost method which would ease the process for the researcher.
Over the course of time, the research has shifted the plan as well as the scope of the research to
the IOs, referred to interchangeably as international donors, as they are less in number and more
powerful and controlling of the funds and development processes in the OPt.
The research method of this paper took the form of semi-structured interviews, designed to test
whether DevComm is being adopted by the IOs in the OPt. This chapter provides a description
of the methods and the steps of the research, “social science...consists of the disciplined and
systematic study of society and its institutions” (Hansen et al., 1998: 11).
The research topic has no precedent study about DevComm in the oPt (to my knowledge of this
writing). Due to that fact, it was necessary to combine studies of communication and of
development about the oPt to reach a scientific perspective about the direction DevComm is
taking in the oPt, and about the way the main stakeholder IOs in the oPt build their
communication strategies and policies and what paradigms and schools of development they
adopt in that case. The study is a form of qualitative first-hand source information through semi-
structured interviews.
3.1 Semi-structured Interviews method
The qualitative method of interviews proved to be the most suitable for the study, as it gives the
researcher a wider perspective from the field where these organisations have been working as
33
development and cooperation agencies for decades. Interviews give an insider view of the
organisation besides giving a specialist and professional background into development
communication area. The interview method as stated by Denscombe;
Is particularly good at producing data which deal with topics in-depth and in detail.
Subjects can be probed, issues pursued and lines of investigation followed over a
relatively lengthy period. And the research is likely to gain valuable insights based on the
depth of the information gathered and the wisdom of key informants (2003: 189).
The interviews were carried out in a semi-structured manner; face-to-face recorded interviews or
through e-mail, that would allow the interviewees and respondents to give a wider view more
than a structured interview, and it allows them also to give a wider perspective about the subject
in view (May, 1997: 111). In the semi-structured face-to-face interviews, the interviewees could
speak freely and openly, asking for clarification or putting things into different terms to phrase
the questions in a way that suits their organisational structure. Semi-structured interviews also
had an advantage where the interviewees talked about matters that the researcher did not think
about, and this input was very useful and constructive in the study. Berry (1999) elaborate the
rationale of using ―interviews which researchers use to elicit information in order to achieve a
holistic understanding of the interviewees‟ point of view or situation; it can also be used to
explore interesting area for further investigation” (Berry, 1999: 1).
Interviews require an interaction between the researcher and the interviewee where it is
necessary to establish a rapport to build trust and get fluid open answers about the topic,
provided that it is necessary to maintain objectivity, which requires distance from the researcher
for a better judgement of the matter. It is rather important to maintain such open interactive
34
relationship with the interviewee to get a better, clear and sound explanation and answers about
their viewpoints. “Individuals vary in their ability to articulate their thought and ideas. With
good questioning techniques, researchers will be more able to facilitate the subjects‟ accounts
and to obtain quality data from them” (Berry, 1999: 3).
The researcher guided the interview questions while there was also room for the interviewees to
talk about their personal thoughts and views drawing from their experiences and work. This
technique of interviewing allowed bringing out information about specific dimensions of the
topic and gave the interviewees space to talk about topic that added value to the research,
provided that certain points addressed by the interviewees were not intentionally mentioned in
the interview list of questions.
Emphasising the responses given and restructuring them made the interviewees elaborate more
on certain issues. Besides, follow-up questions were posed by the researcher based on deductions
from the previous answers for clearer and more precise perspective of the work they do in order
to get deeper insight from the interviewees‘ perspective. This enriched the collected data from
the interviews, and gave hints to the interviewee to what is intended from that question (Kvale,
1996: 133).
3.2 The sample
An interview request and list of questions were sent to various International donors working in
the oPt (Appendix I). The researcher contacted these agencies as these agencies are the main
international funding bodies in the oPt towards both the Palestinian Authority and civil society
sector. The interviews were intended to get information from the professional who are in charge
of communication and development projects in the oPt, so those who are responsible and
35
practitioners of the issue in the relevant organisation. The organisations delegated the
interviewees to respond to the request and those are the representative sample of the research.
The interviewees and respondents of the questions were contacted as the researcher intended to
have an opportunity to have an insider perspective and in-depth information about the IOs in the
OPt and their communication and development strategies, policies and practices.
3.3 Ethical considerations
A USAID official has requested that their name and position remain confidential and not to be
mentioned in any part of the research for. In addition to that, Charlotte Pierre from DFID
emphasised that her responses are all personal views.
Table (2): List of the Interviews
Name Organisation Date Interview Place
1. Hervé Conan French Agency for
Development (AFD)
May, 2013 Face-to-face Jerusalem
2. Antonia Zafeiri European Union
Representative Office (EU)
May, 2013 Face-to-face Jerusalem
3. Max Oser Temporary International
Presence in Hebron (TIPH)
May, 2013 Face-to-face Hebron
4. Rana Hanna DanChurch Aid May, 2013 E-mail E-mail
5. Charlotte Pierre Department for
International Development
(DFID)
May, 2013 E-mail E-mail
36
6. Sae Imamura PeaceBuilders/ Hiroshima May, 2013 E-mail E-mail
7. USAID Official United States Agency for
International Development
(USAID)
May, 2013 E-mail E-mail
8. Jenny Boylan Weltfriedensdiensts (WFD)
June, 2013 E-mail E-mail
3.4 Research Design
The interview questions were formulated to go from the general to the specific, as the researcher
took into consideration the written literature about conducting interviews and qualitative research
(Berry, 1999: 4). Open-ended questions stimulated the rapport between the interviewer and the
interviewees. The questions were designed to suit the available literature about the matter in
question, and to tackle the main points this paper intends to uncover, which is to check the status
of IOs‘ DevComm policies and practices in the oPt, and how the interviewees perceived
DevComm.
The researcher briefed the interviewees during the face-to-face ‗individual‘ interviews, and
though the request letter about the research and its purpose. A recording consent was requested at
the beginning of every interview emphasising that the recording will be used for research
purposes solely. The researcher formulated the research questions to start by allowing the
interviewee introduces him/herself, which would make the interviewees feel at ease during the
interview. An advantage is that the interviewees have experience in interviewing techniques.
37
The first questions sought general understating of development as well as communication. The
purpose of these questions was to bring up the interviewees‘ professional and personal
experiences and knowledge, which the researcher thought the interviewees liked to talk about
and share. As the interview went on, the questions were getting more specific to the point of the
structure of the topic demanded (Appendix II).
3.5 Limitations
The difficulties of conducting more interviews were due to cost, time and free movement.
Getting appointments for interviews was not possible due to tight schedules of IOs staffs, no
communication or development personnel in charge. The participant organisations through the
email interviews offered to cooperate with the researcher and sent written answers. Issues of
accessibility and movement restrictions were the main obstacles, as most of the IOs are located
in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv where the researcher is restricted from travelling to these cities as they
require a special permit to access for the Palestinian living in oPt. Meanwhile, the organisations
who responded to the interview requests were very cooperative and understanding of these
circumstances, if it was not possible to have an appointment in the West Bank where the
researcher was able to travel, they accepted to take time to respond to interview questions by
email. The researcher could only stay in Jerusalem three days from 05:00am to 07:00pm, the
time the researcher could be legally staying in Jerusalem.
38
4 Discussion and Analysis
This section presents the analysis and description of the findings stemming from the semi-
structured interviews conducted for the purpose of this research paper. Having the structure of
the literature review and background of this study as defining the concept of development and
the communication theories followed by the practices of DevComm based on the theoretical
framework. The discussion and analysis section draws its main body on the same structure in
order to come out with findings and recommendations based on the theoretical framework and
add to it in view of the context of the oPt. The views highlighted in this section are based on the
outcome of the semi-structured interviews and the researcher‘s analysis and synthesis on the
matter.
4.1 Development views and approaches in the oPt
Viewing development and its perspective, respondents had varying viewpoints about
development; some views come under the modernisation approach, while others come under the
empowerment and participatory approach. Meanwhile, some common overarching views of
development share similarities; one would view such thing as a hybrid concept of development
contextualised to the status quo in the oPt. Modernisation concept of development is significantly
embedded in the development process in the oPt.
IOs work in the oPt for various reasons, development approach in the oPt is very tied to each
organisation‘s rationale of intervention or working in the oPt. The EU‘s rationale stems out from
neighbourhood cooperation, that is, the stability of the neighbouring countries and their
relationship are necessary for the stability of the EU and its market and their political stability.
This is achieved by supporting the PA to build its institutions and enable the PA to be a viable
39
independent state, in addition to that, funding civil society to implement specific projects with
specific objectives. “Our office is to manage bilateral relations with the Palestinian Authority
PA, as well as all cooperation programmes with the PA and the Palestinian people” (Zafeiri,
2013).
4.1.1 Modernisation under Empowerment Camouflage
Development agencies‘ views have modernisation roots inherent in their approach in regards to
economic growth and technological advances and positive change, blending them with social
change and empowerment approach where we see the way development is stated by Rana Hanna
from DanChurch Aid:
Development involves making kind of change in a society that it is directed to, which
could be materially seeking to enhance the economic and technological level of the
society, or could be morally targeting to change the attitudes of the people and their
traditions and orientation. Development depends on purposeful operations limited in time
and place towards positive change (2013).
A distinction is highlighted between international development, which is the main focus of this
research, and local development. International development does not stem from philanthropic
stimuli towards the Palestinians, it is not ‗neutral‘ as it comes under certain political agenda, and
Jenny Boylan states that:
International development as a primarily political and economic process, which is to say
it is not a neutral activity regardless of the way such work is portrayed (i.e. in terms of
charity etc). Development on a smaller scale, i.e. community, regional and national
40
development is more independent of these processes but they still determine the nature of
the development in question (2013).
4.1.2 Development a Means versus an End
Charlotte Pierre from DFID expresses her personal views about development as a means not as
an end, she sees it as “the means by which a country generates a strong and inclusive economic,
social and governance structure and is able to provide all its citizens with a high quality
standard without any reliance on foreign aid” (2013). One contends a dominant view of
modernisation development and partial libertarian view to it. While on DFID website
development is expressed purely in a way that makes it fall under the modernisation approach
“We are working in the Occupied OPt to promote economic growth” (DFID, 2013), tied to the
political agenda of two-state solution and peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
In the same way, Japanese PeaceBuilders view development as a method of peace-building;
where development is not the end; it is a means to peace, a totally different unique view
(Imamura, 2013).
Communication is a means to highlight successes of the organisations and their funded projects,
showing the positive impact of what they have done, and as part of the overall strategy
‗institutional requirement‘ (USAID official, 2013; Hanna, 2013; Boylan, 2013). “Our main
investment as a donor here in Palestine is to support the PA in its institution building, and there
have been many successes there, and this is what we use to communicate” (Zafeiri, 2013).
A USAID official expressed his view that development in the oPt meant working in partnership
with the local population to make positive changes that affect their lives; one contends a
participatory approach from the surface of this view (USAID official, 2013)
41
The term development is referred to as cooperation; on its surface it is a euphemistic way of
formulating a development priorities prescribed in Brussels and implemented in the OPt. Antonia
Zafeiri does not refer to this process of funding and assistance as development aid, but rather
cooperation. “I am not sure that development is the correct word, I would say what we have the
EU and the Palestinians is a very strong, long-lasting almost historic cooperation” (Zafeiri,
2103).
4.1.3 Development is Experimental and Secondary
Hervé Conan from the French Agency for Development (AFD) views development as processes
of evolution where IOs have an accompaniment role within. He states:
We accompany some evolutions, I think what is important in the notion of development
is the notion of processes, we don‘t have revolutions, we can make some evolutions... it is
to try to development some policies to try to better manage certain sectors, to perpetuate
certain sectors, services introduced to the people in a just and equitable manner, to allow
the government to think about some long-term strategies to anticipate some new
problems... The two objectives of the AFD in the OPt are; to reinforce the capabilities of
the government of the PA to become a state, so to become a Palestinian state. The second
is to enhance the public services provided to the people in a manner that makes people
have the patience to wait the termination of the peace process without a revolution which
will eventually cease the dynamics of development and the peace process... We are verily
to accompany the processes, and to foster the implementation of these processes (Conan,
2013).
42
One contends that development is an experimental process in the oPt and is not revolutionary, as
libertarian approach to development is absent from the scene in the OPt, which raises a suspicion
that IOs‘ role is to sedate the Palestinian people to wait till the peace process is terminated
without any form of resistance or fighting the oppressors ―Israel‖. I would suggest a new
approach for development intervention which is the ―Carrot and Stick Approach‖ where it is
used to serve certain political and institutional interests and not stemming from concrete view of
development.
Max Oser explains how development came to be a part of TIPH‘s mandate:
The core business of TIPH is to observe, but as many other organisations also like ICRC
(International Committee of the Red Cross), for instance, they decided to increase its
visibility, to increase its presence in the local society, also to add a humanitarian aid and
development dimension, just to legitimatise better the observation mandate, because it is
true with observation you cannot make people happy, we have many people who tell us;
Ah you only observe, but you don‘t do something concrete for us, why don‘t you do more
for us? And as you know with protection and observation mandate, it is not very easy. So
at least with our humanitarian aid and development aid we try to increase our visibility
and to increase our network and our cooperation with the local and also the international
NGO scene here in Hebron (2013).
Development is thought of as a supplementary component. One cannot decide whether this
would come under modernisation or empowerment approach. Temporary International Presence
in Hebron (TIPH) is in a situation where local community feels quite suspicious about their role
43
as observers, especially that their reports are only dealt with at the governmental level and for
almost 15 years and local people did not see any outcome of such reports.
In the context of the oPt, one finds that development is very tied to foreign policy agenda and
governmental or non-governmental agencies‘ stance of the Palestinian cause. Development is
rather a sedative approach where it is used to silence the people not to carry on resisting the
oppression and occupation, or development as ―carrot and stick approach‖ where it is a tool to
orient the Palestinian people to what IOs, especially governmental organisations, want them to
go. It euphemistically takes at certain moment the outfit of empowerment and in other times the
modernisation approach. It rarely comes in the form of libertarian approach or real empowerment
of the Palestinian people to strive for independence and self-reliance (Boylan, 2013; USAID
official, 2013; Conan, 2013; Zafeiri, 2013, Pierre, 2013).
4.2 Communication role in development in the oPt
Respondents unhesitatingly shared the importance and vitality of communication‘s role in their
work. Development agencies employ communication for various reasons ranging from mere
institutional communication procedure from the aspect of public relations to being an
indispensable integral part of the ‗project cycle‘ process.
The communication approaches cut across both modernisation and empowerment paradigms, it
is noteworthy that in most cases the outfit of the communication work seems participatory and to
reflect the local views, etc. The way communication strategies and policies are designed is
mostly ‗top-down‘ falling under the modernisation ‗information dissemination and
transformation‘ approach. One assumes that IOs add the stain of empowerment and participatory
approach to their DevComm work as it is now the trend of inserting these terms and some
44
superficial policies into their strategies and policies (Conan, 2013; USAID official, 2013; Pierre,
2013).
The role of communication as information transfer and dissemination, a pure modernisation
model, The USAID official gave a metaphoric analogy of what the need of employing
communication is;
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there—does it make a sound? Development
communications is like that. If you do good projects the immediate beneficiaries know
about them but the wider population does not. Through effective communications you
can help inspire others to also make positive change. Highlighting the good work youth
volunteers do in one town can give ideas to youth in other towns to also undertake
volunteer efforts to help people in their community (2013).
4.2.1 Communication for ‘Visibility’
All IOs use communication unanimously for ‗visibility‘ purposes. “We have reasons to
communicate, we don‟t communicate to communicate, and we are not a communication agency”
(Conan, 2013). Visibility of their presence in the OPt as key players, visibility of the activities
and projects they undertake, visibility of their agenda and policies, visibility to ensure the
sustainability of their existence in the territories, visibility towards the tax payers‘ or the citizens
of their respective states as to show that they play a role and have an impact, visibility to gain the
gratitude of the local community, and other motivations depending on the context and area of
intervention of each organisation.
Visibility comes in the form communication actions as an organised event, a logo, a diplomatic
activity, an inauguration of a project, a press release, a news article, an invitation letter, media
45
coverage, and so on. Visibility is directed towards firstly the local Palestinian community and
authority, and secondly towards ministries, governments and respective citizens of international
organisations whom they represent. Visibility comes in the form of adding the logo of the donor
on any publication the funded organisations work on, materials and equipment or objects they
fund or donate, press releases. EU‘s message or Brand is ‗From Europe to Palestine, partnership
and neighbourhood‘. USAID‘s Brand or message is ‗from the American People‘. “USAID has a
well-recognized brand which our partners are required to use, and we work closely with our
partners to ensure that we all speak with a common message” (USAID official 2013).
Visibility is viewed as a requirement for transparency, it shows the target population where the
money comes from and it is also a way to report to the people who provide the money about the
way it was used and for what purposes with what impact. “This is the role of our headquarters in
Brussels to make sure that European citizens know what the EU aid goes to and for which
reason” (Zafeiri, 2013).
Visibility is needed to demonstrate the reason ‗key message‘ of the intervention and role of the
international organisations, visibility towards the local Palestinian community and the tax payers.
Explaining why a donor funds certain project or sector, the underlying objectives, and the
outcomes and impact of it. “We are seeking visibility, and an understanding from the public
opinion, of the reason why we are engaging, and the result of this engagement” (Zafeiri, 2013).
Visibility serves as a way of positioning of the international donors amongst other organisations
working in the OPt, Hervé Conan expresses the need to show visibility in this context to place
the organisation and finds its position and credence “We are a multitude of funding agencies and
46
institutions here, so it is a bit difficult sometimes to exist in this myriad of institutions...AFD is
the armed wing to bring French policies‖ (2013).
In addition to that, visibility is needed to ensure maintaining the presence of the organisations in
the OPt mainly under the Peace Process and foreign policy agenda. “Being proactive about our
communications will allow us to enhance our programming, deliver our messages, and build the
relationships needed to make our work effective and influence our partners. Stronger
communications also allow us to demonstrate the impact of our support, and this is particularly
true of less “visible” development programmes, e.g. financial aid to the Palestinian Authority”
(Pierre, 2013). Each USAID Mission has a dedicated Development Outreach and
Communications Office committed to development communications (USAID official, 2013).
Visibility is a trend ‗fashionable‘ in the work of international organisations, it shows the brand of
the organisation and it is something that every organisation does. It is a way of gratitude seeking
from the donors. This requires adding the respective logo of the international organisation to the
communication actions and funded materials. “So our communication is towards the Palestinian
so that they say Thank you France and Thank you AFD for supporting us, and on the other hand
the Tutelles say thank you AFD we made the right choice, and keep it up” (Conan, 2013).
4.2.2 Communication for ‘Awareness-Raising’
In the case of oPt, IOs use communication as a tool to ‗raise awareness‘ and create and
understanding among the local community about the role of international development
assistance, in addition to that it is a means of convincing people of the need to work out some
reforms and change their way of doing things or living, be it economic, social or even political
aspect. An argument could be raised of this use of communication as to be more oriented about
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the existence and importance of the IOs rather than about development objectives and aims.
Communication for awareness-raising is very important for the strategic processes of sustainable
development. “In a sense, two-way communication is the lifeblood of any strategy. Without it, a
strategy will not succeed because cooperation and collaboration among key stakeholders depend
on it. Communication for development has thus come to be seen as a way to amplify voice,
facilitate meaningful participation, and foster social change” (Hanna, 2013).
Communication as an appeal to change; through convincing people of the need of reforms and to
demonstrate alternative ways and approaches of doing business and solving problems through
behaviour and social change (USAID official, 2013; Conan, 2013). Development agencies use
communication as an appeal for ‗behavioural or social‘ change of the local community, and a
tool to transfer and disseminate information, modernisation is still predominant in this aspect as
it looks at the need for social reform and change in the beliefs and way of living of Palestinians
rather than adapting and seeking participation of the people to have a say in what they believe is
needed to be developed. “That is why communications are so important in development—to
spread the word about how to make things better” (USAID official, 2013).
Communication employed to demonstrate the role of foreign and development assistance to the
Palestinian people and to the tax payers or international agencies‘ citizens (USAID official,
2013; Conan, 2013; Zafeiri, 2013; Pierre, 2013). Charlotte Pierre expressed her personal view
about the role they have towards the British citizens as “A key role for communications is to
ensure domestic support” (2013), where communication is “one of the main tools to raise
awareness of cooperation among global citizens” (Imamura, 2013).
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Communication used to demonstrate to the local community and partners that these organisations
have expertise “AFD is not just a counter that has money, it is an agency that has money, the
money they give us, and it is an agency of expertise, an international agency that has experience,
an agency that can carry beyond money worthy advice to our partners” (Conan, 2013).
4.2.3 Communication for ‘Dialogue’
Communication is a secondary goal in development work. Some organisations view it as a part
of advice-giving and dialogue, rather than marketing or branding, between partner donors and
other stakeholders. Despite the fact that in dialogue process some feedback is expected to be
clear, feedback in this dialogue is rather institutional and is limited to certain aspects of project
management, or as a reactive afterthought matter. “Communication is treated as an afterthought,
so people are focused to do the work on the ground, but really to communicate on that work, that
comes much later, if at all. So in that case, you can imagine providing feedback is not even on
the agenda” (Zafeiri, 2013).
Communication employed to build trust with the local community and change the perception of
people about international organisations, and to accept their presence. It is a contribution to the
security of our observers, of our mission.
