The Global Research Initiative for Rural Communication (GRI-RC) joins CCComdev global platform as a major partner. Comprised of the FAO ComDev team and six academia engaged in doing research, provision of technical assistance, and offering of formal courses in ComDev, GRI-RC will now be sharing in this platform their work and experiences on rural communication in the various continents and countries they cover.
The GRI-RC academia members are as follows: University of Queensland, University of Reading, Wageningen University, Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences, University of Guelph, and University of the Philippines Los Baños. It was organized on October 2014 as one of the working groups and as part of the agenda for action of the Forum on Communication for Development and Community Media for Family Farming (FCCM). The group has since been collaborating with one another in advancing rural communication services worldwide.
Among its concluded works are the publication of the book “Inclusive Rural Communication Services: Building Evidence, Informing Policy”; the formation of a working group on Rural Communication in the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR); and the placement by FAO of young ComDev specialists as interns in developing countries.