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.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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Scaling Up the Response to Infectious Diseases: A Way Out of Poverty

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Summary

The following summary is an excerpt

It is not enough to have condoms at hand. It is not enough to have widespread knowledge about HIV/AIDS and how to prevent it. The knowledge has to be applied.


Only half the job is done in tackling diseases of poverty if we rest once effective health interventions are made available on a massive scale through upgraded and greatly expanded health service systems. We may bring superb health interventions to the very doorstep of those affected, but it is only with the adoption and maintenance of related healthy behaviours that will we be able to contain the ravages of the major infectious diseases.


The foundation for having people adopt healthy behaviour is knowledge, once the required health services or products are within reasonable reach. The World Bank's World Development Report 1998/1999: "Knowledge for Develop-ment", drew particular attention to the importance of knowledge acquisition in reducing poverty. Yet 50 years of public health experience resoundingly point to the inadequacy of such an approach if it ends there. What is central to adopting healthy behaviour is the application of knowledge in the complicated context of culture, social norms, and a variety of social influences.


In reality, knowing what to do is quite different from doing it. The health field abounds with examples of how "knowledge" in itself fails to prompt desired behavioural results. Increased awareness and education about healthy behaviour have notoriously been insufficient bases for individual or family action, though they are essential steps in the process towards practising healthy behaviour. Regrettably, an informed and educated individual is not necessarily a behaviourally responsive individual. It is only with strategic, people-centred, behaviourally-focused social mobilization and communication that health interventions will move from the shelves to people's daily lives. This needs to be given the same devoted attention that the private-sector has bestowed on what it calls consumer communication.


Click here for the full paper online.

Click here to go to Chapter 3 - Mobilizing Healthy Behaviour

Source

World Health Organization