International Development: Effective Messaging and the Human Story

International Development.

Are these two words doomed by geopolitics, intolerance, self-interest and a growing zero-sum world view that seems to have found a voice today amid frustration, disappointment and outright anger?

Grandma Versus Ghana?

Are we – again – in a world where a phrase like “Grandma versus Ghana” will find a willing audience, perhaps more broadly than it did the last time around?

At Red Sangria, international development is a mission and an imperative we are committed to. At the heart of this commitment is a desire to help craft credible, powerful stories of human and community-level impact from even the most complex program designed and executed in the name of international development.

If it doesn’t touch people, it’s not development.

Whether you are in this space, or just dealing with a complex set of stakeholders and competing interests, you may find a small pearl of inspiration or two, in the words that follow.

A Watershed Moment Seen Through Multilateral Development Banks?

International development faces a range of challenges today. The voices of opposition in donor jurisdictions are loud and local. This is especially true when those jurisdictions wrestle with economic challenges and political pressures, which combine all too easily to argue for “taking care of our country/population first”.

The challenges faced by Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) are perhaps a good proxy to appreciate the wider questions around international development, including the complexities in crafting effective messaging.

MDBs are mandated to engage in a range of activities aimed at fighting poverty, advancing development and bringing growth and prosperity to the markets they serve. The degree to which institutions can be a channel to deploy political influence through development aid, we set aside for the moment.

Major MDBs are donor-funded, typically overseen at the C-level by appointees, and governed by some form of board comprised of representatives from the founding and funding states. A single MDB may count several dozen members on its board. This reality creates a complex mosaic of interests and priorities (trade, investment, infrastructure, agri-food…) that must be acknowledged, advanced and reported against, under the umbrella mission of international development. Crisis response adds another layer of complexity.

Development Messaging: Focus Matters

In such a context, effective, intentional messaging is not an option – it is at the heart of success and a critical pillar of the survival of development work.

At Red Sangria, we propose three pillars to an effective communications strategy in international development. Pillars that, with some refinement, could apply in numerous complex and sensitive settings.

1. Know Your Audiences

2. Message your Targets, Target your Messages

3. Craft, Communicate, Reinforce

Know Your Audiences

You have more audiences than you may be consciously aware of. Carefully consider your activities, desired impact and outcomes, and think about the various audiences – intuitive and not, “expected” or “unexpected” – who need to hear your message.

MDBs for example, can get caught up largely focused on internal messaging to their leadership teams and boards, speaking to targets achieved, lessons learnt, metrics met. All important when dealing with donor funds, but far from complete and comprehensive. Internal communication is often replete with jargon and MDB-speak, a dizzying array of indecipherable acronyms and language that is largely unrelatable, and that often loses sight of the organization’s fundamentally human objectives.

External audiences are addressed as if they are homogenous, and often as a necessary but secondary communications task. With this approach, messages about consequential impact are all but lost. Describing MDB or development impact to the “unexpected audience” in a way that will matter to them, is a responsibility that gets insufficient attention.

Message your Targets, Target your Messages

If a story is important enough to tell, it should be thoughtfully told.

A template or cookie-cutter approach is a fail and a lost opportunity. It is a lost opportunity for both your communicators (and how they view the value of what you do), as well as for your audience, who can discern half-hearted messaging and will ascribe meaning and importance accordingly.

Development professionals – and many others today – must make it a priority to tell powerful, compelling and convincing stories. Powerful enough to assure preservation of the development mission, compelling enough to maintain access to funding, and convincing enough to retain convening power and create supporters and champions of the mission. In the end, these supporters, at scale, translate to voices and political currency that can shape priorities in donor countries and beyond.

Craft, Communicate, Reinforce

There are, of course, “standard messages” that can be collected in communications repositories, and managed as routine outputs produced for speed or consistency of voice. The art in strategic communications related to international development – as in other areas – is in recognizing that there are moments and messages that deserve – even demand – tailored crafting, proactive and well-considered communication, and reinforcement.

Development-related messaging is often rote and process-driven, lacking the spark that would and should elevate the work of MDBs and others. It is frequently reactive in nature due to the sheer volume of communication output created by multilateral institutions, and it is only rarely reinforced in a conscious, intentional manner that amplifies and multiplies the message and its intended impact.

Connect, Inspire, Engage

MDBs and other multilaterals, along with various development-focused organizations do immeasurably important work. They are guardians for a future and a world where humanity acts in recognition of our interconnectedness and the need to eradicate poverty, facilitate shared prosperity and otherwise move toward a brighter tomorrow for all.

Their messaging must align with their highest aspiration – and the significant accomplishments – of their collective mission. Strategic communications and messaging in the sphere of international development ought not be mechanical, clinical and template-driven.

Communication by MDBs and other development and multilateral institutions today must be a strong tool in the fight to preserve development priorities and protect the resources needed to make those priorities real, attainable and human-impacting.

Strategic messaging and communications from the development world must connect to MDBs’ audiences, inspire teams, partners, donors and beneficiaries alike, and it must inspire commitment to the mission. The stakes, arguably, are nothing less than life and death.

Red Sangria. Human Powered. Every Time.