Communication for development

Who attends this course?

The course is for:

• Development professionals
• Policy makers
• Academics
• Creatives

What topics does the course cover?

In this course, participants work together to find meaningful solutions to specific challenges.

Three key topics for this year's course include:

• Apps and tools
• Visual storytelling
• Low-tech development projects

As always, participants are encouraged to share relevant work-related experiences and discuss what inspires them about the current communication landscape.

What will I learn?

Participants explore communication ideas, from low-tech with a local reach to high-tech with a global reach, that are immediately applicable to their work.

Three areas of study for this year's course are:

• Internet-free, low-budget communication projects
• Video, graphics, and mobile photography tools
• Storytelling across different platforms and social media

Participants will be challenged to work on larger communication initiatives, which may comprise but are not limited to social media campaigns.

What did participants learn about last year?

Last year's speaker sessions included experts from the International Organization for Migration, UN Enivronment, the International Labour Organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the United Nations.

Over four days, six specialists spoke with participants on the following topics:

• Low-tech hacks in West Africa
• Environment-focused storytelling for global campaigns
• Five ideas that work for communication and advocacy
• Telling difficult stories of war, conflict, and the missing
• United Nations campaigns including The People's Seat
• How to avoid stereotypes in communication efforts

In-house learning and training experts facilitated the course materials and processes.

What will I be able to do?

Participants that take this course use the design thinking process to craft wide-ranging communication products and development-driven stories.

Here are three things you'll be able to do after taking this course:

• Use new tools and apps to improve communication efforts
• Develop communication approaches that consider cultural differences and multiple audiences’ needs
• Tell meaningful and engaging stories that stand out, both online and offline

This course aims to help participants use the design thinking process, which includes building empathy for key stakeholders, defining user personas, and understanding user journeys.

What did participants do last year?

Last year's course opened with an examination of seven real interactive stories and a discussion about different human-centered storytelling approaches.

Participants later broke into teams and used design thinking to solve specific communication-related challenges related to:

• Migrant workers in South Africa
• Air pollution in urban India
• Corruption in Nigeria
• Sexual harassment in international organizations
• The future of work
• Online hate speech

On the last full day of the course, teams created Instagram accounts and implemented social media campaigns to promote their design solutions.