Episode 12: Dialogue and Citizen Participation
Paula Claycomb began her career in journalism before transitioning to the UN system in 1989. She worked with UNICEF on social change communication in Rwanda, Kenya, Afghanistan, East Timor, Sudan and many other countries. She served as Chief of the Landmines and Small Arms Group and as Senior Advisor for Communication for Development, managing the development of policies, guidelines and standards at the global level. Since her retirement from UNICEF in 2012, Paula has provided consulting services in strategic planning and communication for development and is now the Director of Rain Barrel Communications, an international communications consulting firm that co-creates social good initiatives with partners, with a special orientation to the wellbeing of children. She joins us from Taos, USA.
Paula speaks with us about:
the importance of dialogue and participation of effected populations in C4D
the need for long term campaigns
working in the context of genocide and the evolution of humanitarian thinking
mine risk education
simultaneously being an activist and a staff member
increasing resources for communication
learning from past mistakes - and much more.
Transcript
Intro: I hope that I never preached at people but listened respectfully and tried to create environments in which everyone present had an equal voice in the proceedings. I’ve observed colleagues rather said “you know, you really must do this, you really should do that” and occasionally have been appalled that that kind of top down or directive thinking still exists. And that’s where I think UNICEF and other organizations could do a better job.
Safa: Welcome back to the Rethinking Development Podcast. My name is Safa and I will be your host as we speak with and learn from practitioners of all backgrounds and affiliations around the world. Each week, we aim to rethink ethical behaviour and best practices through the lived experiences and personal reflections of different practitioners. Our guest today is Paula Claycomb. Paula began her career in journalism before transitioning to the UN system in 1989. She has worked with UNICEF on social change communication in many countries, including Rwanda, Kenya, Afghanistan, East Timor, Sudan and others. Like many who have worked to alleviate and prevent the worst that people can do to each other, Paula became convinced that amidst horrendous atrocity, great good is still present and must be nurtured at all levels and in diverse ways. She later served as the Chief of the Land Mines and Small Arms group and as Senior Adviser for Communication for Development with UNICEF where she was managing the development of policies, guidelines and standards at the global level. Since her retirement from UNICEF in 2012, Paula has provided consulting services in strategic planning and communication for development and is the Director of the Rain Barrel Communications agency. She’s also quite active with volunteer work and on many local issues in her state of New Mexico in the United States. Paula, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
Paula: You’re most welcome. It’s an honour, thank you, Safa.
Safa: Could you maybe begin by telling us a bit about your time in high school or university or the things that really drew you to working first in journalism and just generally on social impact projects?
Paula: I think my social awareness began in childhood. I grew up with parents who themselves possessed great awareness of and concern for social issues, not only in the US where they were both very active in social issues but also had an awareness of what is happening in the world and perhaps equally important to their social awareness. They distilled in all of their six children a sense of the interconnectedness of everyone and my father, who was an environmental — well, he worked for the Bureau of Land Management, but he was very concerned about the environment, distilled in us a sense that everything is related to everyone else. And sometimes he would quote the early advocate for the environment, John Muir, and say when you look at anything in the universe you find that it’s connected to everything else. So that’s where it all started. And then, having been born in the early 1950’s, that meant that I was really coming of age during the protests against what the US called the Vietnam War and I became very involved in anti war activities. So between my family and then growing up in a politically tumultuous environment during the late 1960’s, I developed a great fondness for and awareness of different cultures, different ways of doing things, and I guess maybe a sense of responsibility to do what I have capacity to do to help make the world a bit less onerous or painful for people where that was in my power to do so.
Safa: I see and and you gravitated towards journalism as you know, the medium you wanted to begin to work in. Could you tell us about your time as a journalist and how that, you know, eventually led to working in communications for developments?