That is why we insist on this visibility issue, whenever we do something, whenever we
cooperate with local NGOs, yeah, we like to have a board in this place that TIPH has
funded it. I think not because we are proud that TIPH was funding, but just to increase
our visibility, our ambition that more and more people know about our mission, and
implicitly a contribution to the security of our observers in the field (Oser, 2013)
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4.2.4 Communication for ‘Advocacy’
Communication as advocacy, certain organisations have systematic advocacy policies while
other organisations have secondary partial view of advocacy based on the context. It is
noteworthy that the advocacy activities are more about the organisations and less about focal
issues of human rights or development priorities in the oPt. In the same vein, Jenny Boylan
expresses the necessity to
Communicate internationally with the donor/partner bodies and general public to raise
awareness of the issues which need attention and the relative successes of the existing
development programs... To a large degree we do employ ‗communication for
development‘ and on a number of levels, maybe it is more accurate to say that we employ
communications plural for development, i.e. different approaches are undertaken per
target group (2013).
Communication for information exchange, reaching common grounds and consensus in cases of
different opinions and interests, and decision making which shape the form of cooperation
between government, civil society groups and the private sector (Hanna, 2013). Communication
for the objective of overcoming conflicts between the international organisations and local
communities from cultural and linguistic differences with in addition to latent power conflicts at
higher levels (Boylan, 2013).
Communication work of international agencies entails political discourse aspect, mainly the
governmental development agencies. “Our mandate firstly is not to communicate; our primary
goal is to implement the development of Palestine. So we must we must not get tilted to spend
more time communicating than doing. Yes we have to communicate; we try to communicate as
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possible. We don‟t have to get embarked by the syndrome that one must communicate, me I don‟t
have a product to sell” (Conan, 2013).
4.2.5 IOs and DevComm strategies and policies in the oPt
The respondents gave different types and visions of the communication strategies, some were
very clear, while other strategies are very general and the process of building their strategy is
vague. The reactive ‗afterthought‘ attitude towards the role of communication and its
participatory nature in development is clearly seen in the way communication strategies are
developed or thought of, if any. The respondents mentioned about the way the communication
strategies are developed. Some strategies are developed from the headquarters of the
organisation be it in Berlin, Washington, Paris, etc. Other strategies, in smaller scales, are made
in consultation with the local communities and local stakeholders.
Communication strategies, especially of the governmental funding organisations, are tied with
the political agenda, set in a centralised way from the headquarters or the ministry and send to be
implemented on the ground in the OPt. The communication strategies of DFID, USAID, and
AFD are a part of the communication strategy of the respective embassy or consulate, developed
in consultation with the Development Ministry and other governmental agencies working in the
OPt.
The strategies of all USAID missions are determined by mission leadership in close
coordination with the US State Department, USAID Washington and our local partners...
Our communications strategy focuses on how to share the news about the achievements
we reach through our partnership with Palestinians.... The Mission‘s communications (in
oPt) strategy is determined by the Outreach Office in close coordination with Mission
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management, the US Consulate General and the U.S Embassy and with USAID
Washington (USAID official, 2013).
The strategy of communication of the mission in Palestine for some organisations is set by the
headquarters or the Ministry of International development of their respective country, reflecting
their diplomatic and political views about the Palestinian cause rather than development per se.
In this case the strategy is merely a reflection and rephrasing of the objectives and priorities of
the intervention and development work of the organisation in the OPt, “A strategy that focuses
on the following audiences: local media, UK media, local and international NGOs, British
public, UK Parliament” (Pierre, 2013).
Different ways of building strategies, the main concern for the EU, the largest donor in the OPt,
is a strategy that conveys their main message ‗A strong and reliable partner to the Palestinian
people‘, a message that reflects them not as a donor but rather as a partner. In the strategy this
message is interpreted by different communication actions, outreach activities. Antonia Zafeiri
explains what her role is in that process,
Part of my job is really to engage with our partners in NGOs and different organisations
that we fund, sit down with them, explain some of the visibility requirements that we
have, acknowledge the donor, but also to take it a step further and really support them in
their communication work, and how to make sure that they deliver a communication
message and implement a communication plan, side to side with the project‘s work
(Zafeiri, 2013).
The role of the communication strategy is complementary to the overall strategy and projects‘
activities as it serves as the marketing agent of the development project.
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Good communication strategies should be integral to maintaining reputation and
accountability among stakeholders and the public. My communication strategies would
be outlining the objective/goals of the communication, identifying stakeholders, defining
key messages, pinpointing potential communication methods and vehicles for
communicating information for a specific purpose, and specifying the mechanisms that
will be used to obtain feedback on the strategy (Hanna, 2013).
The way strategies are developed or made depends clearly on the development approach
‗modernisation or participatory‘ of each organisation. It is noticeable that a strategy may fall
under modernisation approach, while it has some stain of participatory model of policy and
decision making. Policy making and strategy building in modernisation approach comes as a top-
down model, while strategies under participatory approach come horizontally.
In regards to the strategies, some respondents gave their view of how, theoretically,
communication strategies should be integral to project cycle management process, where the
organisations‘ teams as well as the community are involved in the designing, implementation and
assessment processes. “Strategic communication is supposed to be a pre-requisite and an
instrument of effective policy making and public participation from formulating a vision,
negotiating and decision making, developing and implementing plans to monitoring impacts”
(Hanna, 2013).
Some organisations like Peacebuilders and WFD don‘t have even concrete communication
strategies for the mission in the OPt; meanwhile, they develop the strategy with the funded
organisation from the scratch. But the organisation itself does not have a specific communication
strategy for its intervention in the OPt.
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If you are referring to the communication strategy of the mission then this is developed
by the team as a whole who assume responsibility for different elements. The
communication strategy has to reflect the organisations objectives, vision and mission
statement (Boylan, 2013).
4.2.6 Towards DevComm approach
TIPH is trying to adapt its communicating strategy more towards the people to show the local
community that TIPH is present and a reliable, flexible and cooperative partner. This new
strategy is a shift from their old approach of being more office workers receiving requests of
funds, to a new proactive approach aiming at their media and public affairs coordinators and
press and information officer to integrate with the local people and having a dialogue with them
in addition to the added-value they are bringing in forms of institutional capacity building and
development support through a new cycle management procedures introduced (Oser, 2013).
The view of DevComm has different varying understanding among the respondents; some view
any communication action as a communication for development because it is used by a
development agency or in a development oriented project. Other respondents on the other hand
view DevComm as merely stating that it is consulting with the local people about their needs and
opinions calling it participatory approach, still their development priorities and project are well-
built and decided in advance in their headquarters and ministries.
WFD has no specific communication strategy for the OPt. BMZ [Ministry of
International Development in Germany] sets the priorities of the framework of the
projects WFD sponsors in Palestine and their agenda and priorities are more reflected in
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the projects they fund under the Civil Peace Service framework... the communication
strategy as well as all the communication actions of WFD (Boylan, 2013).
The closer view of DevComm approach as an integral part of the whole system of development
business from defining the objectives, priorities of development work in the OPt from inception
to the end of their work, and DevComm in this view is a determinant factor of success or failure
of the development work.
Well-conceived, professionally implemented communication programs and strategies that
are tied directly to reform efforts or development project objectives that bring
understanding of local political, social and cultural realities to bear in the design of
development programs can make the difference between a project's success and failure...
Development projects require effective and participative communication. This is crucial
to enrol all the stakeholders and enable them to express their needs and priorities (Hanna,
2013).
4.2.7 DevComm and Social Media
Social media is heavily present in the OPt, mainly social websites like Facebook and twitter. IOs
view social media‘s role in development mainly as a means to disseminate information about
their role, successes. It is a part their marketing, branding and advertising embedded in their
communication actions towards both local and international community. IOs use social media as
a tool of DevComm in the OPt by mainly as a channel to spread information and news about the
organisations.
New media is fantastic because if people like what you‘re putting out—they share it. It is
like passing a newspaper article around a village, but now it can be shared to millions of
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people around the world. People in New York, Tokyo and New Delhi now read about
development projects in the Hebron because their friends thought it was cool and shared
it. It is an exciting new world (USAID official, 2013).
There is, however, on a small scale a kind of interaction and feedback through social media
which brings to light hope of more accurate two-way and participatory communication. But the
content of social media is reactive, which means it is not about policy and decision making. It is
rather information sharing and dissemination ‗modernisation approach‘ in a new form online
rather than websites and maybe blogs. Some organisations don‘t use social media at all for their
missions and projects in the oPt.
Social media is “an essential component of the communication strategy” (Boylan, 2013).
Nonetheless, organisations are sceptical about its credibility and hesitate to interact on social
media based on political grounds, social media are “getting more and more interactive but it
would need more time to develop it as address critical issues. The information from social media
is rare to be said as reliable because current system has a problem on confidentiality and
credibility” (Imamura, 2013).
Antonia Zafeiri from the European Union finds great advantages of using social media in their
development work, despite the fact that it took some organisations a while to adoPt social media
as a means of communication with the stakeholders and local community.
The very nature of social media is to interact, so we did not want to go ahead and use a
platform, if we were not sure that we would have the capacity to really respond to people
who are engaging with us, and also are we ready to receive such immediate and direct
feedback from the people on the ground, especially in such a politically sensitive
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environment. But this year we started our Facebook page, of the delegation, and the
results, the feedback and comments have been very encouraging (Zafeiri, 2013).
Charlotte Pierre from views social media as a place where beneficiaries get the chance to talk
about them/ they are the focus point of discussion and not the other way around where they talk
about beneficiaries utilising social media, social media offers “Exciting opportunities. Important
to get beneficiaries blogging” (Pierre, 2013).
Communication practitioners and specialists working for IOs recognise the advantages of social
media being interactive, it allows them to have statistical data about their work and it reaches a
wider audience. It is more flexible than websites where website developers and webmasters are
regularly in need to update and change content on the web. Social media, especially Facebook,
are more flexible and easy to use and adaptable, it facilitates the process of direct feedback and
interaction with beneficiaries and concerned audiences (Zafeiri, 2013).
4.3 Issues that decelerate DevComm process
4.3.1 Local Context
IOs have crucial roles in every aspect of Palestinians‘ lives. While the occupation affects the
process, as the general pretext about every problem in the oPt. “The constraints related to, I
would say, the Israeli domination on different aspects that concern us, whether it be construction
of buildings, reservoirs, infrastructure in Zone C, but also what is related to water, the
authorisations of drilling, the authorisations of importing certain equipment” (Conan, 2013).
The separation between Gaza Strip and West Bank, “we treat the two geographically separated
and politically separated territories as one. Now of course the way we engage in Gaza is
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different, because of the de facto authorities there with whom we don‟t have contact and we
don‟t recognise. We work with some programs in Gaza through the PA... and UNRWA” (Zafeiri,
2013). Besides the Centralisation of authority in Ramallah and Northern part of West Bank
therefore most of the fund goes to specific areas and marginalised areas are neglected as the
ruling elite of the Palestinian authority is centralised around Ramallah and Nablus, while
development is neglected in other parts of West Bank (Conan, 2013; Zafeiri, 2013, Oser, 2013).
4.3.2 Stability
Development itself as a process; be it under modernisation or participatory approach, is related to
the stability and status quo of the OPt, in addition to the continuous existing occupation and
colonisation of the OPt.
We think there is a development. It is evident that the limits we run into in the
implementation of our work is linked to the environment, absence of state, the
uncertainty which we may have about the peace process, and the coming creation or not
of a State....Today I do development, but tomorrow if the State cannot pay the employees,
if tomorrow the government does not have budget, and in some parts it is all subsidised,
funded by the funding agencies/ donors. Would I do development? Would I do a
perfusion? Would I do really something that would endure? I don‘t know (Conan, 2013).
Development itself is also dependent on the will of the international organisations, governmental
and non-governmental, besides their contentment of the Palestinian authority
The financial situation of the PA is linked, in fact, to the goodwill of the international
community, and in particular the Arab countries to have the will to aid the PA, so this
point is very different from other countries, it is the absence of real margin of manoeuvre
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of the country to implement fiscal policies, a budgetary policy which allows, I would say,
a little bit better estimation of what can be done (Conan, 2013).
4.3.3 Language
Language is an obstacle of communication for the international organisations, it is a main
concern raised from the respondents; the Palestinians are predominantly Arabic native speakers
with a minority who master English language. A missing part of having more solid DevComm is
‗language‘ and it has generally been an obstacle for the IOs to communicate. It is a main
difficulty where mostly staff working in international organisations are expatriates and don‘t
master Arabic language (Conan, 2013; Boylan, 2013; Hanna, 2013). “The essence of
communication is language. The command people have over a language determines how
effectively they are able to communicate and make themselves understood as well as understand
others” (Hanna, 2013).
Newsletters, magazines, reports are published predominantly in English. AFD website is in
French, WFD website is in German and some organisations don‘t even have a website or a
section in a website about their work in Palestine. While other organisations do have a website
about their mission in Palestine, the issues is that it is usually in English. Arabic content is
mostly about their achievements and projects ‗information dissemination‘ under the facet of
participatory interactive communication. “While communication work happens, it tends to be in
German and directed internally in the country” (Boylan, 2013). Hervé Conan does not share the
view that it is rather important to have a website in Arabic directed towards the Palestinian,
The communication of the OPt website should be oriented towards the Palestinians, or
the colleague funding agencies so that I can tell them what we do as projects, well that is
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the Internet website, you will see! So we will not make it in Arabic because the main
majority is Anglophone, also excuse me I cannot do it! It is a pity but yeah it is not a
catastrophe‖ (Conan, 2013)
Websites are more centralised and not about DevComm. ICTs for Development is absent from
all the work of the IOs interviewed. Organisations depend mainly on their websites and the press
releases as main communication means. Relations with journalists, especially in a place like the
oPt where thousands of all different types of journalist and media agencies exist, is also
important for the communication actions of the organisation to do their marketing. ICTs are
generally discarded; telephony system, broadband, etc.
4.3.4 Organisational aspects
The Size of the organisation and its number of staff besides the budget dedicated to
communication or sometimes DevComm is another issue. A combination or organisational issues
as budget, expertise and the size of staff form another obstacle in the face of DevComm.
Organisations don‘t have dedicated budget for that as it is an afterthought and is becoming still a
new trend in their work, lack of expertise is an additional point all paired with the view of
communication
I was told I am, since many years, the first person in RAI [Research, Analysis and
Information] division, who has a development background. And this is an advantage for
this work, and I think also we got stuck in this humanitarian approach, because so far the
person within RAI division which includes this community relations dimension, let‘s say
the seniors in this position have not been chosen because they have a development
background, but more because they have more information and public relations
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background... We don‘t go into areas of interest where we don‘t have capacities here
within our institution ... where we don‘t have the least expertise (Oser, 2013).
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5 Conclusion
Development approach in the oPt is viewed differently in the eyes of every development agency
or donor. It predominantly falls under the modernisation paradigm, therefore, policies, strategies
and priorities are build in top-down way by the major development agencies, with some
exceptions in small-scale projects targeting specified beneficiaries or target groups. Development
and aid have been defined in 1990s during the Oslo agreement period and the shape of priorities,
policies, and processes has remained the same. Very little libertarian and empowerment concrete
development processes are being taken into consideration, a development enabling the local
communities to seek freedom and independence and being engaged in the dialogue of what
development means to them and to help them solve their problems and achieve better living
conditions.
The communication work of IOs is more corporate-like or public relations, communication
serves more the visibility, branding and marketing of the work and role of the IOs. DevComm is
slightly employed by these organisations; it is noteworthy that participatory communication is
very minimal where it serves for the most part the organisations‘ institutional motives rather than
engaging the local population and empowering them. The policies, agenda and strategies of
development, including communication component, are decided in a centralised way taking the
form of a prescription of the way each organisation or agency views the process and objectives
of development, they follow the ready-made or prescription–like development goals set up by
their centralized offices thousands of kilometers away from the action field. Instead of engaging
the local community and stakeholders to have a say on these matters. Where it is remarked that
communication of IOs is one-way, sending information for different reasons to audiences
‗receivers‘ and little or no feedback.
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Today, more than ever, DevComm is relevant to the work of IOs and other development
agencies. DevComm allows the process of engagement to all those concerned with designing and
implementing DevComm activities adapted to the needs of the population in the context of local
and national policies, focusing on enhancing the capacities of local society to deliver sound
development. “Advocacy work to shape the social, economic or political system to promote a
given set of interest or ideology. They [Organisations] engage in lobbying, serve as
representatives and advisory to decision-makers, conduct research, hold conferences, stage
citizen tribunals, monitor and expose actions (and inactions) of others, disseminate information
to key constituencies, set define agendas, develop and promote codes of conduct and organize
boycotts or investor actions” (Yaziji & Doh, 2009: 8).
5.1 General recommendations
The communication role of IOs can be catalyst in advancing DevComm and adopting
empowerment and participatory approach in their development work. The immense amount of
money and power they hold in the oPt makes them able to change the way development is
approached, as they are most influential at the political and socio-economic levels. They have the
power and influence over the provision of training, policy making, decisions about strategies and
priorities and other cultural and societal factors. Their work can be adapted to a manner
consistent with the Palestinian values.
IOs recognise DevComm as an important component of any development project; therefore, they
should create a joint network, as there are hundreds of them, to bring about DevComm initiatives
within each organisation and its partners and as IOs, in general, to promote DevComm suitable
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to the context and needs, and help improve the coordination between the organisations in their
development initiatives and projects.
DevComm advocates and practitioners should work together in order to have deeper engagement
with policy-makers to ensure that communications is prioritised as focal component in all
development work. This can be through a systematic initiative to come up with a clear and
relevant DevComm approaches as the best practice in the oPt.
IOs should work on communication in Arabic language as it is the mother tongue of the local
community. This will help overcome a lot of difficulties they face and would help improve their
visibility, and would be a step closer to really engage the population in the participatory
development process, in addition to integrating new media and ICTs in their communication
work. “Communicators need to think like journalists and Facebook users. Long, boring report
like articles aren‟t going to be read. Attention spans are short in this day and age” (USAID
official, 2013).
IOs should add a requirement of communication in any development project they fund or carry
out in the oPt, and should also allocate budget for this purpose with dedicated staff, preferably
locals, where DevComm initiatives should considered to improve practice and policy in different
ways and at different levels.
Organising a conference of DevComm where all different IOs come together in addition to
representatives from the PA, civil society, grass-roots and local community representatives who
are engaged in development initiatives to start a comprehensive process of participatory
development, and to lay the foundation for decision-makers and donors to endorse DevComm
processes and implement them accordingly.
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Organisations should look into evaluating their work in order to in order to improve their
performance in their attempt to make a step forward in corporating DevComm approach in their
work and analyse their experience and come up with improvements for their work as a step
toward DevComm approach, evaluation of their work and impact that comes in a participatory
form; an evaluation by the concerned communities, to help the communities and to provide
feedback at the policy level.
IOs in partnership with local stakeholders, as what TIPH is planning to do in Hebron, should
provide trainings so as to improve the existing professional capacities in DevComm through
programs, materials and DevComm initiatives to be shared and implemented.
It is important to have research component by IOs to reach and sustain processes and outcomes
of development, in partnership with local institutions, be it universities, grass-roots
organisations, etc. A research under participatory approach to help the way development
agencies and local stakeholder and the community get involved and engaged in the design,
implementation and dissemination of development in different sectors.
Adding the participatory DevComm in academic institution as like ‗Master for International
Cooperation and Development program‘ (MICAD) in Bethlehem University and the
‗International Studies Master Degree‘ in BirZeit University, and other undergraduate courses
which deal with development, communication and international Studies is indispensable.
DevComm initiatives should embark on combined actions and adequate policies and resources,
both human and material. IOs in collaboration with the PA should support the right to free
expression and work to develop free and pluralistic information systems, a system that takes into
65
account the role of media, community, digital and traditional, to help improve access to
communication for the isolated and marginalized.
I would like to end by quoting Rana Hanna stating, “In order to have development within any
country, communication for development should be adopted since it is participatory
communication approach that integrates strategies, media and processes that enable people and
institutions to share knowledge and information and to reach consensus towards common
action” (2013).
66
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Appendices
Appendix I - Interview request
Appendix II - List of question
Appendix III - Interviews
73
Appendix I - Interview Request
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would like to request an interview, which would last between 30 – 40 minutes, as a part of my
research about International Development and Funding Organisations Organisations in the
occupied Palestinian territories and the tools and means of Development Communication. I am
currently doing Master degree in Media and Development at the University of Westminster in
London.
The study seeks more understanding and insight about the role of communication in
development projects and the way International Organisations approach development through
communication. The interview will inquire about communication strategy and policies, the
development approach the organisation adopts, and the practices and experience of related
issues.
It will be of great value to have your input in the study.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,
Shehab Zahda
MA Media and Development
University of Westminster
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Appendix II - Questions List
Date: Time:
Recording permission
Brief introduction
Name: Organisation: Position:
1. How do you view development?
2. What is the need do you think of communicating development? Role of communication
in development!
3. What is the appropriate role of communication in your broader strategy?
4. In what ways you address development through communication?
5. What about your communication strategy?
6. Based on what you fund organisations? Briefly if any.
7. How do you make sure that the funded organisations communicate your communication
strategy/ policies/ and messages? (In what ways?)
8. Who plans the strategy of the mission? Is it different from your communication strategy?
9. How do you plan your communication strategy for the mission? Priorities, policies,
Objectives, etc?
10. Do you think your Communication Strategy goes in accordance with your overall
strategy? Or are there any varieties?
11. What are the policies/ messages/ strategies you try to convey through your development
projects?
12. What do you do as advocacy?
13. What feedback do you expect from the local partners/ beneficiaries/ stakeholders/ service
users/ funded organisations?
14. To what extent do you think you are employing ‗Development Communication/
Communication for Development‘ in your organisation?
15. What are your policy agenda/ what are your communication tactics tackling your
objectives?
16. What do you think has been the dominant approach of employing communication for
development purposes?
17. How do you think your efforts can prove helpful in specific regard to communication?
18. What objective indicators would suggest that your opinion/ policy/ strategy are going the
right direction?
19. What do you think about new media/ social media and communicating development?
20. What do you think should be done to improve, if any?
21. Any other points…
I appreciate your cooperation and assistance.
