The most common trap that developmental outreach campaigns run afoul

It is "Professionalism"! let me explain.

Development Organisations, such as INGOs and UN branches as well as government aid agencies, focus the efforts of public relation on producing what they have termed success stories. This misses the simple notion that you ought to build bridges of truthfulness and sincerity. That dreaded term, the public relation, is quite often a way to allocate resources for efforts that responds to expectations while the real object of outreach is to build trustful relation with target audience based on honesty. I am not arguing that we should set out to achieving objective honesty. far from it I believe that is not achievable in development work without the accountability that can only be assumed by democratic national government. I am arguing for intentional honesty, the aim of which is to bridge the divide between beneficiary expectation and development effort. There is overwhelming evidence that shows people are more likely to engage in efforts in the community when the effort speaks to them and when it faces similar obstacles and problems as they do.

We have all heard so many times that we have to approach this issue formally and in a professional manner. This disguise conceals lack of information and understanding but portrays someone who sounds knowledgeable. The most important element of “Public Relation” in my view is for media professionals to understand the issue first before setting out on a media campaign. The notion to summon a professional self is misguided and undermines the most efficient mechanism they have at their disposal which is relating the issue to their own experience and life. We understand the world through personal experience and no pseudoscientific media campaign comes close enough to a good substitute. I often wonder if professionals approach all issues in this manner. Can you imagine these people going home and talking with their children “children tonight for dinner and entertainment we are having a workshop, where we intend to reinforce our family values, create an environment where our sisters feel safe. The way we are going to do is by drawing. Lets draw pictures of how we see our family. What’s that Ivan, do you want some milk, that is great, go ahead and draw some milk. As a matter of fact lets all draw a supper for us. Then we sit and think about how we would eat it. Did you all like your supper?”

Much of the work about media outreach in the development context is generated by expatriates who work and live in far and wild places for a year or two where they live in a bubble inside which they enjoy amenities not available to locals. This means they don’t get to have the authentic experience of life but yet they are considered experts by fiat of just in the geographical location. expatriate professional does not understand the underpinnings and their experience is mostly literal. Much like my experience the other day in the pub. I ordered a beer and the waitress said “do you want anything else, love” and I said “oh! we're doing that, you look exquisite and nice but I am married” she looked stunned and had no idea what I was talking about, you can't even order a beer if you take people literally. I later found out that love in British doesn’t mean what I thought it meant. It’s a way of insulting people who are not doing as good as they think they are. I learned this after I picked tennis for awhile, if its 30 love then it’s not good.

Development agencies are like corporations from the  80s they have not benefited at all from the astonishing headways in the field of psychology that explains human behaviour and creativity. A more effective way of engaging the populous through media effort is by understanding how local staff relate to the organisation and how the beneficiaries value development issues. With the invent of digital media and recent advances in social media and telephony this is easier than ever before. 

Afghan Radio Wars

At dusk last Friday, four Taliban mortars crashed to the ground near the district center in Miri, a small town in eastern Ghazni province where a U.S. Army company is based. Shrapnel from one of the blasts injured two children in a residential area, a 12-year-old girl and one-year-old boy, who later died of his injuries. It was the second time in as many months that militants had killed local civilians, and U.S. forces were not going to let it be forgotten.

Within two hours of the attack, a message was drafted by the battalion's "information operations" team to be broadcast by its new on-base radio station. In the cramped confines of a steel shipping container-turned-studio, Karimullah, the Afghan announcer, broke the news that both children were taken to an area hospital by American soldiers "for the best possible care, but the little boy was too badly hurt. The insurgents," he lamented, "continue to harm their fellow Afghans and kill your children needlessly."

Words are now weapons in the fight for Afghan hearts and minds — but they must be deployed faster than ever to be effective. In recent years, the Taliban-led insurgency has evolved a vast propaganda machine with a full range of tools to spread their message. The once anti-media movement now operates websites featuring updated battlefield reports; it also mass-produces DVDs with raw video of attacks against coalition forces. Meanwhile, the Taliban's regional spokesmen communicate with domestic and foreign press in real time via cell phone.

But no medium is as powerful as radio in this poor, largely illiterate country with limited access to TV and the internet. On both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, Taliban-sponsored FM stations drive home the insurgents' messaging campaign, with the threat of physical punishment or worse reserved for those who don't tune in. Mobile clandestine radio stations and portable transmitters enable militants to tap and commandeer local airwaves almost at will.

Recognizing the Taliban's head-start on this critical front, NATO military officials have ramped up the spin cycle in the Afghan backcountry. Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, recently issued operational guidelines stressing that the "information war" must be fought aggressively to ensure insurgent propaganda is not just promptly challenged but also beaten to the punch. "Turn our enemies' extremist ideologies, oppressive practices and indiscriminate violence against them. Hang their barbaric actions like millstones around their necks," the guidelines say. "Be first with the truth."

U.S. forces in Ghazni have tapped into alternative funding streams to support the wider radio effort. Ever-popular hand-cranked radios are being distributed in larger numbers at the village-level to expand the audience.