Paula: I guess I was drawn to journalism because I’m very fond of the written word and believe, anyway, that both written and spoken words are extremely important and have a capacity, I think it is probably genetic, to be able to express myself fairly quickly and rapidly in writing. And so, because of growing up in a family that was politically aware and then in the political environment surrounding the war and many other issues that of course were taking place, I thought well, I have the capacity to write well and to analyze and do listen carefully to what people are saying, as well as to observe what is going on. Not always accurately, I might add, but mostly I think, interpreting a situation fairly neutrally and thought that journalism was the perfect way to take all of those skills and attributes and convert them into something that I thought might have some meaning for the reader. So my time as a journalist was very short, only three years and it was in Boulder, Colorado, where I worked for the local newspaper, including, by the way, one of the very few paid student newspapers in the country at that time and was able to interview many people and attend rallies and observe what was going on at that time, and really enjoyed the time that I spent as a journalist providing narrative of what was happening, but then got drawn into the political activities that made me think, oh, okay, journalism is fine, but maybe I’d be better off working in an organization that would allow me to work on the ground and put what I felt I had to offer in an international setting.
Safa: You know, at that early stage, if you were given any ethical orientation or training?
Paula: Oh boy, what a question that is. No, I think that ethics is still very undervalued as a subject for training. After I decided to leave journalism, I spent a few years, little over three years I guess, with Amnesty International, which was one of the very first human rights organizations globally and at that time was still finding its feet and using the power of the pen as it were to put pressure on governments to release prisoners of conscience. People who were being detained, often tortured, often executed for no other reason than their opposition to government policy or unjust laws. And it was there that I first became aware, I would say, of ethics as a field of inquiry and practice, in contrast with personal morals. So how people are raised in their families and their communities should instil, I believe, a moral sense of what is right and what is wrong. Where is ethics, if I’m understanding correctly , are codes of behaviors that organizations or businesses provide to their employees or they’re volunteers and which those employees, volunteer, staff should adhere to. And it was in Amnesty International that I became aware of different sets of ethics and received just a very short training in ethics. When I left Amnesty International and went to the US Committee for UNICEF there was no training at all on ethics, and it was only some years later in UNICEF that the issue of ethics as a code of behavior in the organization was raised again. And I would say that over the years, that code of ethics that UNICEF and by extension UN system want staff members to adhere to has been pretty clearly stated, if not always observed. I guess. And of course now with the Me Too movement and with so many issues about behaviour affecting both private sector companies and the UN system, the whole issue of ethics is very timely.
Safa: You began to work on communication for development, behaviour change communication projects. Could you tell us about some of the perhaps challenges you faced in that work? You know, in terms of perhaps targeting harmful behaviour, but at the same time navigating cultural diversity and national sovereignty issues?
Paula: That’s a tough one. When I became a Communication Officer in UNICEF, I quickly learned that there were two types, two broad categories of communication, if you will. The one that I thought I was getting into is more media related and external relations, and I thought that that’s what I wanted to do, having come from a journalistic penchant or background. But the other type of communication was called at that time communication for social and behaviour change and since then has gone through many names, both in UNICEF and beyond, including social and behaviour change communication and what UNICEF calls it, which is communication for development. And unlike that kind of broad mass media based communication, which is often aimed at developing awareness of and support for the organization or the business, social and behaviour change communication is more designed to have dialogue with both people at the family and community level, but also with officials at the top decision making level two hopefully result in a greater awareness of issues that the international development world would like to see changed. For example, some of the harmful traditional practices like female genital mutilation, which is an extreme human rights violation but which had been kind of a sensitive subject because international development community didn’t want to tread on anybody’s toes regarding cultural practices. But over time there has been an evolution of rights based programming such that a very harmful practice like that which it turns out, is not so much religiously based anyway, but more culturally based, with a view to having daughters be seen as more marriageable, it turns out that most parents are very willing to talk about what is best for themselves and especially for their daughters, and can be convinced that there are alternative ways of ensuring that their daughter’s futures are guaranteed, for example, through education so that they can have both a fulfilling life and contribute to the to the families well being. And there are many less quote, sensitive issues, I guess just like sending daughters to school or having children receive vaccinations. And while there’s certainly a role for the external relations type communication to play, what I really loved about communication for development is the capacity to speak not only to communities or to decision makers and/or to decision makers at the top level, but to speak with them. And that’s where I’ve put then the focus of my time and helping to design strategies that will make use both of mass media nowadays, of course, social media but also include ways to have dialogue with people in order to help them see the benefits, of perhaps adopting a change in their attitudes and their behaviours, and so that it won’t be seen as imposed on them.