75
Appendix III: Interviews (1-8)
Interview (1), 08th
May, 2013 - Jerusalem
Hervé Conan, French Agency for Development (AFD)
English (Translated from French by Shehab Zahda)
Shehab: So, my name is Shehab Zahda, I am currently doing my research about how
international agencies use communication for development.
Shehab: Ah… Could you briefly introduce yourself? Position? Name? It is just for the
recording.
Hervé: Sure, for me the name, it is!
Hervé: Hervé Conan, Country Director of the French Agency for Development (AFD) here in
Jerusalem in charge of the Palestinian territories. So yeah, the AFD is present here since 1998,
and it is the armed wing of the French cooperation or the French Government to implement the
development strategies of the Palestinian Authority.
Shehab: And could you tell me how do you view development?
Hervé: In the Palestinian territories...?
Shehab: In the Palestinian territories, as AFD?
Hervé: For me, in my case, I don‘t see any difference in the job that I do here and the job I could
do in other countries, the constraints are different, self-evidently, specifically, the constraints
related to, I would say, the Israeli domination on different aspects that concern us, whether it be
construction of buildings, reservoirs, infrastructure in Zone C, but also what is related to water,
the authorisations of drilling, the authorisations of importing certain equipment, so, the fact that
we are always, sometimes, not always, blocked by the Israelis, the problems which we encounter
to put in place projects in Gaza, so this is effectively a specificity, but in some parts the career
we do as developers which we have is to dialogue with the concerned ministries, the execution
agencies of the concerned ministries, to try to implement some projects, strategies, long-term
political approaches don‘t seem to me very different from what we can do also. Provided that I
am referring to the period of my intervention, which is when I arrived here at the end of 2009 till
today, hence, in some part, I did not know Intifada, I don‘t know I would say a period where it
might be matters/ issues of emergencies, more topics of state absence, so really a context of an
extremely fragile country, today we try to do development, we think there is a development. It is
evident that the limits we run into in the implementation of our work is linked to the
environment, absence of state, the uncertainty which we may have about the peace process, and
the coming creation or not of a State. The financial situation of the PA is linked, in fact, to the
goodwill of the international community, and in particular the Arab countries to have the will to
aid the PA, so this point is very different from other countries, it is the absence of real margin of
manoeuvre of the country to implement fiscal policies, a budgetary policy which allows, I would
say, a little bit better estimation of what can be done, today I do development, but tomorrow if
the State cannot pay the employees, if tomorrow the government does not have budget, and in
76
some parts it is all subsidised, funded by the funding agencies/ donors. Would I do development?
Would I do a perfusion? Would I do really something that would endure? I don‘t know…
Hervé: In all cases, my personal feeling after four years, is that I have the impression that we
have done/ made development, and I have the impression we have made a good job, in all cases
we did not I would say modify our intervention philosophy in terms of AFD to really...
completely transform it in the OPt, we have some adaptations but not transformations.
Shehab: So... would development mean for you also transformation in other sense?
Hervé: Evolution.
Shehab: Evolution.
Hervé: We accompany some evolutions, I think what is important in the notion of development
is the notion of processes, we don‘t have revolutions, we can make some evolutions, so that can
be big steps or small steps, it is to try to development some policies to try to better manage
certain sectors, to perpetuate certain sectors, services introduced to the people in a just and
equitable manner, to allow the government to think about some long-term strategies to anticipate
some new problems.
Hervé: So this is a little bit all our subject that I would say deploy in the form of gentle
evolution, sometimes stronger in some sectors more than others. We are verily to accompany the
processes, and to foster the implementation of these processes. When I say processes, I do NOT
refer to the peace process, I refer well to development processes, which rarely have disruptions,
and these are topics / issues that we gain experience, we get reflection, and it leads to a
supplementary step, sometimes we go up two steps at one time, because we have circumstances
that allow accelerating the things. And it is up to say I would say to accelerate, to give advice, to
give our viewpoint in relation to our international experience, and in relation I would say to our
perception of things, from there I would verily think about evolution, accompaniment of
evolutions.
Shehab: And if I can ask about communication in the development projects, how do you see the
role of communication in these development projects? How do you communicate development in
other words? By which means?
Hervé: When we talk about communication, clarify however communication? Is it? We have two
levels of communication that we can talk about. We have the communication of AFD, as
institutional communication, the AFD communicates as an institution vis-a-vis its partners, its
entourage, etc, one type of communication. And the other type of communication I would say the
internal project communication, which is integrated in the budget to lead to certain actions of
sensibilisation/ awareness about topics concerning the projects. So, about which communication
are we talking?
Shehab: We are talking about how, if you like, AFD makes sure that your communication
strategy...
Hervé: We have projects that have « awareness campaigns » which can have different and
diverse things, so the AFD pays but the it is the project which develops the plan how we will
77
launch a campaign of information, sensibilisation/ awareness about the topic of efficacy, energy
and electricity consumption, the energetic efficacy, about the remedy of lalalala... So this is the
PA of energy which defines its own strategy which will recruit consultants to define the strategy
of this matter, and as we support this subject, we fund the communication of the PA vis-a-vis the
target population. So this is a much targeted communication of the projects, but which is not
owned by AFD. We can have an opinion or a say about the matter I would say...
Shehab: So you don‘t intervene in making the strategies of the organisations which you fund?
Hervé: No, the AFD is not an executive agency. We are a donor, we develop projects with the
PA till now, the PA delegates the implementation of the projects to an executive agency, which
can be a ministry, can be a technical agency, so the PA. And then it is they who implement the
project which corresponds to their strategy. Inside this project, if we say that it would be good to
make some communication, awareness, etc. The PA will contact a consultant who will do the
job, in his domain of specialisation, and who will then suggest a communication campaign to the
PA, so that they request a fund for it from the AFD. The AFD as in all projects will give what we
call ―a non-objection opinion‖ and say yes or no, if I say yes or I say no, it means I am entitled
to, I am somewhere below the ministry or below the PA, I could say yes you have the right to do
that, no you don‘t have the right to do this. The non-objection opinion is simply to say: do what
you want, you are sovereign, it is your territory, and it is not mine. This been said, what you
propose to me does not seem to go along my objectives of the projects we agreed upon, etc. So I
would tell you simply do whatever you want, but not with my money. So I would not authorise
you to mobilise our fund to finance this activity you are proposing to me.
Hervé: So here I would say that the AFD does not have a particular dominance. Then, it won‘t be
anymore the head of mission, the project coordinator, the agency director who will have more or
less a feeling, who will have an interest in this topic who can say I give you my opinion, I give
you my advice. But we have a role in this point, to support the implementation of the work,
accompany the implementation, but in some parts a free advice, and the AFD does not have
precise regulations. So AFD will say, if you communicate, it would be required to put the logo of
AFD on the banner or invitation cards so that we can see that we have paid for the project, but
we won‘t get into the content of the communication, especially when it is technical
communication; how to write in Arabic that I don‘t know? How should we tell the Palestinians
why they have to pay their electricity bills? Or why we have to pay attention to I don‘t know
what? We don‘t know! The communication is necessarily linked to the culture, belief, certain
elements that I don‘t master/ command. We are, I would say, very ―low-profile‖ with simply the
will that if a project communicates, we will ask to put our logo, because everyone does it and
that it is the notion of the visibility of the AFD. So here we go back to the institutional
communication of the AFD and why the AFD communicates.
Shehab: If I may ask you about putting the logo of the AFD over/ in the communications of the
organisations that you fund, For example, USAID says ―From the American People‖, so for the
AFD to put your logo, what is the message behind that? If you could tell me why the AFD put its
logo, because it signifies something I guess...
Hervé: If we are talking about communication in the OPt, I will give you what our
communication logic is, the logo on an invitation card in terms of ―meaning‖. Why the AFD
needs to communicate?
78
Hervé: Today what we know as I said the AFD is the armed wing of the French government to
implement development strategies of the PA. We are clear that we are the armed wing of France.
In the OPt, more that elsewhere, I would say we have a presence, it is a country where only there
is more presence of number of institutions, countries, organisations, NGOs, etc. We have an
enormous presence. Every country, in general, has a very proactive policy position over the two-
state solution, the recognition of the Palestinian State, etc.
Hervé: In fact, I would say that every country, I am not citing, would not go through what we
would expect from their political messages that they want to pass to the Palestinian government.
So, this means that during development, it is good to demonstrate from the state, whichever it
may be, that it is not capable by itself alone to put forward the peace process, but through the
actions it brings to the daily life in the OPt, it demonstrates that there is a certain coherence in its
discourse, it supports politically, maybe a lot verbally, but it is not enough by the actions in
different occasions, still in some parts there is a coherence of supporting the PA to become a
state.
Hervé: The two objectives of the AFD in the OPt are; to reinforce the capabilities of the
government of the PA to become a state, so to become a Palestinian state, therefore reinforcing
this capacity. The second is to enhance the public services provided to the people in a manner
that makes people have the patience to wait the termination of the peace process without a
revolution which will eventually cease the dynamics of development etc, and the peace process.
So your role is this one here, if we necessarily communicate, it is in some part to demonstrate
when we have material, we don‘t put stickers on all the tables and computers we offered, it is not
the issue. It is in some way to show that we have some level of visibility, so that France has some
level of visibility in the OPt, in which Palestine cannot say that France did not do anything, it
speaks, it says it supports us, we don‘t see anything. So France speaks, it says it supports us, and
I see that they support us. So we have this necessity of visibility towards the PA, and to I would
say show that France has certain coherence in its intervention in which it trusted AFD for, it is
important to show the coherence of France vis-a-vis the PA, but also this communication we
need it also towards our ―tutelles‖; so the ministry of foreign affairs could say that the choice of
AFD as an armed wing of the French Cooperation in the OPt is justified and it is a good choice.
If we say that AFD is the armed wing to bring French policies, French implementer to the PA for
establishing strategies, and we don‘t have any visibility, we could have done good job, but if no
one knows it, it will be thought at certain point that France does not do great things anymore for
the PA. So that is why we need to communicate.
Hervé: So, after this what are the means of communication? Here our communication strategies,
we would say; our communication strategy towards the locals. So towards the local I would say
try to be present in certain issues, beyond being present in meetings etc etc, the visibility that
France has these and these things. So necessarily we need to create events, an event is the
signature of memorandum of understanding, which is what we did today in Gaza, the
Inauguration of a project in Gaza. It is then to create an event that shows effectively that AFD
brings certain projects, puts in place certain achievements, that these achievements make the
occasions for the visit of the General Consul or higher level. These visits and these topics are
inaugurated by the presence of the minister of health, minister of agriculture, finally the
concerned minister, so it will be a good dialogue that France funds/ supports Palestine. And if I
make an inauguration there will be logos, invitation cards, there will be press/ media who will
79
speak about the AFD or France. So there will be recovery of this event which will show that
France is here, France funds/ aids through the AFD etc, communicating for this is visibility in
relation to the coherence of the French policies as it is politically declined, or I think that every
politician when meeting a Palestinian, we tell him that France aids Palestine, supports Palestine
is that we bring money, and fund projects that are important for Palestine. So our communication
targets what the Palestinians say, Yes France helps us, and when they communicate with the
French Government they can say; Thank you France, and if they say Thank you France, because
in their head they have a recent event, or they saw something.
Hervé: Then, our communication apart from these events, it is also towards out ―tutelles‖,
because they give us the money to implement projects in Palestine, they have to say: we did the
right choice, and that choosing AFD as actor in my name gives me this visibility that I need. To
the extent that ministry of foreign affairs to implement project A, B, or C is not the topic. It is
that project A, B, or C are not source of conflict with the government, and in contrary it must be
a satisfactory subject to the Palestinian government vis-a-vis the French government. So we hope
that we made a good choice, we hope that the projects we fund, beyond funding, will be realised,
will be finished and will bring concrete benefits on the ground, that they could be inaugurated,
they will allow to say that France supports Palestine. So we have this worry also to communicate
with our ―tutelles‖, I invite the General Consul to all the inaugurations we make, he is the one
who makes the discourse, it is not me. If not, it is him who carries the message of France. Which
means there will be press/ media coverage, it will be recovered in the ―newsletter‖ of the French
Consulate, which will be sent to the ministry of Foreign Affairs, which means to everybody. So I
am in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, I open the newsletter of the consulate and I see
that here and there we talk about AFD, this means that AFD must have done good things. If I see
AFD practically every time, that is it AFD is present. It is fortunately I would say that they are
there to nourish the events of the PA.
Hervé: So our communication is towards the Palestinians so that they say Thank you France and
Thank you AFD for supporting us, and on the other hand the Tutelles say thank you AFD we
made the right choice, and keep it up. So this is essentially brought up by the events; workshop,
inauguration, signature of Memorandum of Understanding, etc. And necessarily these events, it
is not us who can create it in general. The plan/ project should be finalized by inauguration. We
can anticipate it, if there is a visit of a minister, or someone, so we bring it forward or postpone it
a bit. We can solicit the inauguration by having visibility. And I would say the Palestinians in
this regards are very cooperative, because they know that if they want money, there must be
visibility, people need visibility. They play the game, I would say, of the necessary visibility of
the funding agencies. Because they are visible, they will put the money, etc, so this is something
that we do without any problems.
Hervé: The other communication that we have, which is I would say more the
positioning/placement of the AFD vis-à-vis our Palestinian interlocutors. And that is a
communication we have, a communication that places us as partners to our Palestinian
counterparts.
Hervé: Why do we want to be partners? We won‘t bother ourselves if we are not partners, we
have I think at the level of AFD this hope to be engaged/ involved in partnerships relations, to
construct projects in the dialogue, that our advice would be better listened to and heard. When I
80
say our voice, it is just to be placed in the debate, to try if we think that certain brought added
values would be heard, and be taken into account because we have confidence in ourselves,
because we demonstrated this partnership and that we listen more a partner that we have had for
a long time and we trust more than someone who comes suddenly. This partnership we put it in
place at different levels, the partnership worth of AFD is simply that AFD is not just a counter
that has money, it is an agency that has money, the money they give us, it is an agency of
expertise, an international agency that has experience, an agency that can carry beyond money
worthy advice to our partners.
Hervé: As I said we are a multitude of funding agencies and institutions here, so it is a bit
difficult sometimes to exist in this myriad of institutions. So then our logic to have
communication which is much targeted. The two communications just presented are big public
(mass) communications, because there is somewhere an inauguration, we hope there would be
some media/ press coverage for those who read, we will post something on our website for those
who have the internet website, we will also publish it in the newsletter of the General Consulate,
from the view that a bigger public/ audience can be reached. We have another communication
which is more targeted, done in different ways; the first is that AFD has a newsletter, next time
you receive it and you will see how it looks like. So AFD has a newsletter made in Paris. So
Paris every 15 days publishes a newsletter with a theme, and presents AFD projects and events.
Shehab: Is this international?
Hervé: About all out interventions in all countries of the world. So, that is what I asked, that this
newsletter is not sent to our mailing list from the headquarters, and that we send it to them. We
made a big effort about the ―mailing list‖, once we meet someone, for example you, I will add
you in the mailing list, once I meet someone who has a link to Palestine and who is interested in
development issues, I define if he is Francophone or Anglophone, and from there he will receive
every 15 days a mail that I write which tries to highlight what seems to be interesting in this
newsletter. If it touches a subject that I can say something about what we do in Palestine, I say
that we do things in Palestine ta ta ta ta, and I make the link to the website.
Hervé: So this is a targeted communication which makes that people go for the Palestinians who
are connected on the internet who are connected to the world, but this been said, with this
difficulty to connect to the world by the physical barriers that exist. So we talk from this letter
that somewhere I give them some space on other things in French to those who speak French,
and in English to those who speak English. And that is it, we have this continuity policy every
fifteen days they receive a newsletter that they read or don‘t is another thing. They receive it,
they make the usage they want, and us we receive feedback, there are some people who send me,
ah if you are interested in this document, here it is...
Shehab: Do you use social media like twitter or Facebook?
Hervé: No, no...
Shehab: So it is only the newsletter and the mailing list...
Hervé: Newsletter and mailing list, and then we have a number of existing publications at AFD.
So we are notified that there is this or that publication on this or that subject which was released
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in French or in English. And when it is a publication that seem to me to be of interest for some of
our interlocutors, I request some copies, I write a letter, ten or twenty people who will receive it,
so I tell them there it is, I would like to send out that to you in English or in French. So we verily
have this will of trying to show our language tracking, because those who speak French speak
also English. So there is always a dedicated letter in which the AFD addresses that information...
we have this matter of creating a link so as for us to be perceived as a partner. And this link to be
perceived as a partner, it is because the AFD, I would say, has more implication and more
overtures in the dialogue of development that we could carry to our partner, but also because the
AFD develops certain number of tools which are not necessarily classical tools that people here
can wait from a funding agency to fund a project.
Hervé: We have four tools that we mobilise, we have what we call ―non-sovereign loan‖, so it is
a loan from the state but we have a public, parastatal and private organisation; it can be a
university, a utility, it can be an enterprise that offers services that benefit the PA, so we can
offer them a loan. In fact, if we look at the private sector, before they understand that the AFD
can make this type of loan, it took time, and before I met them, it took maybe more...
Hervé: But if I met them once, and they are on the mailing list, they will necessarily at some time
or if they are a little curious, they will get to know that the AFD does not offer subsidies, it offers
loans to make some projects that seem important to us, so here what the AFD does here. In some
part to attract toward the AFD that it must be perceived as a classical development agency, but
also as a bank. We work with the local commercial banks to make guarantees, well it is
something that we have to see and keep seeing, but at some time when we see that a guy says no,
he can have it a second time, and if they tell you: no..., they can have it a third time. But after
that you say: it is ok man... you tell him: thank you, see you later!
Hervé: If he receives the information, it neutral, it is not intrusive, he can delete the message. So
yeah it is not complicated. He can even send a message ―reply‖ thanks for unsubscribing me
from your list and that is it. And maybe a little good by little good, small step by small step, we
say the AFD is not that dummy, maybe ta ta ta ta…
Hervé: The two other things that we have, it is that we have a fund for FSGT, for the NGOs,
which is dedicated for the NGOs, so how to communicate for that, it is not for the Palestinian
NGOs, it is for the French NGOs in Palestine, so normally the targets will be the Palestinian
NGOs which have a French partner, and agree that we will apply to have a funding, as the one in
Hebron. And the third is the decentralised cooperation; it is also a tool, if I can say, which does
not come directly from us, but which we can use.
Hervé: So all these different tools, a good way it is that I have the newsletter, if I can foresee the
subject that I can put in advance, pop... in Palestine the AFD..... to try to do a link not only ah...
well it is really something every fifteen days, the mailing list grows bigger, I don‘t know 1500 to
2000 person, this mailing list, every person I meet, if I send to five persons or a thousand
persons, it is a matter of copy paste that is it. And also the books, the documents we send it is
really to try to create partnership relation with AFD, not simply as a funding agency, but as a real
partner, a true actor that can bring us from the team which is here, from the documents they
transmit to us, so yeah, this is a bit our work on the exterior.
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Hervé: So it is really an important communication, the last communication that we have is in
relation with the headquarters, I would say, AFD create its own events, here also to show a
difference to others, to try to be the most pedagogic, we really have our institutional
communication, so for example two years ago, we launched, we did it even in Hebron, the
exhibition of development objectives and we presented seven themes, seven development
objectives, seven countries. We have put it in the Korean centre, we presented it in the French
Alliance, Hebron-France Cultural Exchanges Centre, so we created an event commemorating the
tenth anniversary of the AFD, we made our own exhibition, a small movie we made tour in the
French Cultural Centres, and we used our partners to do the presentations, we have made the
exhibition of development objectives, it was the Paris AFD who gave us, and last years and also
this year, we use the movie of Bernard about Water, we project it, we do communication on both
sides.
Hervé: We have some tools that allow us I would say to create events, so this is not the event of
the century, but the small event that goes on in the different cities, and give us the opportunity to
ask our partners to make a presentation of their projects, which are in fact our funded projects, so
to put in advance what the AFD does and expose a little our partners who are generally satisfied
to do it. So these are the events to create a link with our partners and open or allow us to meet
other people, make other meetings, and eventually enrich our knowledge.
Hervé: So when I say this, this a little bit the communication of the AFD, but not today and not
at all my successor could do it, I have a little difficulty doing all that I have talked about, to find
time to do it, we are not at all on twitter, well AFD has a twitter account, we have certainly a
Facebook page. I think we must communicate in relation to what I have said, we have reasons to
communicate, we don‘t communicate to communicate, and we are not a communication agency.
And our mandate firstly is not to communicate; our primary is to implement the development of
Palestine. So we must we must not get tilted to spend more time communicating than doing. Yes
we have to communicate; we try to communicate as possible. We don‘t have to get embarked by
the syndrome that one must communicate, Me I don‘t have a product to sell.
Hervé: So we are under an institutional communication which is thought an institutional
communication to be placed at its just place. I don‘t say that twitter is yeah… I don‘t have
magnificent information to pass about twitter, we have a big work that we try to do since I am
here, and we did not have the time to do it, it is the re-building of our website in English. It is in
French, it is nice but as everyone here speaks English, in the newsletter that I send, when I send
it in French I link to the website of the OPt because it is in French, for the English Speakers I put
the Paris website because I don‘t have an English page.
Hervé: So here we translated it all, it will be soon posted, so this for me it will allow us to
communicate on our website in English, so to create a flow on the site, there it is the website
creates some routines, we put in advance documents, we try to enrich the site so that it is not
only a homepage, etc that we are not interested in. If we make an inauguration, and that we can
put a document which is distributed, if we can put a video, a report which seems interesting to
us, yes… I think we gain doing it! And we do it, and we will do it. But I think when I make this,
I don‘t say that it is perfect, but I say that we have done communication work, and I do more, I
need to use a full time employee, and that person I don‘t have full time…
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Shehab: Ok, so you think that there is a need to improve this, though?
