Communications Update

J. Odhong’Communication Specialist , Africa RISING ESA and WA projects

Accra, Ghana , 24 – 25 March, 2015

Presentation Outline

• Reflections from 2014• Looking forward to 2015 onwards….a communication strategy for WA & ESA

projects• 2015 work plan• Implementation challenges

Reflections from 2014

The communications team continued to play the following roles for the project:

• Communicating for wider influence and impact Published success stories from Mali and Ghana activities Published blog posts/stories on the Africa RISING Mali and Ghana

activities on the website• Translating the program’s outputs into research development and

policy outcomes, getting knowledge into use Highlighted the Africa RISING scaling approach through a specially

developed project brochure that was distributed at the IITA stand during the FARA@10 celebrations in Johannesburg, SA in Dec, 2014

• Knowledge sharing and learning Edited research reports and archived them on CG Space Facilitated project cross-learning through facilitating learning

events and use of email and social networks like wiki and yammers Archiving of project photos & presentations on Flickr

Reflections from 2014

• Publishing Developed and distributed the Africa RISING West Africa project

flyers to stakeholders and during project events Edited and published several reports from the project research

teams Maintained consistency in use of Africa RISING brand in reports and

ppt presentation • Internal communication

Facilitated internal project communication through the project wiki and yammer portals

Project staff were trained twice on use of the internal project communication tools – yammer and wiki

Project calendar update

Looking forward to 2015 onwards

• Previously we have been using annual communication plans to guide activities• Annual communication plans are good, but don’t provide a clear picture of

the strategic direction for our project communications

The Africa RISING Communication Strategy 2015 - 2016

• To be complete by end of April

• Strategic Objectives: To enrich learning, interaction and exchange between Africa RISING project

teams to foster stronger intra-project collaboration as an enabler for ongoing research work and project management (linked to program research objective 1)

To enhance Africa RISING project and program visibility and promote wider use and adoption of research outputs and outcomes by the donors, farming communities, private sector, policy makers as well as national and international research/development partners (linked to program research objective 2 and development objective 4)

To contribute to better understanding of Africa RISING by the donor, their networks and international and development partners (linked to program development objective 4)

Communication Strategy 2015 – 2016…..(cont’d)

• PRIMARY AUDIENCE: USAID, Project Steering Committee, project scientists, the intervention farming communities, the R4D/Innovation platform members, Intervention communities village leaders/their equivalents, district agricultural officers/their equivalents and the extensionists

• SECONDARY AUDIENCE: non-intervention farming communities, journalists (with particular interest in agriculture, science, environmental and international development), CG and other international research centers involved in Africa RISING, the Humidtropics program, the NARS involved in Africa RISING projects, government ministries in Africa RISING project countries and potential donors

• DELIVERY STRATEGIES:i. Coming down from the mountain (simplifying project content for use by

non-technical audiences)ii. Create Once Publish Everywhere (COPE)…..but not always in the same

form

2015 work plan….built into the Communication Strategy

ACTIVITY TIMELINES

Develop a knowledge management and communication strategy for Africa RISING West Africa and East/Southern Africa projects

By end of April 2015

Refresher training on the program communication tools for project scientists

March 2015

Organization ,facilitation and documentation of successful project planning and review meetings and the annual learning events

March / September 2015

Maintain project calendar (with all planned activities by partners well in advance)

continuous

Evaluate the impact of the knowledge management and communication strategy for improvements

December 2015

Develop publishing guidelines for all Africa RISING knowledge products and communicate this to all project partners

April 2015

2015 work plan….

ACTIVITY TIMELINES

Maintain the freshness of the Africa RISING website by generating stories from project activities implemented in both West Africa and East and Southern Africa Project (2 new stories per month)

continuous

Review, edit and ensure consistency in quality and branding of reports, presentations and other publication produced by project partners

continuous

Support the development of knowledge products, their dissemination and archiving – Flickr (for photos), wiki and CG Space (for reports), SlideShare (for PowerPoint Presentations)

continuous

Promote Africa RISING project visibility during strategic conferences and events in 2015

Humidtropics Conference in March 2015, IITA R4D Week in October 2015

Coordinate media relations activities for major events/activities by both projects

As need arises

2015 work plan….

ACTIVITY TIMELINES

Distill information from emerging research reports from both projects into digestible formats that can more influence or inform decisions/actions by program and project stakeholders and their respective networks

Studies for West Africa Project to be identified after revision of the research work plan in March 2015

Identify and translate specific key documents into local languages that are comprehensible to the target audiences of the two projects

continuous

A photo journalism trip to Ghana and Mali project sites December 2015

Liaise with the program communication team based at ILRI on the development of an infographics explaining the concept of sustainable intensification in the context of Africa RISING

June 2015

Implementation challenges Some partners still don’t use the branding guidelines consistently Need more support for communication e.g. stories from Mali and Ghana field

activities More capacity building needed to increase use of some of the internal project

communication tools No established criteria for determining “best-bet” technologies that the

communications can dedicate resources to and build strategic activities around

“Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for Next Generation”.

www.africa-rising.net