Safa: So that process of dialogue, that process of speaking with rather than to, as you mentioned there are a variety of actors, whether it’s government officials, local level leadership, community members, and within that there’s different power dynamics, power relations. Could you speak to us about your experience with navigating those? And, you know, just your reflections on how to ensure things are participatory or everyone’s voices heard at the same time, you know, having to work with government, having to work with those who are more powerful than perhaps the community you want to work in or you’re trying to serve.
Paula: That’s a big one. It’s very complicated, and I would say, let me preface this with a comment about resources being made available to this communication for development type programming. It seems to me that even now in 2019 , although top level decision makers understand in theory the need for consultation with and the participation of families and communities, in fact their preference seems to remain with providing the majority of resources for either the supplies and materials themselves and/or for high cost but high visibility TV spots at the national level. And I can give a couple examples of that. One example comes from way back in Mozambique, when the government was considering a law that would have prevented small salt manufacturers from selling salt that was not iodized. And iodine is an important element to prevent gout and also for the child’s development, intellectually and cognitively. So in Mozambique, much of the salt that was being sold on the market didn’t contain iodine, and the government did eventually pass a law saying that salt sold to consumers should contain iodine. But what they did not consider where the cost implications for these small artisans, mostly men but also women, who would rake in the salt from the ocean and let the water evaporate and then provide the salt. So that was one error. Adding iodine, which had to be purchased and then mixed in, was prohibitive for many of these small salt manufacturers. By the same token, there had been no public awareness activities, and oftentimes the government may say well, let’s just do a very quick campaign and tell everybody that iodine is important and to make sure that they spend the extra few pennies on iodized salt. But they didn’t understand that people didn’t have the money to buy iodized salt, which, of course, then had a higher cost to it because the farmer, the salt farmers themselves have to pay for the iodine. And they also didn’t undertake a long term campaign that would have involved children in the schools as well as parents, as well as health workers. And so to change that one little behaviour by doing something that was well intentioned but not thinking through all of the implications of introducing a law which could be punished if not followed, the government really missed an opportunity to ensure that children and other household family members were actually buying and consuming iodized salt. The other example I’m thinking of was in Afghanistan, where a project was funded to increase the number of girls who would be enrolled in primary school. That being quite a challenge, which remains to this day, getting good girls enrolled in school, and there again, the project was funded for three years, at the end of which the results were headed in the right direction, with the number of girls increasing slowly but steadily, or maybe saying steadily, but very slowly. And so the donor ended the program, saying, well we can’t afford to continue this, not realizing that a change like that which involves talking with people to change their attitudes, not only just the awareness, you can talk till you’re blue in the face about the importance of education for girls. But unless people really feel that change in their hearts and understand the benefits that may and should result from having daughters receiving education, then it’s not going to happen. And change like that can take anywhere from five years up to a whole generation. There are many other examples of that type, including immunization, including breastfeeding, protection issues, the use of corporal punishment and so forth.
Safa: This tension between, you know, perhaps short term planning or short term funding, and the long term need for positive social change to really take root. That tension is something that keeps coming up in the conversations we have here, in your experience, you know, what is the — besides you know, longer term vision and longer term funding and planning, what else is needed, what changes needed to happen to, you know, really have longer term investment or vision in these type of programs and projects?
Paula: Well from me, participation of the what we would call in a kind of technical terms the affected populations, is key and that’s kind of a dry term but it has its use, I guess, when looking at designing a program with a specific target, there are many different groups of people whom you might target, as can be said, with communication messages. But each message has to be tailored for a specific group. You don’t talk to children the same way you speak with adults and you don’t speak with parents necessarily with the exact same message that you would business people or education or health officials. And even there the messages may differ from the Representative of UNICEF speaking with the Prime Minister or the Minister of Health. So it’s important to break the groups with whom you want to communicate into separate entities and then design messages and the channels of communication for each of those groups. These days, you might reach plenty of millennials with social media, FaceTime or Instagram or Twitter, whereas people in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s might still be better reached with television or radio or a one on one meeting. So all of those should be designed, though not just to convey information, but to invite those people into a dialogue so that they can ask questions and receive answers about why iodine might be good or why exclusive breastfeeding for six months might be the best rather than the use of milk substitutes. So for me, participation is key, and that takes time and it takes money. Knocking on doors and paying people to knock on those doors and educate them and have pamphlets for them to leave behind isn’t an inexpensive or very short process.