Hervé: Yes, we necessarily need to improve, because firstly it is not perfect, and then I also have
a problem, tool optimisation. Having a French website is very limiting, inter alia also; it means
that I communicate essentially with the French people in France. So the communication of the
OPt website should be oriented towards the Palestinians, or the colleague funding agencies so
that I can tell them what we do as projects, well that is the internet website, you will see! So we
will not make it in Arabic because the main majority is Anglophone, also excuse me I cannot do
it! It is a pity but yeah it is not a catastrophe, also I have to count that here in addition to me we
have 4 persons following the project; among which Wendy whom you met that is in charge of
the communication and it takes maybe 20% of her time. I cannot allow myself to take 50% of her
time, because like that I have three persons and a half to follow the projects, and our primary
work is the projects.
Shehab: What type of communication you expect from the locals to give you? What type of
communication you receive from the people? Like feedback maybe?
Hervé: I realise that the other day we signed a Memorandum of Understanding for an
inauguration, it was end of March, I have had meeting with some people in the afternoon, they
had know we have had that Memorandum signature, because it was on Ma‘an
(www.maannews.net), so the people are really plugged on the internet on Ma‘an, not only one
hour, maybe they check it to see if there is any ―Breaking News‖ that they read we have this
Memorandum Signature, to make an event it gets spread in the newspapers, online, in some way
it nourishes this perception that France is present and the AFD does something.
Hervé: I have a lot of feedback on the newsletter, not very much, it is not that all reply to me, but
it is really rare that I send it and I receive no feedback, there is always someone who will tell me,
it is good thank you! It is kind of you sending it to me, or he will send me a report that he
produced, or a funding request, well yeah that is the rule of that game. But we see very well that
there are people who read. I meet some people who show interest that they have on certain
publication. Yes I have the impression that it opens a look of the world, it would please them to
know that. The documents the same, the fact of receipt of documents with a personalised letter, it
is generally when I send a letter to 20 persons, I general say: Dear something.... and then if I
know him I write cordially ―sincerely yours‖, I sign..... Well it takes a little time, but if you have
to do it, you must do it till the end.
Hervé: So certainly there is an improvement to work on, it is really a problem of time, and
somewhere of budget, we should have someone dedicated to that. The General Consulate of
France has Press Service ―Communication Department‖, me I don‘t have that. And if I tell Paris
I ask Paris to have that, they will tell me: you are kidding! So here we will hire a secretary to do
all that is internet entry so as to discharge Wendy from that because she has enough to do, but I
would say also, briefly all communications with media, I have to make sure that there is not
faulty information which goes. So it really a lot a lot of time kind of!
Shehab: Do you have anything else to say, you have answered to all that I wanted to ask !
Hervé: I tried in all cases to explain why I work on communication, because I think that we must
make a sort of not forgetting our career, because we are not here to put our logos, our sticker to
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create an impression that they will remain permanently. I have nothing to sell, I don‘t have a
product to sell, I don‘t have a target benefit to reach to sell my boxes of Coca Cola! I don‘t do
marketing. If I do communication, we must have a reason to do it, we do it to a minimum. You
go on the website of the AFD, you have at one moment, you will see; country… you go to the
country page, you will see news… it is news that are brought by the headquarters, general
news…
Shehab: I have a question which just occurred to me ! do you have any particular relation with
the AFP ―Agence France-Presse‖?
Hervé: Well, no, finally yes, I know well Philippe Adré, I inform him when we have some
subjects that seem to be interesting to me. So this I would say is a specific dimension in
Jerusalem. The other angle of communication that we have is that the AFD must be known in
France by 1.5% of the population. So it means no one knows AFD in France, because it is a
subject of development, for me it is my life all the time, for the people it is never so. So it is also
desirable that the AFD the armed wing of the French Government to be known by the French as
being the efficient tool that spends their money, because at the end we spend the taxes of the
people. So we have debates about how France uses it money. Sometimes we could have some
messages, some positive information of the AFD to use in the media. The problem of the media
is that they are not here to make the advertising of the AFD, it is not their role.
Hervé: So we try to do it here, it is using the national or international events; it is French when I
say national. There are two major issues that can make echoes in the French media without
events in France, we have two and not more than two, the industrial zone of Bethlehem because
it was a problematic project of the precedent government, and the project of Purification/ water
treatment in Gaza, the realisation of these project, because it represents the French politics. If I
make an inauguration, or if I make something about these two projects, I can attract the French
media, it will sell in Paris, for the other projects, no interest. I want to say, I provide water for
5000 persons in Maythaloun, what the hell can we do with that us the French? Unless we make
the project on the global Water Day, it is important. There no other, we don‘t have the pope that
was nominated, we did not have a hostage taking situation, not a declared war somewhere.
Hervé: So I cannot trigger the interest of the French journalists only if they know that they can
sell this information to the headquarters, or if they can make a link with a national or
international event. Apart from that ―Forget it!‖ So we are in a position here in Jerusalem that is
certainly from rare countries where we have this amount of journalists. So this means that the
AFD here can have an interesting role to promote the image of the AFD in France using subject
of the OPt. This year for example, we got covered on France 24 which was also taken in English,
French and Arabic about the Water project. A great documentary that did not cost a cent, we had
a subject on RFI ―Radio France International‖ about the Global Water Day, the Figaro, etc but
this has nothing to do with the AFD here, it is something to do in France. So when I send this to
my counterparts, even though it is in French, we are perceived as those who help to advocate for
the cause of the OPt.
Hervé: I have my colleagues in Paris who work on communication, they tell me it would be good
if you can do this this and this, the problem is the lack of time, you… you have to do but this in
your day, but me I don‘t only have that!
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Hervé: I think we must in all cases pay much attention as a development agency, not falling in
the syndrome that we can have normally communication, to make ourselves believe that we have
to communicate, that if we are not on twitter or Facebook; that we did not understand anything,
etc. me I don‘t have the influence of having, I know my audience, my audience is in Palestine,
certain people, and I reach them through other subjects, self-evidently if I am on Facebook or on
twitter, I have more people, but what will I tell them? And what time will find to do it? And I
have nothing to sell…
Hervé: That is our subject, I think for someone who works in communication, it is very
important to define what one estimates to be relatively coherent with what we do. A
communication strategy in relation to communication objectives, and which are not objectives of
communication for communicating, saying; I want to be present in all media, because I want to
be famous, we don‘t want to be famous, we just need to know why we want to be visible, we
want to be visible because effectively our ―tutelles/ ministry of foreign affairs‖ gives us money,
we must justify that they give it to us well, we must know if you do it for political reasons or not.
Hervé: But really the message is that we must not let ourselves being overtaken by the
communication, we have to be realistic, communicating it is to be exposed positively and
negatively, so it is good to communicate, one should find the good dose, and if we have the tools
which allow us to make it more efficient, one must not hesitate… needless of spending days and
night over it!
Shehab: Thank you very much!
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Interview (1) ‘French’, 08th
May, 2013 - Jerusalem
Hervé Conan, French Agency for Development (AFD)
French (Original)
Shehab : Alors je m‘appelle Shehab Zahda, je suis entrains de faire le recherche sur comment les
agences internationaux utilisent communication pour développement.
Shehab : Eh… Est-ce que vous pouvez vous présenter dans quelques mots ? Position ? Nom ?
C‘est juste pour l‘enregistrement.
Hervé : Sur pour moi le mon nom c‘est ca !
Hervé : Donc Herve Conan directeur de l‘agence française de développement (AFD) ici a
Jérusalem en charge des territoires palestiniens. Et ben voila ! L‘AFD est présente ici depuis
1998, et le bras arme de la coopération française ou le gouvernement français pour appuyer les
stratégies de développement de l‘autorité palestinienne …
Shehab: Et si vous pouvez me dire comment vous voyez développement ?
Hervé : Dans les territoires palestiniens ?
Shehab: Dans les territoires palestiniens comme l‘AFD ?
Hervé : Pour moi, en ce qui me concerne, je ne vois pas de différence dans le métier que je fais
ici par rapport aux métiers que j‘ai pu faire dans d‘autres pays, les contraintes sont différentes, en
particulier, les contraintes liées a la, que je dirais, a la main mise des israéliens sur les différent
sujets qui nous concernent, que ce soit la construction de bâtiments, de réservoirs,
d‘infrastructure en zone C, mais aussi tout ce qui touche a l‘eau, les autorisations sur les forages,
les autorisations pour l‘importation d‘un certain nombre d‘équipements, donc, de faite on est
toujours, un moment donné, pas toujours, mais souvent bloqué par les israéliens, les
problématiques… les problèmes que l‘on rencontre pour monter des projets a Gaza, ben ca c‘est
effectivement une spécificité, mais quelque part le métier des développeurs que l‘on a qui est de
dialoguer avec les ministères concernés, les agences d‘exécution des ministères concernés, pour
essayer de mettre en place des projets, des stratégies, des approches de politiques de longe
termes ne me semble pas très différentes de ce que l‘on peut faire par ailleurs. Sachant que je me
réfère moi a la période de mon intervention, qui est, quand je suis arrivé ici fin 2009 jusqu'à
aujourd‘hui, donc, et quelque part, je n‘ai pas de, je n‘ai pas connu Intifada, je n‘ai pas connu, je
dirais, une période, ou peut-être les sujets étaient plus des sujets d‘urgences, plus des sujets
d‘absence d‘état, donc de vraiment de contexte d‘un pays extrêmement fragile, aujourd‘hui on
essaie de faire de développement, on pense qu‘il y a un développement. Il est bien évident que
les limites que l‘on retrouve dans la mise en œuvre de nos actions est liées à l‘environnement, a
l‘absence d‘état, a l‘incertitude que l‘on peut avoir sur le processus de paix, et la création
prochaine ou pas d‘un état. La situation financière de l‘autorité palestinienne qui est liée a la, de
faite, au bon vouloir de la communauté internationale, et en particulier les pays arabes, a vouloir
aider l‘autorité palestinienne, donc, ca c‘est un point qui est différent beaucoup d‘ autres pays,
c‘est l‘absence de réel marge de manœuvre du pays pour mettre en place une politique fiscale,
une politique budgétaire qui permet, je dirais, d‘un petit peu mieux prévoir ce qui pourra être
fait, aujourd‘hui je fais de développement, si demain l‘état ne peut plus payer son personnel, si
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demain l‘état n‘a plus de budget, et que quelque part tout est subventionné, financé par les
bailleurs de fonds. Est-ce que je ferais de développement ? Est-ce que je ferais de la perfusion ?
Est-ce que je ferais réellement quelque chose qui peut perdurer ? Je ne sais pas…
Hervé : En tout cas mon sentiment personnel après quatre ans, c‘est que j‘ai l‘impression que
l‘on a fait de développement, et j‘ai l‘impression qu‘on a fait du bon travail, en tout cas qu‘on
n‘a pas, je dirais, modifié notre philosophie d‘interventions en terme d‘AFD pour réellement la la
la… complètement la transformer dans les territoires palestiniens, il y a des adaptations mais pas
de transformations.
Shehab: Alors… est-ce que pour vous développement ca veut dire aussi transformation dans un
autre sens ?
Hervé : Evolution.
Shehab: Evolution!
Hervé : On accompagne des, on accompagne des évolutions… je pense ce qui est important
dans la notion de développement c‘est la notion de processus, il n‘y a pas de, il n‘y a pas
révolution, on peut faire que des évolutions, alors qui peuvent être des grands pas ou des petits
pas, notre sujet c‘est de de, voila, d‘essayer de développer des politiques pour essayer de mieux
gérer un certain nombre de secteurs, de pérenniser un certain nombre de de de secteurs, de
services qui sont importés aux populations, d‘essayer de faire une sorte que ces services soient
portées d‘une manière juste et équitables, de permettre au gouvernement de penser a des
stratégies de longe termes pour anticiper des nouveaux problèmes.
Hervé : Voila donc ca c‘est un peu tout notre sujet que l‘on, je dirais, on déploie ici sous forme,
de voila, d‘évolution douce, parfois plus forte dans des secteurs plus que d‘autres. On est
vraiment sur accompagner, notre rôle c‘est vraiment accompagner des processus, et favoriser la
mise en place de ces processus. Quand je dis processus, je me réfère pas aux processus de paix,
je me réfère bien a des processus de développement, qui sont des, qu‘il n‘ya jamais rarement des
ruptures, c‘est des sujets voila on gagne de l‘expérience, on gagne réflexion, ca amène à passer
une étape supplémentaire, puis une étape supplementaire, parfois on peut passer deux étapes en
une fois, parce qu‘il y a des circonstances qui permettent d‘accélérer les choses. Et c‘est a nous,
je dirais, de faire accélérer, de bien conseiller, de donner notre point de vue par rapport a notre
expérience internationale, et par rapport a notre, je dirais, notre perception des choses, au-delà je
pense vraiment a l‘évolution, accompagner des évolutions.
Shehab: Et si je peux vous demander par rapport communication dans les projets de
développement, comment vous voyer le rôle de communication dans ces projets de
développement ? Comment vous communiquer développement dans un autre sens? Dans quels
moyens ?
Hervé : Quand on parle de communication, clarifie cependant par communication, est-ce que ? Il
y a deux niveaux de communication dont on peut parler. Il y‘a la communication de l‘AFD, en
tant que communication institutionnelle, l‘agence de l‘AFD qui communique en tant
qu‘institution vis-à-vis de ces partenaires, de son environnement, etc., un type de
communication. Et l‘autre type de la communication est, je dirais, la communication interne
projet, donc qui est intégré dans le budget de projet pour mener à un certain nombre d‘actions de
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sensibilisations sur les sujets qui concernent les projets. Donc, de quelle communication on
parle ?
Shehab: On parle comment, si vous voulez, l‘AFD assure que votre stratégie de communication
…
Hervé : On a des projets qui vont avoir des « awareness campaigns », qui vont avoir des choses
diverses et variées, et donc voila c‘est l‘AFD qui paie, mais c‘est le projet qui développe le plan
comment on va lancer une campagne d‘information, sensibilisation sur le problématique
d‘efficacité, de consommation d‘énergie et d‘électricité, sur l‘efficacité énergétique, sur la
recours lalalalala…. Donc, c‘est l‘autorité palestinienne de l‘énergie qui définie sa propre
stratégie, qui ira recruter des consultants pour définir la stratégie de ce sujet la, et comme on
l‘appuie ce sujet, on finance la communication de PEA vis-a-vis la population cible. Donc ca
c‘est des communications très ciblées sur les projets, mais qui n‘est pas propre à l‘AFD. On peut
éventuellement avoir un avis ou donner, je dirais….
Shehab: Alors, vous n‘intervenez pas a construire les stratégies pour organisations lesquelles
vous financez ?
Hervé : Non, l‘AFD n‘est pas une agence d‘exécution. On est un bailleur de fonds, on monte des
projets jusqu'à présent avec l‘autorité palestinienne, l‘autorité palestinienne délègue la mise en
œuvre des projets a une agence d‘exécution, donc qui peut être un ministère, qui peut être
technique, une agence d‘exécution PMDLF par exemple ou PWA ou PEA, donc l‘autorité. Et
donc c‘est eux qui mettent en œuvre le projet qui correspond à leur stratégie. A l‘intérieur de ce
projet si on a dit que ca serait bien de faire la communication, sensibilisation, etc. PEA va
contracter un consultant qui va faire le travail qu‘il faut, dans son domaine de spécialisation, et
qui va donc proposer une campagne de communication a PEA, et donc pour demander a AFD de
le financer. L‘AFD comme dans toutes activités de ces projets, va donner, ce qu‘on appelle, avis
de non-objection, donc on va donner notre accord, un avis de non-objection et dire oui ou dire
non, si je dis oui ou je dis non, ca veut dire que j‘ai le droit, je suis quelque part au-dessous du
ministère, ou au-dessous de l‘autorité palestinienne, je peux dire oui vous avez le droit de faire
ca, non vous avez le droit de faire ca. L‘avis de non-objection est simplement de dire : faites ce
que vous voulez, vous êtes souverains, c‘est votre territoire, ce n‘est pas le mien. Ceci dit, ce que
vous me proposez ne me semble pas correspondent aux objectifs de projet qu‘on s‘est données,
etc. Et donc, je vous dis simplement, faites ce que vous voulez, mais pas avec mon argent. Donc
je ne vous autorise pas à mobiliser notre financement pour financer l‘activité que vous me
proposer.
Hervé : Donc la dessous, je dirais que, l‘AFD n‘a pas particulièrement de prévalu. Apres, ca va
plus être le chargé de mission, le chef de projet, le directeur d‘agence qui va avoir plus ou moins
un feeling, qui va avoir je ne sais pas, un intérêt sur ce sujet, qui va pouvoir dire, je vous mon
avis, ou je vous donne mon conseil. Mais on est dans un rôle, dans ce point la, d‘appuyer la mise
en ouvrage, d‘accompagnement de la mise en ouvrage, mais sur quelque part un conseil gratuit,
et que l‘AFD n‘a pas de règle précise. Alors, elle va dire, si vous faites de la communication, il
va y‘a falloir mettre le logo de l‘AFD pour que, sur la bannière ou sur le carton d‘invitation, on
voit que c‘est nous qui payons le projet, mais on ne va commencer à rentrer dans le contenu de la
communication, surtout quand c‘est la communication technique ; comment aujourd‘hui écrire
en arabe que je ne comprends pas ? Comment il faut parler aux palestiniens pourquoi on doit
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payer son électricité ? Ou pourquoi il faut faire attention a je ne sais pas quoi ? On ne sait pas !
La communication est forcément liée à la culture, à la croyance, a un certain nombre d‘éléments
dont je ne l‘ai pas la maitrise. On est très, je dirais « low-profile » avec simplement la volonté
que si un projet communique, on va demander de mettre notre logo, parce que tout le monde le
fait, et que, quelque part c‘est une notion de visibilité de l‘AFD. Donc la, on retombe sur la
communication institutionnelle de l‘AFD, et pourquoi l‘AFD communique !
Shehab: Si je voudrais demander par rapport mettre le logo de l‘AFD sur/dans les
communications d‘autres organisations lesquelles vous financez ? par exemple, USAID, ils
disent « This is the support from American People » ! Alors pour vous l‘AFD, de mettre le logo
de l‘AFD, c‘est quoi le message derrière ca ? Si vous pouvez le dire dans quelques phrases,
pourquoi l‘AFD met le logo, parce que ca signie quelque chose quand même, je pense ?
Hervé : Si on parle de la communication dans les territoires palestiniens, je vais maintenant te
donner quel est notre logique de communication, le logo sur un carton d‘invitation en terme, je
dirais, un sujet de « meaning ». Pourquoi l‘AFD a besoin de communiquer ?
Hervé : La, aujourd‘hui ce que l‘on sait, comme je disais, l‘AFD est le bras armé du
gouvernement français pour appuyer les stratégies de développement de l‘autorité palestinienne.
On l‘est bien sur un logique qu‘on est le bras armé de la France. Dans les territoires palestiniens,
plus qu‘ailleurs, je dirais qu‘il y‘a une présence, c‘est un pays seulement qu‘il y‘a plus de
présence en nombre d‘institutions, de pays, d‘organisations, d‘ONGs, etc. On a une présence
énorme. Chaque pays, en générale, a une position politique très volontariste sur la solution a
deux états, la reconnaissance de l‘état palestinien, etc., etc.
Hervé : Dans l‘effet, je dirais que chacun des pays, je ne les citerais pas, ne vont pas jusqu‘au
bout de ce que l‘on pourrait attendre de leur, de messages politiques qu‘il peut faire passer au
gouvernement palestinien. Donc, ca veut dire que, pendant développement, il est bien de
démontrer par l‘état quel qu‘il soit que peut-être qu‘il est, qu‘il n‘a pas la capacité par lui-même,
seule, de poser sur le processus de paix, mais quand tout état de cause, par les actions qu‘il mène
au quotidien dans les territoires palestiniens, il démontre par ce billet, qu‘il y‘a une certaine
cohérence dans son discours, il le soutient politiquement, peut-être trop verbalement, mais pas
suffisamment par les actes dans différentes occasions, mais que quelque part il y a une cohérence
d‘appuyer l‘autorité palestinienne pour en faire devenir un état. (16 :32).
Hervé : Les deux objectifs de l‘AFD dans les territoires palestiniens ; c‘est renforcer les
capacités du gouvernement de l‘autorité palestinienne pour devenir un état, donc pour devenir le
gouvernement de l‘état palestinien ; donc renforcer cette capacité la. Le deuxième c‘est améliorer
les services publiques rendus aux populations de manière quelque part a faire que la population
ait la patience d‘attendre que le processus de paix soit terminé sans faire de révolutions qui
éventuellement casseraient les dynamiques de développement, etc. et de processus de paix. Donc
ton rôle c‘est celui la. Si on communique forcément, c‘est quelque part pour démontrer quand il
y a matière ; on ne met pas du sticker sur tous les tables et tous les ordinateurs qu‘on l‘on offre,
ce n‘est pas le sujet. C‘est de faire une sorte qu‘on ait un certain niveau de visibilité, pour que la
France ait un certain niveau de visibilité dans les territoires palestiniens, dans que la Palestine ne
puisse pas dire que la France ne fait rien, elle parle, elle dit qu‘elle nous soutient, je n‘envois
rien. Donc la France parle, elle dit qu‘elle nous soutient, je vois qu‘elle nous soutient. Donc on a
cette nécessite de visibilité auprès de l‘autorité palestinienne, et donc d‘essayer de communique
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pour montrer qu‘on est la. Donc montrer qu‘on est la ce fait dans différentes manière, donc notre
première cible quand je dis c‘est de montrer qu‘on existe, montrer que l‘on fait du travail
cohérent avec les stratégies de l‘autorité palestinienne, qu‘on est présent sur un certain nombre
de dossiers qui sont importants pour l‘autorité palestinienne, et de, je dirais, montrer que la
France a une certaine cohérence dans son intervention pour lequel elle a confié une partie a
l‘AFD, c‘est important pour montrer la cohérence de la France vis-à-vis de l‘autorité
palestinienne, mais aussi c‘est une communication qu‘on a besoin de faire vis-à-vis de nos
tutelles, donc le ministère des affaires étrangère, pour que le ministère des affaires étrangères se
disent infiner le choix de l‘AFD comme bras arme de la coopération française dans les territoires
palestiniens et justifier et le bon choix. Si on dit l‘AFD est le bras arme pour porter la politique
de la France, l‘appui de la France a l‘autorité palestinienne pour la mise en place de ses
stratégies, et qu‘on a aucune visibilité, on aura pu faire du bon boulot, si personne ne le sait, ca
serait percutera a un moment donné que la France ne fais plus grand choses pour l‘autorité
palestinienne. Alors, c‘est pour ca qu‘on a besoin de communiquer.
