A clear and comprehensive communications strategy is essential for interventions that involve community mobilization. The evaluation report includes a number of quotes from community members that describe frustrations and misunderstandings about how the program would work, with some individual farmers and communities opting out of participating because of the perceived inconsistent messaging. While MCC and MCAs may not be able to control all misinformation that can spread about an intervention, messaging can be better managed with a comprehensive communications strategy that is used during community mobilization and throughout implementation. For example, as a result of early challenges with community distrust, the CLS Sub-Activity worked out a communications strategy that ultimately included a blitz during mobilization, radio shows in different local languages, and messages tailored for different stakeholder audiences. CBRLM’s communications strategy was haphazard by comparison, and further complicated by the ongoing refinements to the program, different structural components (e.g., livestock management, rangeland management, and community development) being managed by different experts, and widespread geographic distribution of program areas. Going forward, a clear and comprehensive communications strategy should be a contract deliverable and contractor performance should be assessed against their adherence to the strategy.
Lesson Learned