Safa: So participation as something to center and really make sure is part of the approach that is being taken. I also wanted to ask you about, you know, you worked in Rwanda in 1994 and Sudan in 2004, both at times where a genocide was ongoing. Could you tell us about, you know, the role that you think UNICEF at that time or just generally maybe international development organizations could play or didn’t play or should play, you know, in the context of such a terrible, violent environment or circumstance?
Paula: Those are such extreme situations. But even so, I believe that both thinking and practice have evolved, have evolved well. We always say ‘never again’ but somehow or another, cruelties managed to continue — war, conflict, genocide, etc. And in 1994 with the Rwandan genocide, the thinking hadn’t yet evolved from sheer basic survival into housing and protection issues. So in 1994 I think the thinking was very much just aimed at providing health and food, health services and food to the affected groups of people. On the one hand, the Tutsi in Rwanda, who were being killed by the other ethnic group, the Hutus. But then later, as the as the balance begin and to turn, and so many of the Hutu population fled into what was then called Zaire, also providing lifesaving interventions to them so that would have consisted of of clothing, shelter, food and health services as well as water and sanitation. Already, by 2004 when the genocide in Darfur in Sudan took place, there had been an evolution of humanitarian thinking to collaborate more amongst the international agencies who were on the ground and to divide the different sectors with either a non governmental organization or UN agency taking the lead in that particular situation and coordinating with all the other players in that sector. So they were divided into six or seven different groups. Health, education, shelter, protection, I’m not remembering all of them and the cluster approach it was called originally but I think there’s -
Safa: Someone had mentioned task forces.
Paula: Well, they were task forces, yes, but aimed at — it might even still be called the cluster approach, where you have the different sectors under the umbrella of a lead agency or organization. And I think that has helped in responding to these extreme situations of genocide or conflict. It may be being applied in Yemen, for example, and in Myanmar or Bangladesh with all the refugees in from Myanmar, and I like that approach with then an overall coordination that brings the different sectors together to discuss the on the ground situation. So in terms of responding to these emergencies, I see an evolution and in a very positive direction. The fact that these situations continue to arise, and some of them now with, you know, years of, years of continued conflict or persecution by governments or armed groups, that’s a whole different story. And I think we need to go back to our moral upbringings and then the code of , codes of ethics that should be applied by governments as as well as the international organizations.
Safa: Did you ever feel that your identity as a woman or as American or any other part of your identity — did it help the work that you were doing or hinder the work that you were doing or in general how did you experience the way that it impacted your work?
Paula: That’s a good question. And I’ve thought about it a lot because I’m keenly aware today where I’m living now that I’m in a as multi ethnic environment as I was when I worked in international development in other countries. And while there are similarities, there are of course many differences, and I think that when I was working with UNICEF I never found either my gender or my nationality to be a negative when I would go out. And possibly some of that is because I hope that I never preached at people but listened respectfully and tried to create environments in which everyone present had an equal voice in the proceedings. I’ve observed colleagues who did not seem to share that sense of community with the people with whom we were working, but rather said, you know, you really must do this. You really should do that. And occasionally have been appalled that that kind of top down or directive thinking still exists. And that’s where I think UNICEF and other organizations could do a better job in providing training for staff members who are going to be working with other communities and then monitor their performance and take corrective actions if necessary, doing role plays with people and helping them see that by virtue of coming into the country with UNICEF, we are in a uniquely privileged position that should not be exploited and used in a way that is perceived as aggressive or top down which I think is counterproductive. But sorry, getting back to your question, I don’t think I ever felt discriminated against as a woman or is an American in the communities or the settings that I worked in, unlike sometimes in UNICEF, which could be a fairly top down and male driven organization. So those are two different experiences, I guess.
Safa: Right, I see. In your work have you ever faced challenges in ensuring you know, transparency or accountability, have you ever experienced any, I don’t know, mismanagement or issues where the accountability mechanisms in place or overall process of how things were managed or implemented was questionable?