Hervé : Alors, après quels sont les moyens de communiquer ? Ici, nos stratégies de
communication c‘est, on va dire, notre stratégie de communication vers les locaux. Alors vers les
locaux, je dirais, essayer d‘être présent a un certain nombre de sujets, au-delà de la présence dans
les réunions etc etc, la visibilité qui va venir bien sur que la France a finance telles et telles
choses. Donc, forcément il faut créer des événements, donc un événement c‘est la signature
d‘une convention, c‘est ce qu‘on a fait aujourd‘hui a Gaza ; l‘inauguration d‘un projet a Gaza.
C‘est donc créer de l‘événement qui montre que l‘AFD effectivement porte un certain nombre de
projets, met en place un certain nombre de réalisations, que ces réalisations font l‘objet de la
visite du consul générale ou du plus haut niveau. Que ces visites et que ces sujets sont inaugurer
par la présence du ministre de la sante, ministre de l‘agriculture, finalement le ministre concerné.
Donc a priori ca serait bien un dialogue que la France aide la Palestine. Et si je fais une
inauguration, ben, il va y avoir des logos, les cartons d‘invitations il y aura les logos, il y aura la
presse qui va reprendre avec un peu de chance ils vont parler de l‘AFD ou de la France, peu
importe, ce n‘est très grave. Donc, il va y avoir une reprise de cet événement, que ce soit la
signature d‘une convention, que ce soit un événement d‘inauguration ou du lancement d‘un
projet, peu importe, workshop a l‘intérieur d‘un projet, qui montre que la France est la, la France
aide, via l‘AFD etc. la communication pour ca, c‘est visibilite par rapport a la cohérence de la
politique française telle qu‘elle est déclinée politiquement, ou je pense qu‘un chaque politique
quand rencontre un palestinien, on lui dit la France aide la Palestine ; aide la Palestine c‘est on
met de l‘argent, et finance des projets qui sont importants pour la Palestine. Donc, notre
communication vise a ce que les palestiniens disent ; oui la France nous aide, et quand ils
communiquent avec le gouvernement français, ils puissent dire ; merci a la France, et si ils disent
merci a la France, parce que en tête ils ont un événement récent, ils ont vu quelque chose.
Hervé : Apres, notre communication de sur ces événements, elle est aussi retournée vers nos
tutelles, parce qu‘ils nous donnent de l‘argent pour qu‘on fasse des projets en Palestine, il faut
qu‘ils se disent ; j‘ai fait le bon choix. Et qu‘a priori en choisissant l‘AFD je me suis donné
l‘acteur qui me donne cette visibilité dont j‘ai besoin. A la limite pour le ministère des affaires
étrangères, que je fasse le projet A, B, ou C ; ce n‘est pas le sujet. Ce qu‘il faut c‘est que le projet
A, B, ou C ne soit pas une source de conflit avec le gouvernement, et qu‘en contraire ce soit des
sujets de satisfaction du gouvernement palestinien vis-à-vis du gouvernement français. Donc, on
espère que l‘on fait un bon choix, on espère que les projets qu‘on finance, au-delà du
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financement, vont être réalises, qui vont être terminés, qui vont apporter des choses concrètes sur
le terrain, qui vont permettre d‘être inaugurés, qui vont me permettre de dire que la France aide
l‘était palestinien. Donc, on a ce soucis aussi de communiquer vers nos tutelles, tout
simplement, j‘invite le consul générale a toutes les inaugurations qu‘on fait, c‘est lui qui fais le
discours, ce n‘est pas moi. Sinon, c‘est lui qui porte le message de la France. Ce qui veut dire
qu‘il y a couverture de presse, il lui reprend dans la note « newsletter » du consulat générale de
France, qui elle est envoyée au ministère des affaires étrangères, c'est-à-dire à tout le monde.
Donc, je suis au ministère des affaires étrangères a paris, que j‘ouvre la newsletter du consulat, et
que je vois une fois par dix parler de l‘AFD dans un petit encart, c'est-à-dire l‘AFD doit avoir fait
grands choses. Si je vois l‘AFD pratiquement à chaque fois, c‘est voila l‘AFD est très présente.
C‘est heureusement, je dirais, qu‘ils sont là pour alimenter, je dirais, de l‘événement vis-à-vis de
l‘autorité palestinienne. Donc, notre communication elle est vis-à-vis les palestiniens pour qu‘ils
disent on veut dire merci de la France et merci de l‘AFD de nous aider, et de l‘autre côté, merci,
les tutelles disent merci l‗AFD, on a vraiment fait le bon choix, et donc ne change rien. Donc, ca
c‘est essentiellement porté par l‘événementielle ; workshop, inauguration, signature de
convention, etc. Et forcément, ces événements, ce n‘est pas nous qui pourrons les créer en
générale. Une inauguration, il faut que le plan soit terminé par l‘inaugurer. On peut anticiper, il y
a la visite d‘un ministre, la visite de quelqu‘un, bon voila, on avance un mois, on la coule deux
mois. On peut solliciter l‘inauguration par avoir de la visibilite. Et je dirais que les palestiniens
dans ce point de vue la très coopératifs, parce qu‘ils savent que s‘ils veulent avoir de l‘argent, il
faut qu‘il y ait la visibilite, les gens ont besoin de la visibilite. Ils jouent le jeu, je dirais, de la
visibilite nécessaire pour les bailleurs de fonds parce qu‘ils sont visible, ils vous mettre l‘argent,
etc. donc ca c‘est quelque chose que l‘on fait sans problème.
Hervé : L‘autre communication que nous avons, qui la est une communication, je dirais, plus de
positionnement de l‘AFD vis-à-vis de nos interlocuteurs palestiniens. Et la c‘est une
communication qu‘on en a, une communication de positionnement comme partenaire de nos
contreparties palestiniennes.
Hervé : Pourquoi on veut être partenaire ? On ne va pas faire s‘empêcher faire des progrès si on
n‘est pas partenaire, on a, je pense, au niveau de l‘AFD ce souhait d‘engager des relations
partenariale, de construire des projets dans le dialogue, de penser que si on est perçu comme
partenaire notre voix sera mieux entendu, que nos conseils seront mieux entendu. Quand je dis
notre voix, c‘est juste pour poser dans le débat, pour essayer si on pense qu‘on a un certain
nombre de valeurs ajouté apportées qu‘elles soient écoutées, et qu‘elles puissent être prises en
compte parce qu‘on a confiance en nous, parce que on a montré, je dirais, justement cette
relation de partenariat, et que donc on écoute plus un partenaire qu‘on a suivi dans le temps et
qu‘on en a confiance que quelqu‘un qui arrive sous d‘un coup. Cette relation de partenariat on la
met en place à plusieurs niveaux. Donc, partenariat plus valu de l‘AFD, l‘AFD n‘est pas
simplement un guichet qui a de l‘argent, c‘est une agence qui a de l‘argent, celle que celui on lui
donne, c‘est une agence de l‘expertise, c‘est une agence qui a une expérience internationale, c‘est
agence qui peut donc apporter au-delà de l‘argent une vrai plu valu de conseils a nos partenaires.
Comme je le disais on est une multitude de bailleurs de fonds et d‘institutions ici, donc, c‘est un
peu difficile parfois d‘exister dans ce fourmillement d‘institutions. Et donc, notre logique est
d‘avoir une communication qui est très ciblée. Les deux communications présentes sont des
communications grandes publiques, parce qu‘il y a quelque part une inauguration, on espère on
va avoir de la presse pour ceux qui lisent, on va poster quelque chose sur notre site internet, pour
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ceux qui ont le site internet, on va le monter dans le publique ciblé aussi avec le consulat
générale, au départ une politique un peu grand publique sera touché. On a une autre
communication, qui est communication beaucoup plus ciblée, qu‘elle se fait par diverses
manières ; la première c‘est que l‘AFD a une « newsletter », la prochaine tu la recevras et tu
verras à quoi ca rassemble, donc, l‘AFD a une « newsletter » qui est faite par Paris. Donc, Paris
fais tous les quinze jours fait une « newsletter » avec un thème et présente des projets de l‘AFD
met en avant a un de ses événements.
Shehab: A l‘international ca ?
Hervé : Sur toute notre intervention dans les pays du monde. Et donc, c‘est ce que j‘ai demande
c‘est que cette « newsletter » ne soit pas envoyée par le siège a notre « Mailing List », et que ce
soit nous qui l‘envoyons. On a un grand travail qui est fait sur le « Mailing List », dés qu‘on
rencontre quelqu‘un, par exemple toi, je vais t‘ajouter sur le Mailing List, dés que je rencontre
quelqu‘un qui a un lien avec la Palestine et qui est intéressé par le sujet de développement, je
défini si il est francophone ou anglophone, et a partir de la, il va recevoir la newsletter tous les
quinze jours un mail que j‘écris qui essaie de mettre en avance qui me semble à être très
intéressant dans cette newsletter. Des que ca aborde un sujet sur lequel je peux rebondir sur ce
qu‘on fait en Palestine, je dis qu‘on fait des choses en Palestine ta ta ta, et je mais le lien pour le
site internet.
Hervé : Donc ca c‘est une communication ciblée qui fait que les gens iraient les palestiniens bien
sur sont connectés a l‘internet, bien sur ils sont connecte au monde. Mais ceci dit, en cette
difficulté de se connecter a leur monde par les barrières qui existent physique. Donc, on parle
depuis cette lettre quelque part je leur donne une loquaient sur autres choses en français pour
ceux qui parlent français, et en anglais pour ceux qui parle anglais. Et la voila, il y a cette
politique de continuité tous chaque quinze jours ils reçoivent une newsletter qu‘ils lisent ou ils ne
lisent pas ca c‘est autre chose. Ils la reçoivent, ils la font l‘usage qu‘ils veulent, et nous, on reçoit
de retours, il y a des gens qui m‘envoient, ah si vous êtes intéressé par ce document, voila.
Shehab: Est-ce que vous utilisez les social medias comme twitter, Facebook ?
Hervé : Non, non.
Shehab: Alors, c‘est seulement la newsletter et mailing liste.
Hervé : Newsletter et mailing liste. Ensuite, on a un certain nombre de publications qui existent à
l‘AFD. Donc on nous informe qu‘il y a une publication sur tel ou tel sujet qui est sorti, En
français ou en anglais. Et quand c‘est une publication qui me semble d‘être d‘un intérêt pour un
certain nombre de nos interlocuteurs. J‘en demande un certain nombre, je fais une lettre, a dix,
quinze vingt personnes qui vont être bénéficiaires, donc je leur dit voila je veux bien vous
transmettre soit en français ou en anglais. Si c‘est français, on sort en Français, si c‘est anglais,
on sort en anglais. Donc il y a vraiment une volonté d‘essayer de monter notre repérage de la
langue, parce que ceux qui parlent français, ils parlent aussi anglais. Donc, il y a toujours un
courrier dédié. Donc c‘est toujours voila, l‘AFD vous aborde de l‘information… il y a vraiment
ce sujet de créer ce lien pour qu‘on soit perçu comme partenaire. Et ce lien d‘être perçu comme
partenaire, il est parce que l‘AFD sertes donc, je disais, on crée ce lien, devient partenaire, et on
peut avoir plus d‘implications et d‘ouverture dans le dialogue de développement que l‘on peut
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apporter a nos partenaire, mais aussi parce que l‘AFD développe un certain nombre d‘outils qui
ne sont pas forcement les outils classiques que les personnes ici peuvent attendre d‘un bailleur de
fonds pour financer un projet.
Hervé : On a quatre outils que l‘on peut mobiliser, on a ce qu‘on appelle le « prêt non
souverain », donc c‘est du prêt par l‘état mais il y a une structure publique, parapublique, et
privée ; ca peut être une université, ca peut être une « utility », ca peut être une entreprise qui fait
une action qui bénéfice l‘autorité palestinienne, donc on peut leur faire un prêt. De faite, si on
regarde le secteur privée, avant qu‘ils comprennent l‘AFD peut faire ce type de prêt, ca prenait
du temps, et avant que moi je les rencontre, peut être encore plus.
Hervé : Mais si je l‘ai rencontré une fois, et il est sur la « mailing liste », il va forcément a un
moment donne, ou s‘il est un peu curieux, il va savoir que l‘AFD ne fais pas des subventions,
elle fait des prêt à faire des projets dont nous paraissent important, donc tiens ce que l‘AFD fait
ici. Quelque part attirer vers l‘AFD qu‘elle doit être perçue pas comme agence de développement
classique, mais aussi comme une banque. On travaille avec les banques commerciales de la place
pour faire de la garantie bancaire, bon aussi c‘est quelque chose qu‘on doit voir et revoir, mais a
un moment donner quand on a vu une personne qui vous a dit non, il peut l‘avoir une deuxième
fois, si ils vous dit non, il peut l‘avoir une troisième fois. Mais après tu dis mec c‘est bon, tu lui
dis merci au revoir !
Hervé : S‘il reçoit l‘information de la newsletter, c‘est neutre, ce n‘est pas intrusif, il peut
« deleter » le message. Donc voila, ce n‘est pas très compliqué. Il peut même envoyer un
message « reply »; merci de m‘enlever de votre liste, et voila. Et peut être petit good par petit
good, petit pas par petit pas, on dit l‘AFD n‘est pas si con, peut être tatatata.
Hervé : Les deux autres sujets que l‘on en a, c‘est qu‘on a un financement comme pour la FSGT,
pour les ONGs, qui est dédié pour les ONGs, donc comment communiquer la dessus, ce n‘est
pas pour les ONGs palestiniennes, c‘est pour les ONGs françaises intervenant en Palestine, donc
normalement la cible ca serait les ONGs palestinienne qui ont un partenaire français, qui se
disent on va postuler pour avoir un financement, comme ce qui se passe a Hébron. Et le
troisième c‘est la coopération décentralisée ; est aussi un outil, si je peux dire, qui ne part pas
directement de notre coupe, mais que l‘on peut utiliser.
Hervé : Donc tous ces outils différents, une bonne manière c‘est j‘ai la newsletter, si je peux voir
les sujets que je peux mettre en avance ; pop, en Palestine l‘AFD… pour essayer faire le lien pas
juste oh… ben ca c‘est vraiment quelque chose tous les quinze jours, la mailing liste grandit, je
ne sais pas 1500 a 2000 personnes, cette mailing liste, chaque personne que je rencontre, comme
aperçu, si je l‘envois a cinq personne ou a mille personne c‘est une histoire de copier coller c‘est
tout. Et aussi les livres ; les documents qu‘on envoie c‘est vraiment pour essayer de créer cette
relation partenariale entre l‘AFD, vu pas simplement comme un bailleur de fonds, mais comme
un vrai partenaire, un vrai acteur qui peut nous apporter, de part l‘équipe qui est la, de part les
documents qu‘ils nous transmettent, donc voila, c‘est un peu notre ouverture sur l‘extérieure.
Hervé : Donc ca c‘est vraiment une communication qui importante, la dernière communication
que l‘on a qui est faire en relation avec le siège, c‘est je dirais, l‘AFD créant ses propres
événements, la encore pour montrer une différence par rapport aux autres, et d‘essayer d‘être le
plus pédagogique possible, on a vraiment notre communication institutionnelle, donc par
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exemple il y a deux ans, on avait lancé, on l‘a fait d‘ailleurs a Hébron, expositions objectif
développement, et on a présenté il y avait sept thèmes, sept objectifs de développement, sept
pays. On l‘avait mis au centre Coréen les assises, on l‘a présenté a l‘alliance française
d‘échanges culturels Hébron-France, donc on a créé cet événement pour les dix ans de l‘AFD, on
a fait notre propre exposition, un petit film qu‘on avait fait tourne dans les CCF, et on avait
utilisait nos partenaires pour faire des présentations, on l‘avait fait avec l‘exposition objectifs de
développement, c‘était l‘AFD paris qui nous avait donne, et l‘an dernier et encore cette année, on
utilise le film de Bernard sur l‘eau, on le projette, et on fait une communication sur les deux côté.
Hervé : On a des outils qui nous permettent, je dirais, de créer des événements, alors c‘est juste
un mesure ce n‘est pas l‘événement du siècle, mais le petit événement qui passe dans les
différentes villes, et qui nous donne l‘opportunité de demander a nos partenaires de faire une
présentation de leurs projets, qui de faite sont nos projets financés, donc de mettre en avance que
fait l‘AFD et d‘exposer un peu nos partenaires qui sont en générale satisfait de faire. Donc ca
c‘est des événements pour créer un lien avec nos partenaires et d‘ouvrir ou nous permettre de
rencontrer d‘autres personnes, faire d‘autres rencontres, éventuellement, d‘enrichir notre
connaissance.
Hervé : Donc quand je dis ca, c‘est à peu près la communication de l‘AFD, mais pas aujourd‘hui
et pas du tout, mon successeur pourra le faire, j‘ai un peu du mal à faire tout ce que je viens de
dire la, à trouver le temps de le faire, on n‘est pas du tout sur twitter, enfin l‘AFD en tant que
telle, donc il y a un compte twitter AFD, il y a certainement une page Facebook mise en mer. Je
pense il faut communiquer a par rapport ce que je viens de dire, on a des raisons pour
communiquer, on ne communique pas pour communiquer, on n‘est pas une agence de
communication. Et notre mandat premier ce n‘est pas de communiquer, notre mandat premier
c‘est d‘appuyer le développement de la Palestine. Donc, il ne faut pas à un moment donné qu‘on
bascule pour avoir passé plus de temps à communiquer qu‘à faire. Oui il faut communiquer, on
essaie de communiquer de possible. On ne doit pas se laisser embarquer par le syndrome qu‘il
faut communiquer, moi je n‘ai pas de produit à vendre. Donc on est sous une communication
institutionnelle qui est quand même une communication institutionnelle qu‘il faut replacer à son
juste milieu. Je ne dis pas que twitter que c‘est voila… je n‘ai pas d‘informations magnifiques a
faire passer sur twitter, il y a un grand travail qu‘on est entrain de faire depuis que je suis la, et
on n‘a pas eu le temps pour le faire, c‘est la refond de notre site internet en anglais. C‘est en
français, c‘est bien gentil, mais comme tout le monde ici parle anglais, dans la newsletter que
j‘envois, quand je l‘envoi en français, je me réfère au site internet dans les territoires palestiniens
parce qu‘il est en français, pour les anglophone je mets le site internet Paris, parce que je n‘ai pas
de page anglaise. Donc la on a tout traduit, ca va être bientôt poste, donc la pour moi ca nous
permette de communiquer plus sur notre site internet en anglais, donc de créer du flou sur le site,
voila le site crée des routines, on met en avance des documents, on essaie d‘enrichir le site pour
que ce ne soit pas simplement un recueil d‘inauguration, machin qu‘il n‘y a pas tellement
d‘intérêt. Si on fait une inauguration, et qu‘on peut mettre un document qui est diffusé, si on peut
mettre une vidéo, un rapport qui nous semble intéressant, oui… je pense qu‘on gagne à le faire !
Et on le fait, et on va le faire. Mais, j‘estime quand je fais ca, je ne dis pas que c‘est parfait, mais
je dis qu‘on a fait du boulot de communication, et je fais plus, il faut que j‘utilise quelqu‘un a
plein temps, je n‘ai pas cette personne a plein temps.
Shehab: Ok, alors vous voyez qu‘il y a un besoin à améliorer ca, pourtant ?
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Hervé : Oui, il y a forcement besoin d‘améliorer, parce que d‘abord ce n‘est pas parfait, et puis
j‘ai aussi un problème, d‘oPtimalisation de l‘outil. Avoir un site internet en français, c‘est quand
même très limitant, entre autre aussi, ca veut dire que je communique essentiellement avec les
français en France. Alors la communication du site internet sur les territoires palestiniens, ca doit
être quand même tourné vers les palestiniens. Ou les collègues bailleurs de fonds, que je puisse
leur dire qu‘est-ce qu‘on fait comme projets, ben tiens le site internet, et tu verras ! Donc, on le
fera pas en arabe parce que notre principe majorité anglophone, aussi excusez-moi je ne peux pas
le faire, c‘est dommage, mais bon ce n‘est pas plus une catastrophe, et la encore, je dois compter
qu‘ici en plus de moi il y a quatre personnes qui suivent les projets ; dont Wendy que tu as
rencontré, qui elle s‘occupe de la communication et ca prend peut être 20 % de son temps. Je ne
peux pas me permettre de prendre 50% de son temps, parce que comme ca j‘ai trois personnes et
demie pour suivre les projets, et notre métier premier, c‘est les projets.
Shehab: Quelle sortes de communications vous expectez de la part des locaux a vous donner ?
Quelles sortes de communications vous recevez des gens ? Comme feedback peut être ?
