Evaluation: Development communications amidst global crises and polarized discussion
The evaluation focused on the effectiveness of Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) development communications in reaching the public and making global development issues visible. It also studied ministry’s processes for developing communication contents and related internal and external collaboration.
Evaluation concluded that information about development issues hasreached the public to some extent, but visibility is low among those who do not actively follow development matters. The identified barriers for attracting wider audience include use of professional jargon and scarcity of discussion or debate on the MFA website, Instagram or Facebook accounts and physical meetings. Moreover, Twitter discussion is dominated by people with negative tone.
MFA has high in-house capacity for planning the communications, producing content and acting as spokespersons, but the internal synergies are not fully used. Demand for the development communication unit’s services is high and comes from all across the ministry, making it difficult for VIE-30 to set and follow their own priorities.
Development Academy for journalists is a good instrument that helps create and maintain networks and contacts with journalists, while cooperation with CSOs has untapped potential. There are also many lessons that could be learned from development communications in Nordic peer countries.
Evaluation report:
Evaluation: Development communications amidst global crises and polarized discussion, Volume 1, Main report (in English, PDF, 110 pages, 6,26 MB)
Evaluation report Volume 2, Case studies (in English, PDF, 117 pages, 9,66 MB)
Permanent address of the publication: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-281-748-8(Link to another website.)
Summary
One-page summary of the evaluation and its results (In English, PDF, 1 page, 536 KB)
PowerPoint presentations
Presentation of the Evaluation 30.5.2023 and in the Webinar 2.6.2023 (in English, PDF, 23 pages, 2,75 MB)
Presentation, MFA Denmark, Engagement Team in Webinar 2.6.2023 (in English, PDF, 8 pager, 1,96 MB)
Presentation, VIE-30 views on evaluation results, Webinar 2.6.2023 (in English, PDF, 5 pages, 376 KB)