Paula: I think I’ve been very lucky. Most of the situations, countries where I worked and the people with whom I worked were very ethically motivated and abided by the code of ethics. And I was aware of scandals in other places but didn’t experience it with a couple of exceptions. And one was in Mozambique, where I spent four years where, through the rumour mill, we heard that shipments of bicycles that were coming into the country for provision to health workers so that they could bicycle to communities in order to vaccinate children, were being lifted from out of every shipment of, say, 100 bicycles, maybe a couple would be taken and then then sold on the open market with the money going to the people who were doing it. But once that rumour mill started in UNICEF very swiftly, it reached the Representative of UNICEF who took swift action and that ended fairly quickly. I’m sure that I mean, I’m so aware that governments are not transparent, that funds can be misused. I think for the most part, though, people do try to use funds for the intention that they’re being provided. And I feel lucky that I’ve managed to see the best use of financial and human resources, although even as I say that I know that millions have been invested in countries and the majority of the people are still without running water, are still living without electricity and that makes me sad into 2019 to see that.
Safa: Yes, I see. I mean, it’s a very complicated issue.
Paula: Every situation is specific. Absolutely. And it is sometimes difficult to generalize out. But I would say that generally the international development world is trying to make better use of funds and to try to be held or try to hold more accountable the people responsible, both in the donor agencies but also on the government side to account for the use of those. So I think generally speaking, I would say the world continues to evolve in a positive direction, despite the existence of many specific examples that can be cited for lack of transparency and lack of accountability.
Safa: You also served as the Chief of the Land Mines and Small Arms group. Could you perhaps tell us a bit about that experience? And you know, the challenges that come with addressing, you know, weapons and the effects of them?
Paula: That was a unique experience, and I’m very grateful that I had it. It shifted my focus from communication solely for what what might be considered kind of, the more I was going to say easier issues, but none of them are really easy but into the disarmament world, which is its own internexing, complicated set of issues where I learned about terms like interoperability of weapons of mass destruction, for example, and you become enmeshed in a military driven world where impact on children is not a consideration as much as the safety of a military force. And that, to me was a real eye opener because I’d been so focused on mine risk education, for example, trying to ensure that children, as well as adults, but mainly children, didn’t pick up strange objects and have them explode, taking off a leg and an arm or leaving a child blinded, which was the connection with my behaviour change communication work, into the world where talk about the manufacture, the distribution, the stockpiling of weapons like cluster munitions or anti personnel mines or anti vehicle mines was, was such a shift in my thinking about these kinds of weapons and to see that even in militaries, which have different goals, that there are very good people who were willing to listen to the argument to include the impact of anti personnel mines, for example, on the civilian population and specifically on children. So I felt like I was just starting to understand that world of landmines and small arms and light weapons, which included both guns that but missiles as well, when I was invited to apply for a job back in the social on behaviour change communication arena and I went for that. There is a part of me that wishes I had stayed on in that world because shortly after I left that position an International Convention on Cluster Munitions, which I’d been involved in the process of developing was in fact past. So it was an interesting couple of years, UNICEF’s role in that was very much focused on education of communities about strange objects in the wake of conflict, passing through communities and on assistance to survivors of those weapons.
Safa: In the past, we’ve spoken with guests about, you know, the interface of the military with humanitarian aid, but the the world or the aspect of, you know, policymaking and responses around land mines, it is its own special thing to explore and different altogether. So many questions about ethics and neutrality and the lines that should be crossed or not crossed.
Paula: It is in fact, because before those two years that I spent in the disarmament world, I had very clear thoughts about the role of the military and in immunizing children, for example, and felt that that was not appropriate, that the military shouldn’t on the one hand be killing and on the other hand, immunizing the very populations whom the night before they were out to to kill or maim and I still feel very strongly about that. I guess what I was trying to say is that I feel a bit more sympathy for military officials who do struggle with the impact of these terrible weapons, which now, unfortunately, are being delivered by drone, so it has become even less personal, but there are good people in the military who are willing to consider the impact of weapons like land mines and cluster munitions, which are just totally devastating when they explode. So it’s not as black and white as once, I thought it was.
Safa: It’s more complicated and layered. So eventually you retired from UNICEF and you continue to work as a consultant, and you’re also now the Director of Rain Barrel Communications. Could you tell us about that transition and, you know, maybe your motivation in your work — has it changed its focus a bit or could you just tell us a bit about that?