Hervé : Ce que je m‘aperçois c‘est que d‘une part, l‘autre jour on a signé une convention
d‘inauguration, c‘était fin mars, j‘ai eu des personnes l‘après midi, ils savaient qu‘il y a avait
cette signature de convention, parce que c‘était sur Maan (www.maannews.net), donc les gens
sont tellement branchés sur l‘internet sur Maan, pas forcement une heure, ils vont peut être voir
s‘il y a des « Breaking News » qu‘ils ont lu qu‘on a eu une signature de convention. Je dirais, le
faite de signature d‘une convention, de faire un événement, ca diffuse dans les journaux, ca
diffuse dans les sites internet, donc quelque parts a alimente cette perception que la France est
présente, que l‘AFD fait quelque chose.
Hervé : J‘ai beaucoup de retours sur la newsletter, pas beaucoup, ce n‘est pas tout qui me répond,
c‘est rare que j‘envoie et il n‘y a aucun retour, il y a toujours quelqu‘un qui va me dire, c‘est bien
merci ! C‘est gentil de me l‘envoyer, ou il va m‘envoyer un rapport qu‘il a produit, ou il va
m‘envoyer une demande de financement, mais voila c‘est la règle du jeu. Mais on voit bien qu‘il
y a des gens qui lisent. Je rencontre souvent des gens qui m‘ont dit l‘intérêt qu‘ils portaient a
une certaine publication, oui j‘ai l‘impression ca ouvre un peu un look sur le monde, ca allait leur
fait plaisir de savoir ca. Les documents pareil, le faite de recevoir des documents avec une lettre
personnalisée, c‘est en générale quand j‘envoie un courier a 20 perosnnes, je dis en generale cher
machin, et puis si je le connais, je mets cordialement, « sincerely yours », je signe… donc voila
ca prend un peu de temps, si tu as a le faire, il fait le faire jusqu‘au bout. De retirer la plus valu
qu‘on y a passé, on a passé quand même du temps.
Hervé : Donc il y a forcement une amélioration à apporter, après c‘est vraiment un problème de
temps, et quelque part de budget, il faut avoir quelqu‘un qui est dédié a ca. Le consulat générale
a un service de presse, moi je n‘ai pas un service de presse. Et si je demande à Paris d‘avoir un
service de presse, ils vont me dire ; tu rigoles ! Donc la on va former une secrétaire à faire tout ce
qui est saisie sur le site internet de manière a décharger Wendy parce qu‘elle a assez à faire, mais
je dirais quand même, toute brefs, toutes communications de presse, il faut que je m‘assure que il
n‘y a pas une fausse information qui passe. Donc quand même c‘est beaucoup beaucoup de
temps quoi !
Shehab: Est-ce que vous avec autre choses à dire, vous avez bien répondu a tout ce que je voulais
vous demander !
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Hervé : Je voulais essayer en tout cas d‘expliquer pourquoi je fais de la communication. Parce
que je pense qu‘il faut faire une sorte de ne pas oublier notre métier. Parce qu‘on n‘est pas l à
pour mettre nos logos, notre sticker pour faire l‘impression qu‘ils vont faire une permanence. Je
n‘ai rien à vendre, je n‘ai pas de produit à vendre, je n‘ai pas mes chiffres à faire pour vendre
mes caisses de Coca Cola, je ne fais pas de marketing. Si je le fais, il faut qu‘on ait une raison à
le faire, on le fait à un minimum. Tu vas sur le site de l‘AFD. Tu as à un moment donné, tu
verras ; pays…. Tu vas sur le site internet de pays, tu verras des news… c‘est des news qui sont
apporter par le siège, des news en générale…
Shehab: J‘ai une question hors de la liste des questions ! Est-ce que vous avez une relation
spécifique avec l‘AFP « l‘agence française de presse » ?
Hervé : Alors, non, enfin oui, je connais bien Philipe Adrè, je l‘informe quand il y a des sujets
qu‘il me semble pouvoir intéressé. Alors ca c‘est une dimension je dirais spécifique a Jérusalem.
L‘autre angle de communication qu‘on en a, c‘est le faite que l‘AFD doit être connu en France
par 1.5% de la population. Donc personne ne connais l‘AFD en France, parce que c‘est un sujet
qui concerne le développement, pour moi c‘est ma vie tous les jours, pour les gens c‘est jamais.
Donc il est quand même souhaitable que l‘AFD bras arme du gouvernement français soit connu
et reconnu par les français comme étant un outil efficace qui dépense son argent, parce qu‘en fin
on dépense les impôts des gens. Donc il y a forcement des débats quand il y a savoir comment la
France utilise son argent. Il peut y avoir des fois des messages, des informations positives de
l‘AFD de l‘utiliser dans les medias. Le problème les medias ils ne sont pas pour faire la publicité
de l‘AFD, ce n‘est pas leur rôle.
Hervé : Donc ce qu‘on essaie de faire ici, c‘est utiliser les événements ou internationaux ou
nationaux, c‘est français quand je dis national. Sinon, il y a deux majeurs problématiques ici qui
peuvent faire échos dans la presse française sans avoir des événements en France, il y en a deux
et pas plus que deux, la zone industrielle de Bethleem, parce que c‘était un projet problématique
du gouvernement précédent, et le projet de station de épuration a Gaza, donc a la limite, la
réalisation de ses projets, parce que ca représente la politique française. Si je fais une
inauguration, si je fais quelque chose sur ces deux projets la, je peux attirer la presse française,
qu‘il fera des papiers qui vendras a Paris. Pour les autres projets, aucun intérêt. Je veux dire,
j‘alimente de l‘eau pour 5000 personnes a Mythaloun, qu‘est-ce qu‘on a foutre nous les
français ? Sauf si on fait le projet la journée mondiale de l‘eau, c‘est important. Il n‘y a pas
d‘autre, il n‘y a pas le pape qui était nommé, il n‘y a pas eu une prise d‘hottages, pas eu de
guerre qu‘elles sont déclarées quelque part. J‘ai un crénom, peut être ca vaut le coup de faire
quelque chose sur la journée mondiale de l‘eau.
Hervé : Alors je ne peux pas intéresser les journalistes français sauf s‘ils savent qu‘ils peuvent
vendre cette information leur siège, ou s‘ils peuvent faire un lien avec un événement
international ou nationale. En de hors de ca « Forget It ». Donc on est dans une position ici à
Jérusalem qui est certainement des rares pays ou il y a autant de journalistes. Donc ca veut dire
que l‘AFD ici peut avoir un rôle intéressant pour promouvoir l‘image de l‘AFD en France en
utilisant des sujets des territoires palestiniens. Cette année par exemple, on est passe sur France
24 qui était repris en anglais, français, arabe sur le projet de l‘eau, un documentaire génial qui
n‘a pas couté un centime, on a eu un sujet sur RFI « Radio France International » sur la journée
mondiale de l‘eau, le figaro, etc. mais ca c‘est quelque chose qui n‘a rien avoir a faire avec
l‘AFD ici, c‘est quelque chose qui a faire en France. Donc quelque part quand j‘envoie ca à mes
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contreparties, même si c‘est en français, on est perçu comme étant ceux qu‘ils les aident à plaider
la cause des territoires palestiniens.
Hervé : J‘ai mes collègues a Paris qui travaillent à la communication, ils me disent ca sera bien si
tu peux faire ca ca et ca, le problème c‘est un manque de temps, vous, vous n‘avez que ca à faire
dans votre journée, mais moi je n‘ai pas que ca !
Hervé : Je pense qu‘il faut en tout cas qu‘on fasse très attention comme une agence de
développement, a ne pas tomber dans le syndrome qu‘on peut y avoir normalement de la
communication, pour avoir l‘impression qu‘il faut communiquer, que si on est absent sur twitter
or Facebook ; qu‘on n‘a rien compris, etc. moi je n‘ai pas d‘influence a avoir, je connais mon
publique, mon publique il est en Palestine, certains nombre de personnes, et je l‘atteint par
d‘autres sujets, bien évidement si je suis sur Facebook ou sur twitter, j‘ai plus de gens, mais
qu‘est-ce que je vais leur dire, et quel temps je vais trouver pour le faire, et je n‘ai rien à vendre.
Hervé : C‘est ca notre sujet, je pense pour quelqu‘un qui fait de la communication, il est encore
très important de définir ce que j‘estime être relativement cohérent de ce qu‘on fait. Une stratégie
de communication par rapport a des objectifs de communication, et qui ne sont pas des objectifs
de communication pour communiquer, en disant ; je veux être présent dans tous les medias,
parce que je veux être célèbre. On ne veut pas être célèbre, on a juste besoin de savoir pourquoi
on veut être visible, on veut être visible parce que effectivement nos tutelles nous donnent de
l‘argent, il faut qu‘on justifie qu‘on le donne bien, on doit savoir si on le fait pour des raisons
politique ou pas.
Hervé : Mais vraiment le message c‘est que il ne faut pas qu‘on se laisse dépasser par la
communication, il faut qu‘on soit réaliste, communiquer c‘est s‘exposer positivement et
négativement, donc c‘est bien de communiquer, il faut trouver la bonne dose, et si on a des outils
qui nous permettent de la faire plus efficace, il ne faut pas hésiter… sans avoir besoins de passer
des jours et nuits !
Shehab: Merci beaucoup !
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Interview (2), 10th
May, 2013 - Jerusalem
Antonia Zafeiri, European Union Representative Office
Shehab: Hello, my name is Shehab, I am conducting my research in Development
Communication, how international agencies use communication in development projects, and if
you don‘t mind that I record this interview for my research?
Antonia: It is fine...
Shehab: And it will only be used for the research purposes.
Antonia: Ok.
Shehab: If you could briefly introduce yourself, name, position…
Antonia: Sure, my name is Antonia Zafeiri; I am the press and communication officer in the
delegation of the European Union to the West Bank, Gaza and UNRWA. The official name of
this office is the office of the EU Representative. We are based in East Jerusalem, and the work
of our office is to manage bilateral relations with the Palestinian Authority (PA), as well as all
cooperation programmes with the PA and the Palestinian people.
Antonia: Specifically my job as press and communication officer is first and foremost to promote
the EU‘s policies, work and values to the Palestinian people in Palestine, and to improve the
visibility of the EU as the main donor in Palestine.
Shehab: So if you don‘t mind that I start my list of questions?
Antonia: Sure...
Shehab: I would like to check with you how do you view development first of all? If you have
any perspective of development in the oPt as EU Commission? How do you see development in
this case?
Antonia: I am not sure that development is the correct word, I would say what we have the EU
and the Palestinians is a very strong, long-lasting almost historic cooperation. The main thing
that the EU has been working on in the last few years, and its main investment in Palestine is to
work, to build institutions of the future Palestinian state, a democratic and independent viable
Palestinian state. We are not doing this alone; at the driving seat of course is the PA, so we are
supporting the PA in implementing its own national development plan, if you like. So this is our
main pillar, this is our main investment here in Palestine, and alongside with that what we do is
also we work very closely with the civil society on a number of programmes and issues from
human rights to education, health and culture in the West Bank and in Gaza, important aspect
also is similar type of work in East Jerusalem which faces particular problems. And finally I
should also mention is the strong cooperation the EU has with the UN Relief and Works Agency
for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). So a lot of the funding that the EU provides
in Palestine and in the region I should say goes to UNRWA, to secure human development for
Palestine refugees across its five fields of operations.
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Shehab: So, is the work in Gaza is the same as in the West Bank, or are there any varieties? Just
out of curiosity?
Antonia: Yes, the way we approach it in terms of policy is that West Bank and Gaza should be
an integral part of our work with the Palestinian people, because this is what will become in the
future the Palestinian State. So in terms of approach we treat the two geographically separated
and politically separated territories as one. Now of course the way we engage in Gaza is
different, because of the de facto authorities there with whom we don‘t have contact and we
don‘t recognise. However, we work with some programs in Gaza through the PA; I give you two
examples to understand, we have one, a large scale private-sector development program for
business people, businessmen, private sector people in Gaza, this is a PA‘s program, a program
that we work with the prime minister‘s office, but it is targeting people in Gaza, so you see how
we work together with the PA to reach beneficiaries in Gaza. Similarly very quickly, with the
ministry of social affairs, we support social protection scheme that the ministry has developed
and we channel funds that reach the most vulnerable Palestinian families, beneficiaries are both
in the West Bank and in Gaza Strip.
Antonia: Moreover, in Gaza we work very closely with civil society organisations in the same
modality, implementation modality, as we do for the West Bank. But a lot of the organisations
have projects that operate in Gaza only, or both West Bank and Gaza, and finally the really big
bulk of the work we do in Gaza is through UNRWA. Inevitably the largest and the majority of
the people of Gaza is refugees, so a lot of the funds that EU is providing for UNRWA, of course,
reaches Gaza.
Shehab: We go to your field of communication, what do you think is the need of using
communication in cooperation projects or development projects as we call (cooperation vs.
Development)? What is the role of communication?
Antonia: What is the role of communication? Ok! I would say two things; I mean as a donor,
because the EU is a donor primarily in Palestine, the funding is basically the EU tax payers‘
money, it is very important for us for transparency and visibility, to make sure that the funding
we provide, and the impact most importantly of the funding we provide is communicated to the
people that provide the money. So the EU tax payers, not only in Palestine but across the world,
where the money goes, and for which reason, and ultimately what is the result, what is the impact
of this aid. This is the role of our headquarters in Brussels to make sure that European citizens
know what the EU aid goes to and for which reason. We are here on the ground, I am in
Palestine, but a lot of my colleagues across the world do a similar job; is to inform the people in
Palestine, our interlocutors, the public opinion at large; why we engage in Palestine, what is the
EU‘s role here, what kind of work we do. So first and foremost, we are seeking visibility, and an
understanding from the public opinion, of the reason why we are engaging, and the result of this
engagement.
Shehab: So apart from visibility purposes, I guess you do have a communication strategy which I
hope goes along with your overall strategy of the, if I can say, EU mission in the oPt? If you can
tell me about your communication strategy, the process, the policies, agenda maybe, how it is
implemented in your funded projects, how the funded organisations convey the messages you
have?
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Antonia: Ok! I understand, with the communication strategy, first and foremost, you start with
the key message. For us it is something very simple, and has been our message for many years
now. We are, the EU, is a strong and reliable partner to the Palestinian people, this is the key
message we want to pass to the Palestinian public, and to our Palestinian interlocutors, so not a
donor, but a partner, and this is what we are in fact. Now this message is translated in different
communication actions or public diplomacy activities, outreach activities that we do as an office
to communicate one single coherent communication message. To give you an idea, we have been
running a comprehensive communication awareness raising campaign for at least three years
now, at least as my institutional memory goes back, to develop, not to develop, but to promote
this message across Palestine. What do I mean by an awareness raising campaign? Every year we
do an extended billboard campaign and actually if you go around, it is still up for this year, in the
West Bank and in Gaza, we do TV and Radio program with success stories from the field with
the type of work we do, and also we radio spots and TV spots, like an advertising campaign, to
really improve the Brand image of the EU. Now, why is it important for us to have this
comprehensive campaign, because the EU is really involved in every single aspect of Palestinian
life, I mean we support the Palestinian authority by enlarge, by contributing to the payment of
salaries, and pensions recurring expenditure, we really work hand in hand with the biggest
Palestinian institutions, from the justice sector and the rule of law, by enlarge the security sector,
to public financial management, so many pillar sectors of institution building, but at the same
time, we are really present at the grassroots level, with the small NGOs, Palestinian
organisations, also the refugees. So by enlarge, we are really present in every single aspect of
Palestinian life, cultural activities I forgot.
Antonia: So we need a campaign that does justice to the length and the width and the variety of
our support, ok? So us as EU and me personally as press and communications officer I see this as
a really large burden, just to make you understand my communication work here in Palestine is
probably very different from the communication work that my colleague, and all due respect, is
doing in Botswana. Exactly because the engagement of the EU is so much large and the
significance and the political importance the EU plays at this particular part of the world is very
important. So this is what we do as an office.
Antonia: I give you one example of this comprehensive awareness raising campaign, but there
are other communication actions that are part of our strategy; like we really pay a lot of attention
to direct outreach. Really go to universities and organise volunteers‘ day with young
Palestinians, cultural activities, media competitions, a lot of things, to really engage directly with
the Palestinian youth, this is a target audience that we are specifically looking into and targeting
directly. Moreover, we organise press trips, primarily for European journalists, this is our way of
reaching the European public opinion; it is really a double service....
Shehab: Does it come under advocacy in that case?
Antonia: In some ways, because a lot of the things we show them is to defend our strong political
positions of many of the issues that are at stake here, to give you an example the EU has lately
spoken very strongly about the issue of the viability of the two-state solution, and in particular
how development in area C, with the driving siege, should be something that has to be promoted.
So when, for example, we have a journalist coming here we take them around in the West Bank
and Jerusalem, we show them projects that we do on the ground, but also put them in touch with
their interlocutors who can speak about the situation on the ground, issues that are of concern to
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the European Union, issues that the EU is following very closely. And as I said just before, this
double service is not just about them reporting at their respective media in Europe and for
European citizens, to read about the engagement of the EU in Palestine, but we also put them in
touch with colleagues, Palestinian journalists here on the ground, and create a sort of network
between the two. So again, direct outreach with young people and journalists is really much a
priority. We have been working lately also, as a lot of other donors and civil society
organisations with social media. I don‘t know if you have this as a question, I will leave it later.
Antonia: What is important is that we are the EU delegation here, but we are not the only EU
presence in Palestine. We have another office which deals specifically with humanitarian aid...
Shehab: ECHO...
Antonia: Exactly, why we are different, because their response is the one of the emergency
response, their implementing modalities, if you like, are different, they have to act faster, they
have to disperse money in very different ways, so we work separately but of course we have a
single coherent message and reason why we are here in Palestine. So we coordinate very closely
at the communication level with our colleagues from ECHO. Similarly we have what we call
civil security and defence mission in Palestine, this is a specific EU mission, that I think there are
11 or 13 around the world, and there is one based in Ramallah, also known as EUPOL COPPS,
where they work very closely with the Palestinian civil police, to mentor their work and improve
their capacities as an institution and their bulk of work, and also they have a leg that focuses
specifically on justice and different justice institutions, a lot of advisors from Europe are here,
based in Ramallah exactly for this work. Obviously, we work very closely with our colleagues
there, as well press colleagues, press and communication colleagues, to deliver one single
comprehensive message. So when for example we have big outreach events, only yesterday we
were celebrating Europe Day in Ramallah, they were present there as one single EU
representation here in Palestine, or when we bring journalists from Europe, from abroad, again
we make sure that all our colleagues from the different offices meet with them, explain the kind
of work that we do, and us our responsibility as a delegation is to find tune to this, and make sure
that it is clear to them that it is all about the communication, it is clear to them that we are here
serving one single purpose.
Shehab: Do you need a break to drink something?
Antonia: Yes.
Antonia: Now a part from the comprehensive things I have tried to describe we do as an office,
we provide a lot of funding to a lot of other organisations; to implement their own projects. Here
you need to understand how the funding for the EU works with NGOs and with projects. We
provide funding opportunities, let‘s say under umbrella projects; on human rights, on culture, on
education, so on non-state actors, we have different programmes which have different names.
Now we make what we say ―a call for proposal‖, so we invite organisations to submit their
proposals, which then we evaluate, and according to the evaluation outcome, they may or may
not receive funding. So they are out on the ground to basically implement their own proposals.
Now in this case, we as a donor need to secure that, primarily, the people who receive the
funding, the beneficiaries, but by enlarge the target population knows that this funding is coming
from the EU. So we need visibility as a donor. And now I will take this a step further. We don‘t
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just need to have our logo stuck here and there, which we can discuss, which is important. But go
step further and explain to the people why we are engaging in this particular project, why we are
supporting this project, and communicate also on the result, on the impact of that work, because
very often, a lot of the civil society organisations and some international organisations as well,
and sometimes we fall into the same trap, the breaking news are always the beginning of a
programme, the big money, the announcement of a new funding, but then we have to make sure
that once some work is done on the ground, we really communicate on the difference of this
work we made. So me personally, part of my job is really to engage with our partners in NGOs
and different organisations that we fund, sit down with them, explain some of the visibility
requirements that we have, acknowledge the donor, but also to take it a step further and really
support them in their communication work, and how to make sure that they deliver a
communication message and implement a communication plan, side to side with the project‘s
work.
Shehab: How do you make sure that they communicate your messages? The EU I guess has
some main priorities, behind the logo, when you put the logo it means something! I think the
logo says: One partner one people or something like that.
Antonia: The logo is part of our campaign, what you saw. Our message is from Europe to
Palestine, partnership and neighbourhood!
Shehab: So what does that mean?
Antonia: As I told you in the beginning, the main message is that we are partners, and why is it
so important for us to be partners and to be engaged in Palestine? Literally our door step,
Palestine is not at the end of the world, so stability in this region is very important for the EU,
and the EU people 500 million people and a big market, so we are neighbours, think of it in a
different way, I am sure you want to have a good relationship with the person living next to your
apartment or dorm or below or above. So if we provide funding to a specific organisation, and
more importantly, we don‘t give the funding to the organisation, we give it to them to implement
a specific project, with specific objectives, and with a specific outcome. So if we have decided
that the funding will reach them, because we believe in their work and the results this work will
bring. So their work is not to do our job if you like, I am here to communicate on my message,
and I am here to find the synergies to really pull on success stories in the field, to facilitate this
work. It is their job to communicate on the impact of their work. Do you see the difference? So it
is my work to see if we have a good success story on the ground, I use this to publicize it even
further, as a program or a project that was materialised exactly because the EU could provide
support.
Shehab: Still for me, just to understand how the communication strategy works, the
communication strategy and the overall strategy should be in harmony with each other. Are there
some kind of objectives, priorities in the overall strategy and the communication strategy which
you work on as a mission besides what you have told me?
Antonia: Absolutely, we communicate on what we do, we communicate on different things. Of
course we put it as our map, as our compass for communication, the work that we do. As I told
you, our main investment as a donor here in Palestine is to support the PA in its institution
building, and there have been many successes there, and this is what we use to communicate.
