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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Consejo de Redacción (CdR) - The Editorial Board

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The Consejo de Redacción (CdR), is an organisation of Colombian investigative journalists, organised in 2006, with 5 thematic areas of work:

  • Training;
  • Reflection;
  • Investigacion;
  • Entrepreneurship;
  • Strengthening of their network

 

In July 2012, the organisation launched the "Monitor de Corrupción" (or "Corruption Monitor") which provides journalists and citizens with a platform to submit reports that will expose and map incidents of corruption in Colombia. The number of reports from journalists has reached 506.

Communication Strategies

The CdR's "Monitor de Corrupción", a digital crowd-sourced map of reports of political misconduct in Colombia, was created to give journalists and citizens the opportunity to digitally map their reports. About 60 reports from journalists have been mapped since the project launched on July 24 2012. A Knight International Journalism Fellow created the mapping system with the CdR. The team established 11 categories of corruption and developed the system using the Ushahidi mapping platform. To encourage public participation in the project, the Knight Fellow is offering citizen journalists hands-on training in workshops at La Patria newspaper in the Colombian city of Manizales and El Meridiano de Cordoba newspaper in Monteria city.

 

The organisation's work includes: the annual Encuentro de Periodismo de Investigación; local investigative journalist gatherings; three online training programmes; and periodic workshops on: journalism aided by the computer, technical investigative journalism, and election coverage.

 

The "Encuentros" cover such topics as:

 

  • How to investigate judicial power.
  • How to convert the investigation into a book.
  • Independent models of investigation in journalism.
  • How to investigate organised crime.
  • The databases as tools for investigative journalism.

 

The CdR also conducts online debates, discussions, and conversation under the name "Talks with the Masters". It produces materials in print, such as records of its events and pamphlets with recommendations to facilitate investigative journalism. As a tool to facilitate investigation, the CdR designed ZoomOnline, a member-accessible database of public information, compiled from official sources. This database is perpetually developed and updated.

Development Issues

Demoracy and Governance

Key Points

The organisation has an elected board of directors from among the jounalist members and has associated  with the Programa de Estudios de Periodismo (PEP) (Pogramme of Journalistic Studies) of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá located in Bogotá, Colombia.

Partners

Centro Knight para el Periodismo en las Américas (Knight News Foundation), Open Society Institute (OSI), la Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF), the United Nations Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Colombia, and la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (UNESCO), United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Sources

International Journalists' Network (IJNET) website and the CdR website, August 13 2012; and email from Miriam Forero Ariza to The Communication Initiative on February 26 2013.