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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e-Democracia

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e-Democracia Project in Brazil, a website launched in June 2009 by the Brazilian House of Representatives, is designed to engage citizens in the lawmaking process to achieve tangible legislative results. The main goal is to permit easier access to the decision-making process by citizens who are not associated with strong interest groups or corporations that usually lobby for access to the centre of power in Brasilia where the national government is located.

Communication Strategies

Relying on the use of social media combined with offline legislative events (e.g., committee hearings, conferences), the initiative is intended to reach a broad segment of the public, including citizens, parliamentarians, civil servants, researchers, non-governmental organisations, and interest groups.

 

The programme is designed for crowd-sourcing (aggregating information from diverse sources, often by topic or location) for legislative purposes. "In particular, the e-Democracia website is designed to attract and draw together the diffuse participation of individual citizens and minority groups."

 

Since the launching of e-Democracia in 2009, its team has invested in several strategies to promote the website and engage a broader group of participants. First, articles about the e-Democracia initiative were published in the national e-newspapers. Its website is accessible and open to anyone who completes a registration process. There is also a link to it at the Brazilian House’s website. Second, the e-Democracia team sent out invitations to thematic blogs and social networking websites to engage people (e.g., environmentalists and youth) who are interested in specific issues. Third, the e-Democracia team posts daily messages in the e-Democracia’s accounts at Twitter and Orkut (a social networking site reported to be more popular than Facebook in Brazil).

 

The project was begun by young legislative officials and organisational activists for the purpose of increasing involvement and transparency in the legislative process. The group persuaded legislators to allow an experimental version for which 3-5 bills were suggested based upon the criteria:

 

 

"1. the potential engagement of representatives in the digital discussions; and
2. the issues that were "hot", i.e., subjects that a significant segment of Brazilian society urgently wanted to discuss."

 

The orginal topics chosen were the Climate Change Policy and the Youth Statute. A new system for selection of future discussions is under study. One alternative is to base the selection on opinion polls at the e-Democracia website. In the Citizen Room, a virtual space for free discussions, participants propose different legislative issues. They have suggested more than 45 new themes for various different "legislative communities" (groups following aggregated information on issues).

Development Issues

Democracy and Governance, New Technologies

Key Points

Click here to access the e-Democracia website.

The site is also available through:

Orkut
Twitter

Partners

Brazilian House of Representatives

Sources

TECHpresident website, posted April 29 2010, accessed February 29 2012. Image courtesy of Cristiano Ferri Faria.