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Then we have some priority sectors in terms of cooperation, three priority sectors in particular;
rule of law, private sector development, and water. Again, you cannot communicate on
everything, so you have to make sure that what you communicate on is fine tuned with what you
actually work on and what your priorities are. The level of cooperation we try to highlight these
three sectors that we engage in. At the political level, there are more political issues that we
follow very closely, for example, East Jerusalem or Area C, to give you two examples, so in our
communication work we try to make sure that we really promote the work that we do in these
areas, and there is always an inherent part of our communication strategy. So it is true that it is
very important to really prioritise, for me two things are important, to have your key message
very clear, and to prioritise which sectors you focus on and from there you can pull success
stories from the ground to use them in your communication work.
Shehab: What feedback do you get from your partners, organisations you fund, locals? Generally
speaking, what kind of feedback do you get? Is there any feedback?
Antonia: On our communication work...?
Shehab: Communication yeah...
Antonia: It is very different; we have to define the target audience, so what feedback we get from
the partners or from the public opinion?
Shehab: Apart from the project surveys, about their satisfaction, trainers performance, was the
project helpful or not, monitoring and evaluation where you get this feedback. Like the big
outreach thing you mentioned?
Antonia: I would say that this varies based on the capacity of the partner, so the bigger
organisations and NGOs that have strong communications units, we have good feedback, good
exchange, and we know what has worked and what has not. Now, with smaller organisations,
communication is treated as an afterthought. So people are focused to do the work on the ground,
but really to communicate on that work, that comes much later, if at all. So in that case, you can
imagine providing feedback is not even on the agenda. But to give you an example with
UNRWA, with whom we develop a joint communication strategy annually, because the EU
really gives them a big amount of funds, it is the biggest multi-lateral donor to UNRWA. So we
have to make sure that we communicate on this support. We work together very closely, and we
sit and discuss and develop together this communication strategy and assess what went right and
what went wrong, what we should improve in the coming years. So there is a strong exchange
and development in the kind of work we do, in relation to communication always.
Shehab: Let me go to social media, since you stopped on it, what is the role of social media in
your work?
Antonia: I will start from the beginning, the EU as an institution is a heavy institution, is a slow
institution in many ways, and I am not saying this in a bad way, it is just the way its nature is, it
is a very big institution, the commission for example has 24 thousand employees, so we are not
at the cutting edge of technology if you like, however, lately, with a bit of hesitation regarding
issues of technology, there has been a very strong push of our headquarters to really engage and
use social media in our communication work. So in Palestine we did not start immediately, we
were trying to sense the ground, what is the best social media, the most popular in Palestine. And
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as you understand the very nature of social media is to interact, so we did not want to go ahead
and use a platform, if we were not sure that we would have the capacity to really respond to
people who are engaging with us, and also are we ready to receive such immediate and direct
feedback from the people on the ground, especially in such a politically sensitive environment.
But this year we started our Facebook page, of the delegation, and the results, the feedback and
comments have been very encouraging.
Antonia: We have what I would say a very successful Facebook page which turned into a hub,
where we basically put all kinds of information we do as an office, the work we do, a lot of other
opportunities; cultural, educational that you can find in Europe. And it has really developed into
the one platform, where we can really communicate with the people. It is more flexible than
regular website, where you need a specific webmaster to really update and it is not as flexible to
use as Facebook and other social media. And it is very important to get this direct feedback from
the people. And you can really track and trace who your information reaches, and this is
important and we did not have this kind of statistical data with other kind of communication
work, you send a press release, you can see who picked it up, but you don‘t know how many
people read it. You could have estimation. But with Facebook you can really know how many
people read this post, and where these people are and what is their age range and this is very
valuable information when you do your communication work.
Shehab: What indicators you use to see if your work is successful? Do you have certain criteria?
How things can be improved maybe?
Antonia: We have at a large scale a regional programme; we call it the ―neighbourhood
barometer‖, where exactly our headquarters executes opinion polls, and surveys in all the
countries of the South, Middle East and Northern Africa. And they collect a lot of data of the
perception of the EU in a specific country. It is internal but it comes out every three months, and
there we have a good impression of the perception of the EU in Palestine, on different issues and
across different target audiences. This is a very important compass to understand the general
feeling. On more specific things, you know, we monitor on a daily basis when we issue
statements, or press releases, who picks it up? How the press perceives it? What are the
comments? And so on and so forth. And with the Facebook page as I have just said, where it is
even easier to track who saw which post.
Antonia: Important indicators also when you do event on the ground, Palestine is a small place,
so we have the luxury of reaching each and every city basically, you came from Hebron today,
we go to Hebron on daily basis and in Gaza as well. So we have the luxury be on the ground, do
outreach events on the ground, and then based on the amount of people that turn up or the
reaction of those people in a more qualitative manner, this is our feedback, this is our indicator.
And also because you are Palestinian you know how the society works, I mean word of mouth
probably is the best indicator in this type of context.
Shehab: Would you like to add anything?
Antonia: I think I have covered more or less everything, but we can have a chat if you like...
Shehab: Thank you very much...
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Interview (3), 11th
May, 2013 - Hebron
Max Oser, Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH)
Shehab: Hello, my name is Shehab Zahda, I am conducting my research about communication
for development in the occupied OPt and how international agencies/ international presence
organisations, if you will, as TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron), how they use
communication in their development projects? If they view development as a part of their
presence maybe... And if you don‘t mind that I record this interview?
Max: I agree.
Shehab: And if you could briefly introduce yourself!
Max: Yes, my name is Max Oser, I am a Swiss citizen living in Germany, I have an NGO
background, and I was in the last 15 years heading a development agency in Geneva, a Swiss
one. And I got recently married, so I gave up this regular job, now I do more short-term and
medium-term assignments for Swiss government and Swiss NGOs; follow-up missions,
evaluation missions, and election of surveying missions, and now this TIPH mission.
Shehab: If you don‘t mind telling me if you consider TIPH as a part of the international agencies
working in Palestine!
Max: Yes.
Shehab: It is one of the main stakeholders, in Hebron city specially, as a diplomatic mission.
Max: Of course! The situation is pretty particular, as you certainly know, there are a lot of, so
called, NGOs and village bases which base institutions here in Hebron, but they are
institutionally weak, and therefore, they don‘t have access to international donors, relatively little
international funds for the NGO scene come down to the South of West Bank. Much more funds
are going to Ramallah, to Jerusalem, to Jenin, Nablus, but very little arrives here in Hebron, I
think this is the specific situation. And I think one reason is that the local NGOs don‘t have the
institutional capacity to respond requirements of international organisations to fund them. As a
consequence of this, TIPH with its 250 thousand US dollars per year marked for humanitarian
and development activities. It is a big amount here, in Jerusalem or Ramallah we would be a very
little unimportant marginal actor. But here in Hebron this amount is apparently important.
Shehab: How much is it? One hundred....
Max: Two hundred and fifty thousand US dollars.
Shehab: What is development? If you can tell me, how do you see development?
Max: Yeah! of course in our mandate we have very ambitious statements, we contribute to the
social and economic development of Hebron, we agree this is just on the paper, but with this
funds we have available, we are not capable to trigger social and economic development, but we
do small punctual contributions reach this goal, but we don‘t overestimate ourselves, our
contribution.
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Shehab: If I may ask about communication part of development, how does TIPH employ
communication in its projects, in its mandate?
Max: Of course the core business of TIPH is to observe, but as many other organisations also,
like ICRC for instance, they decided to increase its visibility, to increase its presence in the local
society, also to add a humanitarian aid and development dimension, just to legitimatise better the
observation mandate, because it is true with observation you cannot make people happy, we have
many people who tell us; Ah you only observe, but you don‘t do something concrete for us, why
don‘t you do more for us? And as you know with protection and observation mandate, it is not
very easy. So at least with our humanitarian aid and development aid we try to increase our
visibility and to increase our network and our cooperation with the local and also the
international NGO scene here in Hebron.
Shehab: Is communication strategy a part of your overall strategy?
Max: Definitely, I think one important thing is that we have two persons, so called, media and
public affairs coordinator and we have also press and information officer who exactly should
respond to this requirement, that we try to follow up all these programmes and projects we
implement, that we put them on our homepage, we try to get also coverage, in the local media,
TV, radio, and I think we are pretty successful in this field because we have a press and
information officer who is a local person, who has been already three years working for TIPH,
and it is unique. Our staffs normally remain here half a year or one year. Here, we have a person
who is very well-rooted in the society, he is an excellent journalist, he is a media specialist, and
he opens up a lot of opportunities, to get access to the local media. For instance, we had recently
women‘s day celebrated, we had Palestinian Child Day, also where we took initiative in our
centre and we were capable to mobilise several hundred parents, children, women, and of course
we also succeeded, thanks to this gentleman, that we had coverage in newspapers, TV, we could
include it in our homepage, so this aspect that we try to have the media present whenever we do
something, we consider this is important, this is also our strategy and we can realise it thanks to
him, he is the best possible person we can have to this kind of thing.
Shehab: If I may ask about his job, do you have something online, social media? Like Facebook,
twitter activities, your website of course, but do you use other social media? Do you
communicate through social media or not?
Max: I think we are focusing on our homepage so far; I have also to inquire a bit more on this
issue. I am illiterate on all these communication forms...
Shehab: It is really fine.
Max: As far as I know our website is the main tool to disseminate our messages...
Shehab: So the priorities and objectives, or the main mandate of TIPH, your priorities in your
overall strategy, does it have the same priorities as your communication strategy as well? Does it
go in line with it? Or is there any difference between your communication strategy, if you have
one, and your overall strategy as a mission here?
Max: I think we focus, when I look at our webpage, it focuses a lot on the community relations
projects, and we communicate pretty much on important people our head of mission meets, and
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our core business, the observation on the field, we take it for granted, it is our core business, but
you don‘t find it so much on our webpage.
Shehab: If I go to the development sector, or as you put it humanitarian and development aid,
what are the criteria, how do you fund organisations; grass-root organisations?
Max: Since few months, since I arrived, we have an external consultant, who helps us to improve
our professionalism in this field. I would say like this, our community relation officers (CROs),
who are responsible for the implementation, for this new grant, to acquire new partners, to
network, to practically go and look for potential partners, this is in itself a professional job, and
the CROs we have here, we hire them, they were former observers, and they don‘t always have
this capacity to do this job as a project manager. This is an institutional weakness we have, that
the people they are observers six months, and then they are six months CRO, and then they go
home. And in these six months, they should acquire a minimal professional degree on how to do
this job, and it is not easy. So I would say, so far in the last two three years, it was more a
humanitarian approach where you supported activities. And so far, we did not show a proactive
attitude, our CROs they were more waiting in the office, until some requests from the civil
society arrived here in our office, through our webpage. We have a part of our webpage where
potential NGOs, potential civil society actors can write us and say I have a little project, could
you support it? And so far, community relations function this way. But now we have to improve
this, CRO is basically a field job, we have to show a proactive attitude, and we have to change a
bit the institutional culture here. That the people, they don‘t stay in the offices, and do their job
here, we have to throw them out of the office, and bring them in the field and do this work.
Max: With this external consultant, we try not to change this culture; we try to throw a new
project cycle management manual which has been established, basically by this consultant, and
also in cooperation with the CROs and me. We try to introduce this now as a new tool, and we
would also ensure that we have planned that the same training which has been given to our
communication officer, will also be given to 8-10 NGOs or CBOs (Community Based
Organisations) which we will choose here, and which will be then our privileged partners in the
next two to three years, with whom we not only do humanitarian work, but probably a more solid
partnership and have requirements to do a more mid-term development oriented work together.
Max: So this idea to strengthen here limited number of NGOs and open up new opportunities for
them, to be able to get a little bit more money of this international money, which is available here
in the West Bank. But as you know, the requirements are pretty high.
Shehab: As I know that TIPH comprises seven or six nationalities?
Max: Six nationalities.
Shehab: And they are all diplomatic I guess?
Max: We don‘t have a diplomatic status, some of us have diplomatic passports, but basically it is
called ―functional immunity‖ what we have. That means, it is only linked to our profession.
Whenever we do our work, we have better protections without a diplomatic passport. But outside
of our work we don‘t have diplomatic immunity. I think the authorities call it the ―functional
immunity‖.
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Shehab: I am looking at it from development and communication perspectives, are there some
varieties as staff changes I guess every six months or one year throughout the years maybe you
heard or read stories, how things changed because a guy who comes from Switzerland would be
different from the officer previous to him from Italy, for example?
Max: Of course, as I was told I am the first since many years the first person in RAI division,
who has a development background. And this is an advantage for this work, and I think also we
got stuck in this humanitarian approach, because so far the person within RAI division (Research
Analysis and Information) which includes this community relations dimension, let‘s say the
seniors in this position have not been chosen because they have a development background, but
more because they have more information and public relations background.
Max: I think is one reason that TIPH could not do this qualitative step to have a development
approach like other international institutions and NGOs which do not have this institutional
constraint that people could only stay from 6 months to one year. This is really an institutional
weakness, to be able to do a medium term work with potential partners.
Shehab: So your overall strategy, does it change, or is it only the mandate being observers and
you added the parts of supporting the local community, some funds under humanitarian sector or
development sector. Does it change over time? Who plans it? How does it work?
Max: As I said we have now done this effort with this consultancy where we tried also to define
areas of interest, areas of intervention that we try really a bit to concentrate on certain activities,
even activities that we have our own competencies so that we don‘t go into areas of interest
where we don‘t have capacities here within our institution, you have a lot of observers who have
more a social than an economic background, they were sometimes former teachers, for this
reason we support also more organisations working in the field of training and education, than in
the field of agriculture or water supply, where we don‘t have the least expertise.
Shehab: So your activities, the activities you fund, can you briefly tell us about what activities
you fund? I know that you have something with theatre and drama sometimes...
Max: Exactly, we have in the educational field; we support NGOs which work with disabled
children in the different fields, we have an area youth and culture, we support a pottery school,
we have health component where we have given supports to two clinics here rehabilitation
basically... then if you want, I can give you the list, I can do it, it is no problem.
Shehab: So putting your logo, if you fund a project for example, you put your logo saying this
project or activity was funded by TIPH, what does it mean for you? Putting the logo as a part of
visibility, what is the importance of that?
Max: It is a contribution to the security of our observers, of our mission. That is why we insist on
this visibility issue, whenever we do something, whenever we cooperate with local NGOs, yeah,
we like to have a board in this place that TIPH has funded it. I think not because we are proud
that TIPH was funding, but just to increase our visibility, our ambition that more and more
people know about our mission, and implicitly a contribution to the security of our observers in
the field.
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Shehab: The organisations you fund, what feedback you get from them? You communicate with
them, you might meet them face to face, etc... But from the local people, how do you receive
feedback?
Max: Of course whenever you fund small institutions, the feedback is minimal, we have a very
big feedback of course from the centre, this Tariq Ben Ziad centre, which TIPH funded and it is
really developing into a centre which has big mobilisation capacities, and this makes us very
happy. We have supported other so called youth centres, community centres but they don‘t have
this capacity to mobilise the people, and here I say Tariq Ben Ziad is unique in the sense that it is
an institution at the right place, it came in the right moment, and staff of this community centre is
capable to mobilise people, it is a real community centre, it is more than a sports centre, and I am
always very happy to go there, because it is lively, there is always something going on, and it is
not dead. Because you have too many of the centres, we have one very close from here, which is
a wonderful infrastructure funded by USAID, but the mobilisation is catastrophic.
Shehab: A centre which is very active as Tariq Ben Ziad centre, and with the logo of TIPH there,
for your security, visibility as TIPH, still when TIPH implements such project in a very hot area,
a boiling area if I can say of conflict all the time...
Max: It is true, and this is a very difficult area where the centre is, the perception of TIPH is not
always positive there we have to say, they think we are inefficient, that we just observe, we don‘t
do anything for them, and throwing stones at TIPH cars is very known in this area.
Shehab: What do you think should be improved if all these efforts have not proved successful?
What do you think is a better way of changing?
Max: Of course, we have a school of thinking that say we have to disseminate our information,
that we do observation work and still many people don‘t know it, and are not aware of this, we
are here for 15 years and ok, dissemination, training, education all efforts are good, but
apparently they have their limits. At least, that is why I am convinced that you can throw your
message that we are here to observe, and to observe, sometimes, I think people know it, but even
if they know it, it does not change their perception.
Shehab: Is it the lack of communication in this case? As an inhabitant of this city I can say local
people still suspect some things behind observation, because they don‘t see the results out of it.
Would there be, just talking about how things can be improved....
Max: As I told you we have a fraction here within TIPH who say we should do more, go to
schools, more educational efforts, for me I also see the limits of educational efforts, you can send
the message, but the moment will come when the message is not enough anymore to
fundamentally change the behaviour of people. I am not a person, I am coming also from the
educational field and for me, and there are limits to educational messages with the hope that the
people would change their behaviour. I think in the school it is the same, you can educate, but
not everybody turns into a decent human-being. I have limits there, and that is the reason why I
don‘t push so much that we have to go everyday in schools, and even increase our message, I
think we do enough, but this is controversial.
Max: You have teachers who believe that the more you educate, the more you disseminate the
better the people turn the way you like to have them. I don‘t share exactly.
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Shehab: I would see TIPH‘s efforts for development or humanitarian aid as part of
communication, so in this case it is actually communicating development, it is that you try to
help people for your visibility purposes and security purposes, you try to stimulate their
sympathy maybe or their understanding of your presence here in the city, not only as observers
but try to co-exist with you and help you as partners maybe...
Max: I only want to say, the fact that people throw stones TIPH‘s cars, that does not mean that
they don‘t know our mandate, I don‘t know the stone-throwing is a very complex phenomenon,
it has maybe cultural roots, political roots, I personally don‘t know much about this topic...
Shehab: Unfortunately, it is from both sides, Palestinian and Israeli settlers...
Max: If it was our mandate to diminish the number of stone throwers by 15% throughout
development cooperation programmes, I don‘t know if this is our mandate.
Shehab: What is also shocking is that this phenomenon, throwing stones at TIPH, is not only
from Palestinians‘ side, it is even from settlers side ―Israeli Settlers‖, so that is really a difficult I
guess. What is the approach of communication with the Israeli side, it is none of my research
objectives though, the Israeli counterpart, is communication the same as with Palestinians?
Max: I think the liaison officers which have daily contacts with both sides, I think these are well
established mechanism, the relations with settlers is a bit different, because we don‘t have
established working relations with settlers so far. Probably we can improve in the future, but it is
not an easy issue. I would prefer not to assess it.
Shehab: That would be fine for me, unless if you have any other points to add. About
communication maybe, about development, your consultancy results and recommendations, if
they have any communication aspects in them.
Max: I think this consultancy we have is more really development oriented, how we have to do
in a better and more efficient way our cooperation with local NGOs, and I think the main
message is that we don‘t wait in a comfortable office, that development cooperation does not
take place in the office, but in the field. We should show the people out there that we show
presence, that they acquire potential partners, that they negotiate with them, that they pre-assess
them, that they work together with them, and develop something together, and not only receive
here a request, and then yes we approve it, money is sent and then, at the end of the mission a
little debriefing, and everything went well, there we have to be more professional, and really do
this management cycle process to the end.
Shehab: Thank you very much for your time...
Max: Thank you for the interesting talk with you...
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E-mail Interview (4), 09th
May, 2013
Charlotte Pierre, Department for International Development (DFID)
Recording permission
Brief introduction
Name: Charlotte Pierre ―Personal Views‖ Organisation: DFID
Position: Special Projects
22. How do you view development?
Development is the means by which a country generates a strong and inclusive economic,
social and governance structure and is able to provide all its citizens with a high quality
standard without any reliance on foreign aid.
23. What is the need do you think of communicating development? Role of
communication in development!
In the case of the UK, a key role for communications is to ensure domestic support,
especially in the current financial climate. In terms of actual projects, communications
are key to delivering development outcomes, e.g. radio programmes on family planning
oPtions, leaflets about how to access maternal services or the importance of bed nets.
24. What is the appropriate role of communication in your broader strategy?
communications are key to demonstrating the positive impact of DFID‘s programme in
the OPTs to those we are accountable to - ordinary Palestinians and back home to the
public and Parliament.
25. In what ways you address development through communication?
No specific communications projects in the OPTs. DFID has supported things in the past
in other countries, e.g. BBC World project to disseminate the Darfur Peace Agreement in
Darfur on the radio to generate more public support for it on the ground.
26. What about your communication strategy?
A strategy that focuses on the following audiences: local media, UK media, local and
international NGOs, British public, UK Parliament.
27. Based on what you fund organisations? Briefly if any.
We don‘t have communications projects in the OPTs.
28. How do you make sure that the funded organisations communicate your
communication strategy/ policies/ and messages? (In what ways?)
N/A
29. Who plans the strategy of the mission? Is it different from your communication
strategy?
We are working toward a joint DFID, British Consulate general and British Council
communication strategy in Jerusalem. The Embassy in Tel Aviv has its own
communications strategy.
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30. How do you plan your communication strategy for the mission? Priorities, policies,
Objectives, etc?
We develop our strategy in consultation with London, other government departments and
our partners. A lot of thought is given to identifying our key messages and audiences.
Communications are key to delivering our aims under our three main programme pillars
– state-building, wealth creation, and poverty and vulnerability.
31. Do you think your Communication Strategy goes in accordance with your overall
strategy? Or are there any varieties?
Yes
32. What are the policies/ messages/ strategies you try to convey through your
development projects?
We do communications around the project, but it‘s not necessarily an activity/vehicle to
deliver the project‘s objectives. Our communications strategy, however, tries to do the
following: in the current economic and political climate, where both DFID‘s aid budget
and our role in the Middle East Peace Process comes under ever greater scrutiny and
pressure, it is vital that we ensure there is awareness, understanding and support for the
work we do both in the OPTs and the UK. Being proactive about our communications
will allow us to enhance our programming, deliver our messages, and build the
relationships needed to make our work effective and influence our partners. Stronger
communications also allow us to demonstrate the impact of our support, and this is
particularly true of less ―visible‖ development programmes, e.g. financial aid to the
Palestinian Authority.
