The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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Blogging for Development

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Excerpts from the essay:

"Web logs, (also called weblogs, or blogs) have taken off. There are a number of sites that offer free or low-cost hosting for individuals, and a number of firms (e.g., Corante Blogs and CNET Radio ) now have public blogs. Universities support blogs for faculty, and some NGOs such as Online Learning Europe are using weblogs. Using available software (e.g., Blosxom or Movable Type) or software provided by the hosting sites, it is easy to set up a blog, and easier still to post material to the blog.


Blogcount estimates that there are more than two million active blogs, of which more than 1.5 million are hosted on three major sites: Blogger, LiveJournal, and DiaryLand. While 60 percent of blogs are in English, there are thousands in other languages. Thus one source reports that there are more than 50,000 blogs in Portuguese, more than 40,000 in Polish, and more than 25,000 in Farsi.


The general public is still not very much aware of blogging, especially in developing nations, but things are changing...


There are directories and search engines that can help...BlogWise links to a collection of categorized blogs from around the world. EatonWeb Portal provides information on 12,849 weblogs, listing them by a very large number of countries, including many developing nations, and by a number of languages. The Blog Search Engine provides daily listings of new blogs, and facilitates searching for blogs in its large listing. PHD Web Logs links to a number of graduate student blogs, including some working on ICT4D topics...


The potential of blogs for sustainable development has scarcely been tapped. Blogs provide a means by which individual citizens can speak out about what is happening in their countries, and with their governments..."


Click here for the full article on the ICT for Development site.

Source

Article forwarded by Shahjahan Siraj to the bytesforall_readers list server on August 19 2003 (click here to access the archives).