The push has struck a chord. In some districts the Taliban has responded by collecting hundreds of radios and destroying them. Elsewhere, they've targeted radio towers. The Americans, in turn, have started jamming Taliban radio frequencies and going door-to-door with "reverse night information papers," their own version of the Taliban's notorious "night letters", turning an intimidation tactic on its head. The battalion commander, Lieut. Col. David Fivecoat, calls it a necessary measure to stay a step ahead of the militants, and the Afghan news cycle. "We are working hard to make sure the insurgents don't have the opportunity to blame us," he says. Indeed, as the fighting season winds down, the information war is still in overdrive.

Yet given the insurgency's long-standing chokehold over areas like Ghazni, old fears are proving difficult to shake. A day after the errant Taliban mortars claimed two innocent casualties, soldiers stationed in Miri went to assess the damage in a nearby neighborhood. According to Lieut. Philip Divinski, most people had already heard the Taliban was responsible from word-of-mouth or the radio. They could also assume as much, based on the previous militant mortar attack in October that killed two people and injured at least 10 more in the bazaar. Despite the deadly reprise, he was struck at how indifference exceeded anger among the victims' families and friends. "Sadly, it seems people have gotten used to this kind of thing," says the officer. "They understand who's at fault, but they're just too afraid to turn against them."

Afghan Tolo TV replicates dragons den

I believe there are two important factors contributing to the success of Mohsenis, the Australian group which owns Tolo TV and a couple of other stations. They have a secured pipe of funding from the Americans and foreigners in general, for instance the new program on Tolo TV is financed by the USAID. Secondly, they don’t have to have an idea. They know the west and they know what programs are popular in the west, they merely make an Afghan replica of the popular western program. The new program on tolo ‘fikr wa talash’ is based on the popular reality show ‘Dragon’s Den’ on BBC. it is a reality TV show series where contestants pitch their business ideas to a panel of tycoons in return for cash for their companies. As for Americans they see the show to encourage Afghans to start their own enterprises, stirring entrepreneurial spirits in a country that has been ravaged by three decades of war. The program is well financed by Americans and similar to other popular TV programs on Tolo are mentored by foreign experts. David Elliot is one of the development consultant hired by USAID to produce the program for Tolo TV. The first series ended in August with the final contestant winning $20,000 towards his plastic recycling business. I have a feeling that the afghan dragons den is going to be a success following Afghan star suite. Afghan Star is another popular program on tolo which is the imitation of X factor in Britain or American idol. Dragons den stirs competition among entrepreneurs and ambitious afghan individuals; the same thing as Afghan Star. Afghans who are entrepreneur and ambitious could struggle hard to appear on the TV and bring forth the best they could, this in turn benefits the program makers. The program also involves local businessmen; this group can bring resources and knowledge of afghan market which would make the program relevant to the audience and pitchers. Finally the program would succeed because neither tolo nor businessmen pay for it. Instead both receive money from Americans to do the program.

I very much like the work the Mohseni brothers do not because they value Afghanistan and their programs are reflecting Afghanistan; contrary because they don’t care about Afghanistan and all their ideas are foreign, yet they possess the skill to interpret and implement them in Afghanistan. This is a atypical expertise to possess, the international community unlike the Mohsenis failed to implement foreign ideas successfully in Afghanistan. Reality TV programs are dominating western media and Mohsenis have realised "Reality TV is very big all over the world, that's why we wanted to make something where we could both help people, get ideas and also provide entertainment," said Masood Sanjar, a production manager for Tolo TV to a western paper. This is not to say all Mohseni ideas have succeeded. Many program ideas similarly imported from the west failed because Afghan culture did not respond to it the same way as it did to the Afghan Star or other successful programs. The unsuccessful programs were not relevant to the Afghan life and aspirations. Mohsenis quite often face the problem of finding talented and the right people to materialise their ideas or rather the ideas they import. This is not a problem peculiar to Mohsenis or Tolo TV, its hard to find skilled and crafted individuals in Afghanistan. some of the failure stories of Tolo are ‘Parda Hai Raz’ a program about paranormals and supernatural creatures and magic, this is again based on the popularity of such programs in the west. ‘Yak Rouedad wa du Didgha’ is tolo hardtalk which didn’t turn into a bit hit. ‘Diwa’ is an imitation of Talking Movies, Siasat wa Mardum is an imitation of People on Aljazeera. These are off the top of my head but there are many more failures. However in a country like Afghanistan only a few success stories count because everything else is a failure. In the west you can’t afford to fail too often because then you go bankrupted; in Afghanistan you can fail many times to make a few successes and for people like Mohsenis and Tolo TV with a few success stories there is no bankruptcy, at least in the near future, because foreign money supports entrepreneurs who think Western and talk Western.

After hearing about the new program on Tolo I actually saw a couple of stories popping out in western media about the program, the stories were full of gleam and praise, then I wonder if there is ever anything negative about Tolo and Mohsenis in the eyes of foreigners and western media. I spent the morning searching the internet to find something negative about them but no joy. Mohsenis have set up a good TV station for the wrong reasons, but that is a totally different thing. They didn’t come to Afghanistan because they believe in freedom of expression and media but rather to run a business and make money. In some regards they have certainly been dodgy. Mohsenis have dubious relationships with certain power poles in Afghanistan and certainly mistreat their staff. But that is not a source of disconcert for westerners.