Paula: Sure. Well, I was fortunate after retirement to be invited as a consultant to work with Rain Barrel Communications, which has as its motto or the tagline is ‘communicating for positive social change.’ It was founded in 2008 by two gentlemen who had worked for the United Nations, and it was only after working with them as a project manager for a few years that I was invited to become a Director. So I’m one of three directors, and we continue to work both with UNICEF and other UN agencies, also an occasional private sector client ,to design strategies for effecting positive change in one issue or another. And we have a lovely roster of many dozens of individuals from around the world. But our focus has been largely outside the United States, where Rain Barrel Communications is based, we are based out of New York, and we’re hoping to work more in the United States because we all see that there are as many issues, especially these days, to work on to improve situations for people in this country as well. And I, in addition then to continuing to work with Rain Barrel, have also become involved locally and I’m finally practicing what I preached for many years, which is to think globally but act locally. And I’m seeing now the importance of citizen participation at the local and state levels in issues that are just the same as they were in international. Getting children immunized, getting kids into school and improving the educational system, ensuring that everybody has electricity, which not everybody does in my part of the the country. And it’s been fascinating to work with other volunteers at the local level on issues. The big one these days being immigration to the United States. And it’s very difficult for me sometimes to separate my international experience from the local experience because I keep wanting to pull in international examples and apply them, try to apply them locally and then realizing well, hey, what worked in saying East Timor or Sudan isn’t necessarily applicable in Taos, New Mexico, although I would say that the same principles apply. Bringing people in and ensuring that their voices are heard and so forth.
Safa: When we had spoken earlier, you know, we had talked about how some agencies have policies where, you know, they don’t encourage their staff members, to be activists or being engaged in issues. How did you experience, you know, navigating that policy yourself or what do you think, because, you know, UNICEF, other agencies, they’re social impact oriented agencies, they’re committed to causes, they’re mission based, but at the same time, there’s this tension between not being able to be both a staff member and a local activist, for example?
Paula: Mhm. Well, that was sometimes excruciatingly difficult for me. I tend to be activist by nature, but it was made very clear that as a staff member of UNICEF, I could neither become involved in national politics in the countries where I was serving nor support political campaigns in the United States. So I observed those rules almost entirely, not quite fully, I have to admit with some guilt, but also with some pride I guess, that I did become involved in the campaign for president of the United States in 2008 when Barack Obama was running. But for the most part, I I honoured the code of ethics that said not to become involved, either nationally or in your own domestic politics. So it was liberating when I retired from UNICEF at the end of 2012 to feel like I could sign petitions, knock on doors and become involved in domestic politics.There are reasons why staff members should try to remain independent of national politics. I was wondering, for example, having spent over two years in Khartoum in Sudan, what I would have felt if I were a staff member during these days of the activists who overthrew the government and try to keep the military from taking power. And I think it would have been very difficult for me not to be supportive of those actions. I actually, interestingly, since I retired, I went to Ukraine on a mission. I was a consultant on a polio related mission because the polio, wild polio virus was coming back to Ukraine with Jewish population that had emigrated to Israel, and they had picked up the wild polio virus, and were bringing it back into Ukraine. So there was the possibility of an outbreak of polio, and I happened to be there at the exact moment that the revolution was starting to take place. And was there the night that the first protesters were killed and it was interesting to see, I knew that I was going to be there only a short time. so there wasn’t the possibility that I become involved, but to see the agony of many of the national staff in the UNICEF and WHO offices , that wanting to support the protesters but being constrained by virtue of being staff members of UN agencies. I suspect that there was some surreptitious support going on, either providing financial support or helping with social media messaging getting out. But those are dilemmas that staff members face, and I think for the most part, staff understand that they should maintain neutrality. Perhaps not always successfully.
Safa: At the beginning, you mentioned the private sector and also, you know, in light of working on local issues. For example, yesterday I watched this documentary, I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, it’s called The Great Hack. Have you heard about it?
Paula: No, no.
Safa: Basically, it’s about a data analytics company called Cambridge Analytica.
Paula: Oh, yes, of course.
Safa: Yes. And you know, the documentary shows how they present themselves as a behaviour change company and of course, the whole scandal of them using big data sets, you know taken from Facebook and other sources, and then using it for serving clients who are politicians in ways in which, through behaviour change modification, they help these politicians win elections by generating fake news and, you know, influencing voters’ behaviour and voters’ understanding of different candidates through fake news. So in this context of behaviour change companies in the private sector, you know, using — you know, these are tools that can be used both for positive social impact or more questionable, maybe more unethical social impact. So, do you have any thoughts about you know this tension? Or perhaps this dilemma between using tools for social change in a positive way, or maybe in a way that undermines democratic values?
