Towards a More Inclusive Development Communication: C4D and the Case of UNICEF

Abstract: Development communication campaigns are often carried out to look good and remain ascribed to what has been referred by some authors as communication about development, where communication actions tend to remain a one-way process to legitimize donors’ accountability and promote visible deliverables.  Communication for development (C4D) is understood as a powerful tool that will give voice to the marginalised, opening up for a much wider participation of people to decision making processes and choices that could affect their lives, directly promoting good governance.  This degree project looks at how C4D has been utilised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in its development interventions and in one communication campaign, in order to answer the main research question of the project: to what extent C4D can lead to a more inclusive development communication? In particular, this project will look more closely at a case study, a recent communication campaign jointly developed by the African Union, the European Union and UNICEF called #YourVoiceYourFuture. Through qualitative interviews with UNICEF staff working on communication and C4D and the analysis of the case study #YourVoiceYourFuture campaign, this degree project tries to investigate how UNICEF has continued including C4D principles in its interventions. Moreover, through the case study analysis, this degree project will look at how C4D principles can be embedded in development communication actions in order to create more inclusive campaigns, with a wider impact and a higher chance to promote social change.    The case study will also show that in order to increase the reach of the campaign, UNICEF’s use of U-Report was instrumental to create an ‘invited space’. Thanks to U-Report, a two-way engagement with the audience was established, sharing young people’s opinions in Africa and Europe and giving them a voice and allowing them to influence political outcomes at the AU-EU Summit in February 2022. The degree project will conclude by recommending that future communication campaigns should consider including C4D principles in their making, in order engage better with audiences and lead to more inclusive results.