33. What feedback do you expect from the local partners/ beneficiaries/ stakeholders/
service users/ funded organisations?
We don‘t solicit formal feedback on our communications.
34. To what extent do you think you are employing ‘Development Communication/
Communication for Development’ in your organisation?
A great deal, DFID has an entire Communications Division and communications is a
departmental priority.
35. What are your policy agenda/ what are your communication tactics tackling your
objectives?
See above.
36. What do you think has been the dominant approach of employing communication
for development purposes?
See above.
37. How do you think your efforts can prove helpful in specific regard to
communication?
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38. What objective indicators would suggest that your opinion/ policy/ strategy are
going the right direction?
We regularly undertake local polling exercises. The questions asked by the UK
Parliament and letters from the public are a good indicator of whether we are
communicating effectively.
39. What do you think about new media/ social media and communicating
development?
Exciting opportunities. Important to get beneficiaries blogging.
40. What do you think should be done to improve, if any?
41. Any other points…
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E-mail Interview (5), 11th
May, 2013
Rana Hanna, DanChurch Aid
Recording permission
Brief introduction
Name: Rana Hanna Organisation: DanChurchAid Position: Advocacy Officer
1. How do you view development?
Development involves making kind of change in a society that it is directed to, which could
be materially seeking to enhance the economic and technological level of the society, or
could be morally targeting to change the attitudes of the people and their traditions and
orientation. Development depends on purposeful operations limited in time and place
towards positive change.
2. What is the need do you think of communicating development? Role of
communication in development!
Communications plays a valuable role in building support for aid, hence development.
Organisations should assess their communications needs. First, they should determine who
their key audiences and stakeholders are. Second, they should assess how well they are
addressing audience and stakeholder concerns.
Communication serves information exchange, establishing consensus among divergent
opinions and interests, and facilitates the building of know-how, decision making and action
capacities at the heart of the delicate cooperation between government, civil society groups
and the private sector. Communication and awareness raising are core mechanisms to support
strategy processes for sustainable development. In a sense, two-way communication is the
lifeblood of any strategy. Without it, a strategy will not succeed because cooperation and
collaboration among key stakeholders depend on it. Communication for development has
thus come to be seen as a way to amplify voice, facilitate meaningful participation, and foster
social change.
In order to practice development operations and to ensure that any activity to be successfully
accomplished, it all requires communication either verbally or written. Communication can
be considered as the building block of success. The essence of communication is language.
The command people have over a language determines how effectively they are able to
communicate and make themselves understood as well as understand others. Development
projects require effective and participative communication. This is crucial to enrol all the
stakeholders and enable them to express their needs and priorities.
3. What is the appropriate role of communication in your broader strategy?
Strategic communication is supposed to be a pre-requisite and an instrument of effective
policy making and public participation from formulating a vision, negotiating and decision
making, developing and implementing plans to monitoring impacts.
4. In what ways you address development through communication?
In order to have development within any country, communication for development should be
adoPted since it is participatory communication approach that integrates strategies, media
and processes that enable people and institutions to share knowledge and information and to
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reach consensus towards common action. The key principles of communication for
development are participatory knowledge and information sharing, dialogue and mediation,
as well as convergence and appropriation. The organisation should bring value to the
community based adaption – which involves multi-stakeholder action, innovation and social
learning - by enhancing knowledge, improving the quality of services, strengthening
language and fostering multi sectoral dialogue and participation within the community.
5. What about your communication strategy?
Good communication strategies should be integral to maintaining reputation and
accountability among stakeholders and the public. My communication strategies would be
outlining the objective/goals of the communication, identifying stakeholders, defining key
messages, pinpointing potential communication methods and vehicles for communicating
information for a specific purpose, and specifying the mechanisms that will be used to obtain
feedback on the strategy
6. Based on what you fund organisations? Briefly if any.
Our agency funds organisations based on their mission and vision, project objectives and
goals, beneficiaries, sustainability of the project, impact and outcome of the project,
community benefits from the projects (if any), activities to be adopted to achieve the goals.
7. How do you make sure that the funded organisations communicate your
communication strategy/ policies/ and messages? (In what ways?)
Auditing would be the financial method to monitor the disbursement of fund in the
organisation‘s projects and to ensure visibility for the donor in terms of placing logos or
public messages on behalf of the donor. Periodical monitoring and evaluation would be the
appropriate method during the implementation of the project, especially at the beginning of
the project since some organisations have negative impression about some donors, which
needs to be explained in order to proceed in the implementation of the project.
8. Who plans the strategy of the mission? Is it different from your communication
strategy?
The strategy for the mission is set by the organisation‘s team who will be mostly involved in
the designing, implementation, and assessing the needs of the community. Before setting
mission, vision, objectives, goals, etc… of the organisation, there are key personal teams who
identify the needs of the community and set those strategies that will fill the gaps of the
society. The communication strategy is different from the mission in terms of the activities,
but the mission strategy and communication strategy is complementary since it seeks to
market the mission.
9. How do you plan your communication strategy for the mission? Priorities, policies,
Objectives, etc?
10. Do you think your Communication Strategy goes in accordance with your overall
strategy? Or are there any varieties?
Yes it does.
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11. What are the policies/ messages/ strategies you try to convey through your
development projects?
Well-conceived, professionally implemented communication programs and strategies that are
tied directly to reform efforts or development project objectives that bring understanding of
local political, social and cultural realities to bear in the design of development programs can
make the difference between a project's success and failure.
12. What feedback do you expect from the local partners/ beneficiaries/ stakeholders/
service users/ funded organisations?
13. To what extent do you think you are employing ‘Development Communication’ in
your organisation?
Development communication is the integration of strategic communication in our
development projects in the oPt as well as worldwide. We consider our strategic
communication as a powerful tool that would improve the chances of success of development
projects. We believe that it strives for behaviour change not just information dissemination,
education, or awareness-raising.
14. What are your policy agenda/ what are your communication tactics tackling your
objectives?
15. What do you think has been the dominant approach of employing communication
for development purposes?
16. How do you think your efforts can prove helpful in specific regard to
communication?
17. What objective indicators would suggest that your opinion/ policy/ strategy are
going the right direction?
18. What do you think about new media/ social media and communicating
development?
19. What do you think should be done to improve, if any?
20. Any other points…
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E-mail Interview (6), 10th
May, 2013
USAID official, United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Recording permission
Brief introduction
Name: USAID Official Organisation: USAID Position: N/A
1. How do you view development? I feel development in this context means working in partnership with the local population
to make positive changes that affect peoples‘ lives.
2. What is the need do you think of communicating development? Role of
communication in development! Most people do not understand foreign assistance or development assistance, and they
resist change. In order to convince people of the need to undertake reforms or to do
business in a different way, they need to see how changing their approaches to problems
can help lead to better solutions. Usually when a village, school or business sees how
things have improved at another village, school or business…they also want to do the
same. That is why communications are so important in development—to spread the word
about how to make things better.
3. What is the appropriate role of communication in your broader strategy?
Communications serve to complement the overall strategy. It is important for the
Palestinian people to know we are working in partnership with them. And, it is important
for the American people to see that their contributions are being well spent.
4. In what ways you address development through communication?
By highlighting the positive impact development has for ordinary citizens. A doctor
being trained is good for her patients. A new water system makes water cheaper and safer
for a village….
5. What about your communication strategy? Our communications strategy focuses on how to share the news about the achievements
we reach through our partnership with Palestinians.
6. Based on what you fund organisations? Briefly if any.
USAID needs to always think about how to ensure that its support will do the maximum
good for the local population. This is true in the West Bank and Gaza and around the
world. We check the ability of potential partners to make positive change, and we make
sure that these partners will work within the parameters of U.S. foreign policy to help the
Palestinian people.
7. How do you make sure that the funded organisations communicate your
communication strategy/ policies/ and messages? (In what ways?)
USAID has a well-recognized brand which our partners are required to use, and we work
closely with our partners to ensure that we all speak with a common message.
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8. Who plans the strategy of the mission? Is it different from your communication
strategy? The strategies of all USAID missions are determined by mission leadership in close
coordination with the US State Department, USAID Washington and our local partners.
9. How do you plan your communication strategy for the mission? Priorities, policies,
Objectives, etc?
The Mission‘s communications strategy is determined by the Outreach Office in close
coordination with Mission management, the US Consulate General and the U.S Embassy
and with USAID Washington.
10. Do you think your Communication Strategy goes in accordance with your overall
strategy? Or are there any varieties?
Yes, USAID‘s work is very transparent. USAID Communications are designed to
highlight the successes of USAID projects.
11. What are the policies/ messages/ strategies you try to convey through your
development projects?
Through partnerships, USAID helps the Palestinian people to build their institutions to
provide better services and to help businesses to create new and better jobs for the
Palestinian people. This is part of the support of the United States to create a future
Palestinian state living in peace and prosperity with its neighbours.
12. What feedback do you expect from the local partners/ beneficiaries/ stakeholders/
service users/ funded organisations?
Almost universally, our partners and beneficiaries appreciate the work USAID is doing.
They know that working together brings about positive results.
13. To what extent do you think you are employing ‘Development Communication/
Communication for Development’ in your organisation? Each USAID Mission has a dedicated Development Outreach and Communications
Office committed to development communications.
14. What are your policy agenda/ what are your communication tactics tackling your
objectives?
The good work of our projects is clear. It is up to us to help journalists and ordinary
citizens to see that good work in order to inspire them to also strive to make positive
change.
15. What do you think has been the dominant approach of employing communication
for development purposes?
It is always better for someone else to say you are doing a good job than for you to say it
about yourself. If you have a good story—you need to make the press aware of it. Let
them come and see and talk to beneficiaries about your work. Satisfied beneficiaries
make for the best spokespeople.
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16. How do you think your efforts can prove helpful in specific regard to
communication?
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there—does it make a sound? Development
communications is like that. If you do good projects the immediate beneficiaries know
about them but the wider population does not. Through effective communications you
can help inspire others to also make positive change. Highlighting the good work youth
volunteers do in one town can give ideas to youth in other towns to also undertake
volunteer efforts to help people in their community.
17. What objective indicators would suggest that your opinion/ policy/ strategy are
going the right direction?
It is important to see how much press coverage your work is receiving and whether that
coverage is positive. This is done through media monitoring. Also, opinion surveys if
done regularly can show how effective your outreach has been.
18. What do you think about new media/ social media and communicating
development? New media is fantastic because if people like what you‘re putting out—they share it. It is
like passing a newspaper article around a village, but now it can be shared to millions of
people around the world. People in New York, Tokyo and New Delhi now read about
development projects in the Hebron because their friends thought it was cool and shared
it. It is an exciting new world.
19. What do you think should be done to improve, if any? International organisations are often too bureaucratic in their communications. Here is an
excellent example of using humour to get the message across:
http://vimeo.com/62242280
20. Any other points…
Communicators need to think like journalists and Facebook users. Long, boring report
like articles aren‘t going to be read. Attention spans are short in this day and age.
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E-mail Interview (7), 07th
June, 2013
Jenny Boylan, Weltfriedensdiensts (WFD)
Recording permission
Brief introduction
Name: Jenny Boylan Organisation: WFD/YT Position: Civil Peace Service (CPS) consultant
1. How do you view development?
I view international development as a primarily political and economic process, which is
to say it is not a neutral activity regardless of the way such work is portrayed (i.e. in
terms of charity etc). Development on a smaller scale, i.e. community, regional and
national development is more independent of these processes but they still determine the
nature of the development in question.
2. What is the need do you think of communicating development? Role of
communication in development!
Communication is obviously essential; communication with the target groups are
essential to identify real needs and to deliver an adequate response, communication with
other CSO‘s is essential in creating a local or sector wide response to a community need
and to facilitate sharing resources and the same goes for communication with higher
levels of influence, e.g. Ministries etc. It is also necessary to communicate internationally
with the donor/partner bodies and general public to raise awareness of the issues which
need attention and the relative successes of the existing development programs. On a
micro level communication within the organisation is incredibly important-particularly in
the area of international development where cultural and linguistic difficulties can arise
and conflicts can arise that reflect latent power issues at a higher level.
3. What is the appropriate role of communication in your broader strategy?
Effective communication is one of the key areas to be developed for Yes Theatre‘s
Strategic Plan 2014-16. Particularly in terms of advocacy and networking with other
theatre companies, drama educators and partners/donors both locally and internationally
it is an essential tool. However consistently communicating with and informing the local
population of YT‘s activities is also a very crucial set of activities.
4. In what ways you address development through communication?
Yes Theatre is primarily about community development so communication is essential
and happens on a number of different levels. Arguably the most important
communication undertaken by YT is with the local community-relations with the
municipality, schools, community workers, parents etc. However to me the most
important form of communication happens between the artistic staff and the participants
of the programs. In this area the artistic staff utilise a participatory approach to
communication which is to me the best possible practice they could employ. If
communication in this area is compromised the entire value system of YT is damaged
and for an NGO this is the bottom line/single most important element of the work.
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5. What about your communication strategy?
WFD doesn‘t have a specific communication strategy in Palestine, but rather uses the
website (www.wfd.de), twitter and a twice yearly magazine called Kontakt to
communicate information regarding the projects and general situation here. It also
implements educational projects at schools in Germany called Global Generation and
Work 4 Peace to raise youth awareness of the global north-south inequalities.
Yes Theatre‘s communication strategy is currently under development but the general
idea is to review the existing communication strategy and to update it to make better use
of digital means including the website and social media to facilitate better advocacy and
networking capacities for a range of target groups locally and internationally.
It is also in German which makes it difficult for me to answer the question-also the fact
that I am always based here so I don‘t know if there are any major developments
happening at the communication level-it would have to be a major development for me to
be informed to be honest. Also WFD is a very small organisation with a team who work
full-time hours on part-time wages. Their capacity is constantly over stretched so while
communication work happens it tends to be in German and directed internally in the
country.
6. Based on what you fund organisations? Briefly if any.
The WFD works through the wider German Civil Peace Service which is a development
methodology endorsed and financed by the BMZ, the German Ministry for Foreign
Cooperation. Through this system all organisations involved in the CPS program have
their own priorities (for WFD it is supporting civil society) but all must conform to the
criteria here:
The partner must offer a distinct potential for peace, evident both from the organisation's
type of work and from its relations with target groups and the legitimacy it enjoys among
target groups.
If a partner is involved in strengthening disadvantaged groups, the goal must be to
increase their political participation and to foster the nonviolent representation of their
interests.
If a partner works together with armed groups, it must only do so with the goal of
nonviolent conflict management.
The partner seeks to gain the acceptance of the various parties to the conflict.
Internally, a partner organisation should be characterized by a high degree of
transparency in terms of its goals and its internal decision-making processes and division
of responsibilities.
7. How do you make sure that the funded organisations communicate your
communication strategy/ policies/ and messages? (In what ways?)
8. Who plans the strategy of the mission? Is it different from your communication
strategy?
The strategy of WFD‘s Palestinian projects since 1999 are run through the Civil Peace
Service Program, although they started working in Palestine in 1968 when they started to
support a women‘s embroidery collective in Kfar Na‘me. This is the format for more than
half of the projects of WFD and it is set by the BMZ, the German Foreign Ministry. They
also approve the project applications form organisations in Palestine, Africa and South
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America. Their own agendas and priorities are obviously reflected in the projects they
fund and in the architecture/format of the Civil Peace Service itself. WFD‘s
communications would be linked in some way but exactly how would not be clear to me
as an employee who only works in the field and not at Head Office in Berlin and also a
non German speaker (all their communications are in German not English).
If you are referring to the communication strategy then this is developed by the team as a
whole who assume responsibility for different elements.
9. How do you plan your communication strategy for the mission? Priorities, policies,
Objectives, etc?
The communication strategy is developed by first identifying the target groups to whom
we have to communicate which is informed by the organisations objectives, goals and
mission statement. The entire team: managerial/technical/administration contributes to
the discussion which provides a much broader set of ideas and promotes ownership of the
strategy which will also be implemented by the entire team who are assigned different
tasks.
10. Do you think your Communication Strategy goes in accordance with your overall
strategy? Or are there any varieties?
The communication strategy has to reflect the organisations objectives, vision and
mission statement.
11. What are the policies/ messages/ strategies you try to convey through your
development projects?
WFD‘s focus in development projects is on: cooperation between north and south
partners, social justice, human rights focused and gender equality focused.
YT utilizes a deeply participatory approach to its programs which are also child centred.
The principles of equality and non discrimination are equally important. Following the
strategic planning process this year YT will work increasingly using the Human Rights
and Do No Harm approaches.
12. What feedback do you expect from the local partners/ beneficiaries/ stakeholders/
service users/ funded organisations?
Regarding the communication strategy I hope that we receive positive feedback of
course, i.e. increased levels of interest in the organisation by all the target groups.
However constructive criticism is also welcome as it helps to improve the end product.
13. To what extent do you think you are employing ‘Development Communication/
Communication for Development’ in your organisation?
To a large degree we do employ ―communication for development‖ and on a number of
levels, maybe it is more accurate to say that we employ communications plural for
development, i.e. different approaches are undertaken per target group.
14. What are your policy agenda/ what are your communication tactics tackling your
objectives?
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As stated above WFD‘s communications are in German and are directed internally in
Germany (the website‘s English content is not great). Although it is a weakness I know
that it is something that they intend to improve but they are an extremely busy team
whose capacities are deeply overstretched. Also as an employee in the field, i.e. not in the
Head Office in Berlin with limited German I am not aware of the details of their
communication strategy, just the avenues through which I can assist them-which includes
writing and sending articles for publication. They do inform me of major developments
though, for instance one of the PR team was on the jury for the Berlin film festival which
was a major issue-they also succeeded in showing a film from one of their South African
projects at the festival which is great and we all appreciated hearing the news.
15. What do you think has been the dominant approach of employing communication
for development purposes?
I would think in terms of the programs it is undoubtedly the participatory approach that is
most employed, in terms of advocacy and networking other approaches are used.
16. How do you think your efforts can prove helpful in specific regard to
communication?
My own efforts are directed at communications with international entities; official
representatives in Palestine, theatre and drama education groups outside Palestine and the
general public of those countries. Again, different strategies have to be employed to reach
those target groups.
17. What objective indicators would suggest that your opinion/ policy/ strategy are
going the right direction?
Increased number of partners and donors internationally, positive media coverage,
increased visitors to the YT website and Facebook page.
18. What do you think about new media/ social media and communicating
development?
It is an essential component of the communication strategy.
19. What do you think should be done to improve, if any?
Improvements can always be made and we will hopefully do a good job of implementing
the new communication strategy.
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E-mail Interview (8), 18th
May, 2013
Sae Imamura, Peacebuilders Hiroshima
Recording permission
Brief introduction
Name: Sae Imamura Organisation: Peacebuilders Hiroshima/oPt
Position: Program Coordinator
1. How do you view development?
A part of methods to achieve peace-building.
2. What is the need do you think of communicating development? Role of
communication in development!
One of the main tools to raise awareness of cooperation among global citizens.
3. What is the appropriate role of communication in your broader strategy?
It differs to projects and project sites. Generally at home office, the communication takes
main role for fund raising but at the project sites, it takes supportive role to achieve the
goal.
4. In what ways you address development through communication?
Defining problems we are tackling and proposing a solution.
5. What about your communication strategy?
6. Based on what you fund organisations? Briefly if any.
Our organisation is not a funding organisation and does not unilaterally provide funds.
We participate, build projects and work together with partner organisations. For that, the
most important things are capacity to cooperate, team working and to share ideas of
mutual respect.
7. How do you make sure that the funded organisations communicate your
communication strategy/ policies/ and messages? (In what ways?)
The communication strategy to convey our message regarding the project is also built up
hand in hand with partner organisations. Actual communication activities adhere to the
strategy, in case some part going wrong, we immediate back to talk and readjust the
strategy.
8. Who plans the strategy of the mission? Is it different from your communication
strategy?
Refer the answer to the question 7.
9. How do you plan your communication strategy for the mission? Priorities, policies,
Objectives, etc?
Speaking of our project in Palestine, The strategy is based on analysis on tools we use,
available resources, achievement for the time being and overall vision. Analysis is made
with all staff members and also project beneficiaries are invited.
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10. Do you think your Communication Strategy goes in accordance with your overall
strategy? Or are there any varieties?
11. What are the policies/ messages/ strategies you try to convey through your
development projects?
To the local community of Palestine, the main message is that the role of educational
sector to maintain psychological health of children in time of crisis. By showing actual
results and activities, we attract the target to find it with positive feelings such as fun,
interesting or something new.
12. What do you do as advocacy?
Holding regular information sessions and events, issuing regular newsletters and annual
activity reports, meeting with stakeholders, online appeal etc.
13. What feedback do you expect from the local partners/ beneficiaries/ stakeholders/
service users/ funded organisations?
Active participation to the activities in order to maximize the project outcomes.
14. To what extent do you think you are employing ‘Development Communication/
Communication for Development’ in your organisation?
Information sessions are conducted participants-centred way to hear the interests of them
and to provide necessities.
15. What are your policy agenda/ what are your communication tactics tackling your
objectives?
16. What do you think has been the dominant approach of employing communication
for development purposes?
Direct communication such as information sessions and events.
17. How do you think your efforts can prove helpful in specific regard to
communication?
18. What objective indicators would suggest that your opinion/ policy/ strategy are
going the right direction?
Number of participation to the activities, cooperation to achieve our objectives, donations
and visitors of online materials.
19. What do you think about new media/ social media and communicating
development?
It‘s getting more and more interactive but it would need more time to develop it as
address critical issues. The information from social media is rare to be said as reliable
because current system has a problem on confidentiality and credibility.
20. What do you think should be done to improve, if any?
21. Any other points…
