Communication brief

How communication can strengthen good governanceMarie-Christine Boeve / Guido Couck

April 2013

Reflections following a backstopping mission in Burundi

The Support Project to Local Development and Citizen Participation in the Province of Cibitoke (PADLPC) in Burundi supports and strengthens six municipalities in the northern province of Cibitoke in order for them to offer the population (totalling 500,000 inhabitants) proper public services. In March 2013 – when the pro-ject was about halfway – the project asked for a Com-munication backstopping mission with the purpose of drawing up a communication strategy to achieve the development results of the project in a context that is considered difficult.

Burundi took the road of decentralisation only in 2005 and the authorities and citizens concerned do not yet fully understand their respective rights and duties and the role they have to fulfil. The project team under-stood that it requires a professional communication strategy to achieve lasting behavioural change, espe-cially with time (2 years) and resources (10,000 euro) being limited. This was a good reason to ask for the help of experts.

Image versus soulThe image one gets of the project is not one of a decen-tralisation project but one of an infrastructure project. Even though a considerable part of the budget does indeed go to infrastructure (schools, health posts, drinking water…) construction is not the main objective of the project. Actu-ally, the construction works are a means for municipalities to learn to manage public contracting under Burundi law and provide the population with a few concrete achieve-ments of good governance. Beside these investment pro-jects, the project must especially ensure the municipalities are managed well. Hold meetings according to bylaws, public administration, transparency and accountability in accounting and government, participation of and service delivery to the population… For the municipal authorities, all of these are rather new principles. But exactly those principles are most relevant to development; they make the difference. Without a communication strategy, with-out raising awareness it is impossible to explain concepts such as ‘good governance’ or ‘public service delivery’ to municipal authorities or to convince the population that their tax contribution is worthwhile.

Capacity developmentIn such capacity development and governance pro-grammes BTC traditionally focuses on the institutional

Results start with formulationCommunication for Development is a social pro-cess that gives people a voice. It fosters mu-tual understanding and trust and it boosts social change. This process starts with formulating a project. The World Bank puts it as follows: “Well-conceived, professionally implemented communi-

cation programmes that are tied directly to reform efforts or development project objectives that bring understanding of local political, social and cultural realities to bear in the design of development pro-grammes can make the difference between a pro-ject's success and failure.”1

1 | http://go.worldbank.org/5CHGCEWM70

Communication brief

Support Project to Local Development and Citizen Participation in the Province of Cibitoke – BDI0805011

� Funding: Belgium (4,000,000€) and Burundi (491,644€)� Delegate to joint management: Murielle Hermouet� Project manager: Salvator Nduwimana� Address: Transversale N° 8 / RN5

Commune Rugombo BP 95 Cibitoke Tel. +257 22 26 23 84 / 85 E-mail : padlpc@yahoo.fr

partners (ministries, provinces, municipal authorities…) and not on the population. In other words, we focus on the supply side of good governance, and not on the demand side. In Burundi, the Ministry for Communal Development – in charge of decentralisation – is still too weak to fully take on its role. It does not have the necessary resources and its communication should be developed so it can fulfil its duty and render accounts. GIZ has taken on that mis-sion on the central level. BTC's decentralisation project in Cibitoke concentrates on six municipal governments, which need support and which are helped with developing their service delivery. Hervé Corbel, Programme Officer in Burundi, confirms that there is still a lot of work to do, also for communication experts: "Support to communication can be one of the dimensions of our support to partner ministries. We are working on a strategy in that sense."

Demand and supplyFocusing on the supply side of good governance and not on the demand side is not ideal because both are undeni-ably related. A government's public services delivery can only be considered efficient if it meets the needs of the population. So, the question is how we can involve civil society and the population in developing a comprehensive solution so the population can secure and claim its rights.

Raising awarenessThe many meetings with the various stakeholders were al-ready by themselves important to raise awareness about the importance of communication in view of achieving be-havioural change. So, the ministries, provincial services, municipal authorities and technical services already were encouraged to further pursue proper service delivery to the citizens.

BottlenecksDuring work sessions with the project team discussions led to identifying the bottlenecks in the relations between the various stakeholders of the project, to clarifying the roles of the various actors and to proposing priority (com-munication) options to remedy these problems. This work has also allowed us to discover the shortcomings that hamper the decentralisation process and on which the project could intervene.

Time and focusCommunication backstopping followed Governance backstopping, which did actually demand quite some (very much appreciated) efforts from the project team. Yet, in the aftermath all those involved unanimously approved the approach because both themes would otherwise not have received the attention they deserved.

Strengthened backstopping capacityFinally, the backstopping was also a very instructive ex-perience for the backstopping officers. Decentralisation is a complex exercise involving several stakeholders whose interests do not always match. This mission helped the backstopping officers not only to better understand this tangle, but it also strengthened the backstopping capacity of the Communication service.

What’s in a name ?BTC has the bad habit of giving its projects unintel-ligible names, usually under the form of unpronounce-able acronyms, in this case, PADLPC. In other coun-tries BTC has projects called PRODEKK, PRODAKK, ASSNIP, ASSRMKF… Yet, the name of a project, its identity, is one of the most elementary aspects to help beneficiaries take ownership of the project, provided of course the name means something and is related

to the intervention. ‘Decentralisation in Cibitoke’ or ‘PADLPC’? Obviously, the choice is easy. It would even be better if the beneficiaries could choose a name themselves, preferably even in the own language. This increases identification with the project. The European decentralisation project in Burundi is known under the name of Gutwara Neza (‘Good governance’ in Kirun-di). An example that should be followed.

BTC - Belgian development agency / rue Haute 147 / 1000 Brussels, Belgium / www.btcctb.org