By Philip Lee, WACC Deputy Director of Programmes

WACC’s Strategic Planning Process is well under way and has been given a boost by a Roundtable Meeting of WACC partners that took place in Helsinki, Finland, 27-28 April 2011. Some twenty international participants addressed the challenges posed by participatory communication for development.

The Roundtable took place during a meeting of WACC’s Officers and was hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF). Those present were warmly welcomed by Dr Kimmo Kääriäinen, Director of the ELCF Department of International Relations and Rev. Juha Rajämäki, a member of WACC’s Board of Directors.

WACC President Dr Dennis Smith led two days of intensive discussions, identifying communication as, “The process by which we build meaning in common.”

WACC General Secretary Rev. Karin Achtelstetter placed the meeting in the context of rapidly changing global and communication realities and WACC’s recently initiated Strategic Planning Process.

Participants heard Dr Daniela Frank of the Catholic Media Council (CAMECO), Germany, offer an introduction that looked at trends in the development of media that emphasised the need to strengthen the institutional capacities of local/community media as a means to attain development and democratisation objectives.

WACC’s Officers and partners met in Helsinki, Finland, 27-28 April 2011

Roel Aalbersberg, of ICCO, Netherlands (The Interchurch Organisation for Development Co-operation), pointed to a potentially “dangerous disconnect” between development work and communication work. He commented that if communicators “do not succeed in becoming part of one another’s stories and life, we shall end up by losing one another completely.” In his opinion WACC needs to address the topics of decentralization, alliance building, advocacy around communication rights, and knowledge-sharing about how communication and media function today.

Jutta Hildebrandt, of EED, Germany, (Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst),  stressed the importance of WACC being more visible internationally and of building alliances. She asked for a strong definition of how WACC understands communication for social justice – a clear branding of what WACC stands for so that it is easily recognised. In addition she pointed to the need for impact assessment.

WACC project partner Joyce Larko Steiner, Senior Program Officer at the Christian Council of Ghana, gave a presentation on the three-year project she has led with support from WACC and the UK Government’s Department for International Development. It is a campaign to reduce HIV and AIDS Stigma and Discrimination in three districts in two regions in Ghana.

G. M. Mourtoza, of the Centre for Communication and Development (CCD), Bangladesh, another WACC project partner, spoke on human rights and equitable development for all. CCD works with indigenous people in the northern part of Bangladesh deprived of access to many social benefits and facilities. It carried out a pilot project on communication rights to empower eight communities to raise their voices and concerns working with journalists of mainstream media. It resulted in Radio Invo, the first indigenous internet radio in Bangladesh (www.radioinvo.com).

Lavinia Mohr, WACC Director of Programmes, introduced the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), one of WACC’s longest-running initiatives, relating it to the notion that free and independent media are essential to democracy if accountability is to be expected from political, social, and economic players. One of the problems is that by and large women are missing from the public sphere of news media, which is what the GMMP aims to tackle. Philip Lee, WACC’s Deputy Director of Programmes, presented an overview of the relationship between participatory communication for development, communication rights, and peace journalism.

In a lengthy brain-storming session, participants discussed the following questions. What are the strengths of WACC? Who is WACC for? What are the communication challenges? What do you want to do together with WACC? While it is too early to come to conclusions or to formulate concrete proposals, Roundtable participants contributed to a lively and stimulating debate that can only enhance the future life and work of WACC.

For more information about the WACC strategic planning process, go to:  http://www.waccglobal.org/en/about-wacc/strategic.html

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