Paula: Oh, well, you’ve defined the dilemma exactly. I have very strong feelings about that. I think technology is often seen as an answer to many issues that require more than a technological fix. And that’s why I do have faith that ultimately dialogue and participation and slow process will have greater impact in the end. But technology, when used well, can help boost that. Which is one reason why digital media is so important in places where it’s difficult to get to for those face to face community dialogues. But it’s only as good as its users, isn’t it? And in the case of Cambridge Analytics, they used data in a way that influenced political process to the advantage of some and the detriment of others. And that’s a great risk that we face now with the giants like Google and Facebook and, of course, even Amazon is in the picture now, and the communication for development field has always borrowed from behavioural economics, which uses behaviour change techniques to get consumers to buy more of this or more of that. But apply it for social good. For example, nudging, which is a theory that says if you make a small change in an environment, it can yield big results. And the classic example that is often cited is getting school students to eat healthier food in the school line and take the healthier options rather than the the more high fat options. And by placing fruit and vegetables at the front of the food line, they’re going to be taken more frequently and consumed more frequently. But nudging, of course, can also be used, for negative effects and the example you cited with this video, which I’ve written down, and I’m going to watch, The Great Hack, it was very easy for this dig data analytics company to make little tweaks that then influenced people’s behaviour in a in a way that was unfair and yield negative results in the elections.
Safa: Mhm, yes, as you say, these things are only as good as the people who use them or the motivations behind them. When you think about the last 30 years, or just the international development sector in general or, you know, current day issues, is there anything that we haven’t mentioned that’s really important to you that you want to bring up or any any thoughts you have just more broadly, more generally?
Paula: I was going to make a distinction between personal failures where you think that you, well you know that you did something wrong that had either an intended consequence which your regret or an unintended one which you hadn’t foreseen would happen as a result of something you said or did. But on the international development side, there is a growing wealth of literature on lessons learned from projects, everything ranging from response to an Ebola outbreak to installation of water pumps or some other project. And I’m not sure that our top leaders in decision making positions read some of those reports and discuss with their colleagues how to prevent the same mistakes from happening in the future. And I think if I could change one or two things in international development, one would be to increase resources to communication rather than focusing on the provision of supplies, for example, or institutional strengthening. And the other would be to increase the number of top level folks who read and internalize these lessons, learned reports and evaluation reports and discuss with their colleagues, both within an agency but across agencies and NGOs and governments how to prevent those same mistakes from being made in future.
Safa: Mhm, those are such important points. Many people that we’ve spoken to have raised the concerns around, maybe lack of lack of institutional memory or, as you say, just lack of follow up or planning from these kind of reports so that mistakes that happened, they maybe after a few years, they continue to happen or this cycle or this pattern, cyclical pattern that continues in some some cases, some examples.
Paula: Well, unfortunately, far too often. And I think it’s because we forget very quickly. Our memories are kind of wired to need reminders. And as institutions and organizations with high turnover and with changing technologies and new ideas always being generated, we forget that we already did that and it didn’t work for the these reasons. So yes, unfortunately, we humans don’t take lessons very easily.
Safa: It is so important to know our history and have a better understanding of what has happened perhaps before our time.
Paula: That’s right, and yet you know we do progress. I guess it’s one of those cases of two steps forward, one step backwards. And so as long as we continue to gain progress as slow and it’s frustrating that maybe, maybe if we get through this current climate crisis, we will eventually reach a point where we’ve made excellent progress for everybody on this little planet of ours.
Safa: Absolutely. Thank you so much for speaking to us. There’s a lot to, you know, just think about, spend more time thinking of it and reflecting on it. So thank you for sharing your rich experiences and your reflections. It’s been great to hear from you.
Paula: Thank you Safa.
Safa: Thank you to our listeners. To keep up with our weekly podcast, please subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and Google podcast platforms, where you can also rate and review our episodes and share it with friends. If you have any listener questions that you would like me to ask our future guests, please feel free to email them to us. I look forward to continuing similar conversations with you all in the next weeks to come. Until then, take care.
